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- Iran-linked groups focus of Baghdad kidnapping probe: U.S. sources

- Russia's Putin probably approved London murder of ex-KGB agent Litvinenko: UK inquiry

- North Korea says detains U.S. student for 'hostile act'

- Asia stocks end week rallying off four-year lows, helped by ECB, oil bounce

- Exclusive: California gas leak spotlights shoddy regulation of aging storage wells

- China shares struggle higher on global stimulus hopes

- Powerful snowstorm threatens U.S. East Coast; flights canceled

- China's vice president says no plan to devalue yuan-Bloomberg

- Michigan governor will be called to congressional hearing on Flint water crisis

- Israel says will seize West Bank land; demolishes EU structures

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Iran-linked groups focus of Baghdad kidnapping probe: U.S. sources | Reuters

WASHINGTON U.S. intelligence agencies investigating the kidnapping of three Americans in Baghdad, Iraq last week are focusing their probe on three militant Islamic groups closely affiliated with Iran, U.S. government sources said on Thursday.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kata'ib Hezbollah and the Badr Organization are the principle focus of the investigation into the armed kidnapping of the three Americans in the Dora neighborhood, south of Baghdad, the sources said.

The three men are employed by a still-unidentified small company doing work for General Dynamics under a larger contract with the U.S. Army.

The U.S. government still does not know if any of the three groups kidnapped the three men. While the three groups have close ties to Iran, sources said the United States does not believe Iran was involved in the kidnapping, or that the three are being held in Iran.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kata'ib Hezbollah and the Badr Organization are Shi'ite militia groups that are part of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Front, a group closely tied to Iran, according to the Counter Terrorism Project, a New York-based advocacy group.

The Iraqi government has struggled to rein in the Shi'ite militias, many of which fought the U.S. military following the 2003 invasion. Shi'ite militias have previously been accused of killing and abducting American nationals.

Hostility between Tehran and Washington has eased in recent months with the lifting of crippling economic sanctions against Iran in return for compliance with a deal to curb its nuclear ambitions and a recent prisoner swap.

However, the United States imposed sanctions on 11 companies and individuals on Sunday for supplying Iran's ballistic missile program.

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball; writing by David Greising; Editing by Andrew Hay)

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Russia's Putin probably approved London murder of ex-KGB agent Litvinenko: UK inquiry | Reuters

LONDON President Vladimir Putin probably approved a 2006 Russian intelligence operation to murder ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210 in London, a British inquiry concluded on Thursday, prompting a row with Moscow.

Russia, which had declined to cooperate in the inquiry, cautioned pointedly that it could "poison" relations. Britain accused the Kremlin of uncivilized behavior but did not immediately signal it would take any stronger action.

Litvinenko, 43, an outspoken critic of Putin who fled Russia for Britain six years to the day before he was poisoned, died after drinking green tea laced with the rare and very potent radioactive isotope at London's Millennium Hotel.

An inquiry led by senior British judge Robert Owen found that former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy and another Russian, Dmitry Kovtun, carried out the killing as part of an operation probably directed by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the main heir to the Soviet-era KGB.

"The FSB operation to kill Mr Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev, then head of the FSB, and also by President Putin," Owen said.

"I have concluded that there is a strong probability that when Mr Lugovoy poisoned Mr Litvinenko, he did so under the direction of the FSB. I have further concluded that Mr Kovtun was also acting under FSB direction," he said.

Litvinenko's death marked a post-Cold War low point in Anglo-Russian ties, marred further by Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But Britain's measured early response to the report appeared to acknowledge a need for Russia to exert its influence over Assad in negotiations to end the Syrian civil war.

Prime Minister David Cameron said he would not rule out further action, but added:

"Do we at some level have to go on having some sort of relationship with them because we need a solution to the Syria crisis? Yes we do. But we do it with clear eyes and a very cold heart."

Interior minister Theresa May, appearing before parliament, spoke of "a blatant and unacceptable breach of the most fundamental tenets of international law and of civilized behavior", while the opposition Labour Party described an "unparalleled act of state-sponsored terrorism".

POLONIUM TEA

The image of Litvinenko lying on his bed at London's University College Hospital, cadaverous and having lost his hair, was emblazoned across British and other Western newspapers and later shown to the inquiry. He took over three weeks to die.

From his deathbed, Litvinenko told detectives he believed Putin - a former KGB spy who went on to head the FSB before winning the presidency - had directly ordered his killing.

The Kremlin has always denied any involvement but the claim that Putin directly ordered a killing of an opponent with a radioactive isotope in a major Western capital provoked immediate censure from Moscow.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said what it called Britain's biased and opaque handling of the case had clouded relations.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such inquiries risked poisoning relations and pointed out that the inquiry relied on unpublicised information from the intelligence services.

The judge said he was sure Lugovoy and Kovtun had placed the polonium 210 in a teapot at the Millennium Hotel's Pine Bar on Nov. 1, 2006 when they met Litvinenko for little more than 30 minutes. Litvinenko said he had only drunk three or four mouthfuls of the cold green tea made with lemon and honey.

High polonium contamination was found in the teapot and the hotel bar, and traces of the highly radioactive substance were left across London including offices, hotels, planes and Arsenal soccer club's Emirates Stadium.

Owen also concluded the two men had unsuccessfully tried to kill Litvinenko two weeks earlier at a meeting at a London security firm, and said it was "entirely possible" Lugovoy was planning to target him back in 2004.

The British government summoned Russia's ambassador Alexander Yakovenko, demanding the Kremlin provide answers and extradite the two main suspects.

RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE

Both Lugovoy and Kovtun, who declined to participate in the six-month British inquiry, have previously denied involvement and Russia has refused to extradite them. Lugovoy, now a Russian lawmaker, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying the accusation was absurd.

Owen cited several reasons why the Russian state would have wanted to kill Litvinenko, who was granted British citizenship a month before his death on Nov. 23, 2006.

The ex-spy was regarded as having betrayed the FSB by accusing it of carrying out 1999 apartment block bombings that killed more than 200 people in Russia and which the Kremlin, launching an offensive to restore control over the southern region of Chechnya, blamed on Chechens.

The FSB also had information Litvinenko had started working for Britain's foreign intelligence agency, MI6.

Litvinenko was close to leading Russian dissidents and opponents of Putin and his administration, whom he had accused of collusion with organized crime, and had made highly personal allegations about the Kremlin chief.

"There was undoubtedly a personal dimension to the antagonism between Mr Litvinenko on the one hand and President Putin on the other," Owen's report said.

Some of the inquiry was held in secret and evidence from the British government and spy agencies has not been publicly disclosed.

Litvinenko's widow, Marina, whose persistence led to the inquiry being held, called for Russian spies to be kicked out of Britain and for sanctions against Russia.

"I'm ... calling for the imposition of targeted economic sanctions and travel bans against named individuals, including Mr Patrushev and Mr Putin," she told reporters outside London's Royal Courts of Justice. Patrushev serves as secretary of Russia's Security Council.0

(Additional reporting by Costas Pitas and William Schomberg; Writing by Kate Holton and Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Ralph Boulton)

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North Korea says detains U.S. student for 'hostile act' | Reuters

SEOUL North Korea said on Friday it had detained a U.S. university student for committing a "hostile act" against the country who, if confirmed, would be the third western citizen known to be held currently in the isolated state.

The North's state-run KCNA news agency said the person entered North Korea as a tourist and was "was caught committing a hostile act against the state," which it said was "tolerated and manipulated by the U.S. government".

The Korean-language KCNA report said the detainee was a Virginia university student and had entered the country with an "aim to destroy the country's unity". It did not elaborate.

An official at the U.S. embassy in the South Korean capital Seoul said it was aware of the reported arrest.

A South Korean-born Canadian pastor was arrested in North Korea last year and given a life sentence for subversion. Earlier this month, a Korean-American man told CNN in Pyongyang that he was being held by the state for spying.

South Korea warned that the United States and its allies were working on further sanctions to inflict "bone-numbing pain" on the North after its latest nuclear test this month, in contravention of U.N. Security Council resolutions, and urged China to do its part to rein in its isolated neighbor.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park and James Pearson; Editing by Tony Munroe)

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Asia stocks end week rallying off four-year lows, helped by ECB, oil bounce | Reuters

TOKYO/SINGAPORE Asian stocks bounced at the end of a tumultuous week, recovering from four-year lows thanks to hints of more monetary policy support by the European Central Bank and a rally in crude oil from 12-year lows.

European markets could follow, with financial spreadbetters expecting Britain's FTSE 100 .FTSE to open up about 0.4 percent, Germany's DAX .GDAXI to start the day as much as 0.9 percent higher, and France's CAC 40 .FCHI to be up as much as 0.8 percent.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 2.6 percent, the most since Sept. 9, after probing a four-year low on Thursday.

That puts the index on track for a 0.2 percent gain for a week in which oil prices plunged and China-led global growth concerns pummelled risk assets globally.

Japan's Nikkei .N225 surged 5.9 percent at the close, the most in more than four months, moving away from a 15-month low struck Thursday. It was boosted by speculation that the Bank of Japan would opt for additional stimulus at its Jan. 28-29 policy meeting. The rally shrank losses for the week to 1.1 percent.

"We're seeing a really nice bounce today as lots of people close their short positions but that doesn't necessarily mean we've seen the bottom," said Nicholas Smith, a strategist at CLSA.

"It's tough to know when a panic is going to subside but it does look like we're starting to get there."

Australian shares closed up 1.1 percent, gaining 0.5 percent for the week. South Korea's KOSPI .KS11 climbed 2.1 percent, ending the week little changed. Volatile Shanghai shares .SSEC added 1.6 percent, on track for a weekly gain of 1 percent.

The ECB managed to contain some of the pessimism for the time being after ECB President Mario Draghi hinted strongly on Thursday that more easing could be coming within months. Fading growth and inflation prospects will force the central bank to review its policy stance in March, Draghi said.

"With little new information on China, the rebound in sentiment looks to be more closely tied to actions among major central banks," wrote Todd Elmer, Citi's Asian head of G10 FX strategy.

"However, the apparent improvement in sentiment poses risks. If central banks fail to deliver it could drive a negative turn in market thinking," he added.

The euro slipped 0.4 percent to $1.0832 EUR=. The common currency fell to an eight-month low of $1.0523 in December but has appreciated significantly because the ECB's easing decision that month fell far short of expectations.

The dollar was up 0.3 percent at 118.03 yen JPY=, pulling away from a one-year trough of 115.97 struck earlier this week against the safe-haven Japanese currency.

The Chinese yuan remained relatively steady against the dollar as efforts by local authorities to quell speculation of a sharp depreciation appeared to work for now.

Onshore spot yuan CNY=CFXS stood little changed at 6.5794 to the dollar, corralled in a narrow 6.5837-6.5768 band so far this week.

After guiding the yuan sharply lower and pushing onshore spot rates to a five-year low earlier this month, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) has helped the currency steady by setting a succession of midpoints within a tight range.

Authorities have also introduced steps to discourage speculators from shorting the yuan.

U.S. crude oil CLc1 extended an overnight rally made after data showed stockpiles at some U.S. sites did not grow as much as forecast, providing participants in the battered market with an incentive to cover short positions. [O/R]

The contracts were up 1.2 percent at $30.71 a barrel. U.S. crude fell to its lowest levels since 2003 earlier this week as the prospect of Iranian oil - following the lifting of international sanctions on Tehran - flooding a heavily saturated market dragged down prices.

Other commodities also benefited as a sense of calm prevailed. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange CMCU3 was rose 0.4 percent to 4,450 a tonne, poised for a 2.7 percent weekly rise. [MET/L]

(Additional reporting by Joshua Hunt in Tokyo; Editing by Shri Navaratnam & Simon Cameron-Moore)

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Exclusive: California gas leak spotlights shoddy regulation of aging storage wells | Reuters

Long before a natural gas storage well sprung a disastrous leak near Los Angeles, California, utilities and national industry groups were raising alarms about the danger of aging underground storage infrastructure.

The leaking well’s owner, Southern California Gas Co, warned state utility regulators in 2014 of “major failures” without a rate hike to pay for comprehensive inspections of 229 storage wells.

Twenty-six of its wells were “high risk” and should be abandoned - even though they complied with state regulations, the utility wrote in a rate filing.

The previous year, Pacific Gas & Electric pointed to an absence of safety standards for storage wells as reason to launch its own monitoring program that went beyond state rules, according to an internal document obtained by Reuters.

The industry’s rising concern underscores the scant oversight of 400 underground natural gas storage facilities in 30 U.S. states. Most storage fields are regulated by states, but national industry groups have pushed for federal oversight - unusual in an industry better known for fighting regulation.

Jurisdiction over facilities storing gas to be transported across state lines falls to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. But the agency has never written rules for gas storage despite two decades of sporadic calls for regulation - and at least two deadly explosions.

Agency spokeswoman Artealia Gilliard declined comment on the agency’s hands-off posture.

Under state oil and gas regulations, Southern California Gas faces a maximum penalty of $25,000 for the leak near Los Angeles, which is unprecedented in scale. The well has spewed methane - a potent greenhouse gas - since October and displaced thousands of people in nearby Porter Ranch.

A bill introduced Tuesday by State Senator Fran Pavley calls for penalties of up to $25,000 per day for active leaks. It would also require the installation of automatic shutoff systems on all wells and continuous monitoring of wells within 10,000 feet of homes and schools.

Utilities and regulators have been “gambling” with wells that in many cases were drilled in the 1950s, Pavley said. She described their standard practice as, “Don’t fix it until it leaks or cracks or breaks.”

METHANE CLOUD

Southern California Gas, a division Sempra Energy (SRE.N), said it has inspected wells more rigorously since 2014, even though state utility officials have not approved a rate hike to cover the cost, said company spokeswoman Kristine Lloyd. The inspections, she said, “exceed traditional industry practices and regulatory requirements.”

Lloyd said she did not know if the leaking well in Aliso Canyon was among the 26 wells the company said should be abandoned because they are too old or “mechanically unsound,” as the rate filing described them.

A month before the well failed, the nation’s leading oil and gas lobbying group, the American Petroleum Institute, published 60 pages of guidelines for monitoring and maintenance of storage wells. Other industry groups have supported having the API standards adopted as federal regulation.

It’s telling that the industry is inviting more oversight, said Tim O'Connor, director of California oil and gas programs for the Environmental Defense Fund.

“Up and down, the general consensus is that the regulations that exist in California are wholly insufficient.”

The fracking boom has intensified pressure on the nation’s aging system of underground storage. About 20 percent of gas used in the U.S. during winter now comes from storage fields, according to the American Gas Association.

Many of the facilities are depleted oil or gas reservoirs that have been converted to store natural gas, which is then pulled from the ground by wells.

The Aliso Canyon leak increased the state’s methane emissions by 25 percent in its first month, estimated the California Air Resources Board. Methane is 72 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the 20 years after it is emitted, according to CARB.

Initial efforts to plug the well with mud and brine failed. The utility is now drilling two relief wells more than 8,500 feet below the surface and planning to pump in water and cement. The utility said on Monday that it expects to stop the leak by late February.

WARNING SIGNS

In its 2014 rate filing, the utility sought $180 million in rate increases over six years to evaluate its storage wells. The California Public Utility Commission has made no decision in the rate case.

The CPUC also has not decided on a request from PG&E for more than $1 billion in rate increases to finance maintenance of its gas pipeline and storage infrastructure.

The commission did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.

PG&E, in a 2013 internal document, expressed little faith in state monitoring of gas storage wells, noting “an absence of industry standards.”

The company said it was working to fill this “gap” by helping API develop its guidelines. The industry group’s recommendations go into minute detail on matters including how storage facility data should be collected, how staff should be trained and how emergencies should be handled.

PG&E is working to incorporate those practices into its operations, spokesman Greg Snapper said.

Concerns about the nation’s natural gas infrastructure have intensified since 2010, when a PG&E pipeline exploded, leveling an entire neighborhood in San Bruno, California and killing eight people.

The National Transportation Safety Board later blamed PG&E for lax pipeline safety and faulted both the California PUC and the federal pipeline regulator for weak oversight.

SELF-REGULATION

California's oil and gas regulator - the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources - acknowledged problems with oversight but pointed to an effort launched before the leak to update regulations.

The industry also has an incentive to police itself, said agency spokesman Don Drysdale.

"Regardless of the regulations, it's in an operator's interest not to have leaks, because that means they're losing their product," he said.

Earlier this month, Governor Jerry Brown ordered the agency to issue emergency safety regulations for underground gas storage. Last week, it proposed requiring facilities to submit plans for inspections and leak detection and to test all safety valve systems every six months.

The lack of federal oversight has been debated sporadically for more than two decades.

Federal regulators declined to assume authority over gas storage facilities after three people were killed in a 1992 explosion at an underground cavern operated by Seminole Pipeline Co near Brenham, Texas.

That decision was criticized after a 2001 gas leak in underground salt caverns in Kansas caused explosions that killed two people.

The facility fell under federal jurisdiction, but federal and state regulators hit legal snags when they explored how to penalize the facility's operator, El Paso Corp, which sent its gas across state lines.

Kansas was forbidden from regulating interstate commerce - and the federal agency had not written rules it could enforce.

A decade later, in 2011, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration asked industry groups whether they supported federal regulation of storage facilities in such cases. The industry supported oversight, but the agency has still not crafted regulations.

Last year, U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, a Republican from Kansas, introduced a bill targeting "a dangerous lapse in the oversight” and proposing that states take over regulating all stored gas, even when it is slated for interstate transport.

A separate safety bill including the same provision passed a key Senate committee in December. It also directs the federal government to craft national safety standards for underground gas storage within two years.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Terry Wade and Brian Thevenot)

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China shares struggle higher on global stimulus hopes | Reuters

SHANGHAI China's fragile shares rose modestly on Friday, showing only a muted response to hints of more policy stimulus in Europe and Japan, which prompted a rally in battered oil prices and global equities.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC was up 0.6 percent in the early afternoon, recovering a little of Thursday's sharp losses.

The CSI300 index .CSI300 of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen was also up 0.6 percent.

The indexes veered between positive and negative territory in the morning, with little volume behind the trading.

Investors appear increasingly reluctant to risk their money on China's fickle markets, which have slumped about 17-18 percent so far this year, and morning gains have often turned to losses by close of day as traders quickly take profits.

Highlighting the lack of faith in the markets, trading volumes in January have been about a third of typical levels last year, which only exaggerates price movements.

On Thursday, Vice President Li Yuanchao sought to reassure investors that Beijing would use regulations to prevent volatility in a market that was "not yet mature".

"An excessively fluctuating market is a market of speculation where only the few will gain the most benefit when most people suffer," Li, who is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, said in an interview with Bloomberg.

Measured by actions rather than words, regulators' attempts to curb volatility, notably a new circuit breaker mechanism that was ditched after three days of violent falls, have conspicuously failed.

The stock markets and China's yuan currency have come under pressure as a raft of economic indicators have confirmed the country's declining growth, putting the world's second-largest economy at the top of global investors' worry list along with plunging crude oil prices.

The Labour Ministry provided a rare nugget of good news on Friday, announcing that urban unemployment was unchanged at 4.05 percent, comfortably below the government's target rate, and the job market would remain stable in 2016. But most economists believe China's real jobless rate is far higher.

Concerns about another near-term yuan devaluation are slowly fading as the People's Bank of China (PBOC) has steered a steady course for the currency daily midpoint fix CNY=SAEC in recent weeks. But currency markets remain puzzled over the formula the central bank is using to determine its value and say spot yuan will remain under pressure as the economy continues to cool. Friday's fix was again barely changed at 6.5572 per dollar.

The spot yuan CNY=CFXS clung tightly to its previous close, while offshore it weakened slightly to 6.6023, 0.35 percent adrift from the onshore rate.

European and U.S. markets took heart after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi dropped a heavy hint that more stimulus could come as early as March.

His comments sliced 1 percent from the euro as markets quickly priced in a rate cut for March, three months ahead of previous forecasts.

GENEROUS LIQUIDITY

Speculation is also rife that the Bank of Japan might ease policy further, possibly as early as next week.

The central bank is "taking a serious look" at expanding its asset-buying campaign as sliding oil prices make it ever harder to reach its 2 percent inflation goal, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Friday.

All of which was grist to the mill for those expecting more action from the People's Bank of China (PBOC).

The central bank has already been generous with liquidity, pumping a net 315 billion yuan ($48 billion) into the banking system ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in early February.

It was the biggest weekly injection since January 2014 and analysts suspected it was larger than that warranted to avoid any hint of a cash crunch during the long holiday.

There was also more reassurance from officialdom in Davos.

Fang Xinghai, the vice chair of the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission, sought to counter concerns China was seeking to devalue the yuan to gain a competitive advantage for its exports.

"A depreciation is not in the interests of China's rebalancing; a too deep currency fall would not be good for consumption," Xinghai said.

Speculators have taken to using the yuan's cheaper offshore forwards market to wager China will finally devalue the currency around March or April.

Economists at ING, however, said they were expecting policy measures to keep the yuan's fall in check, forecasting a mid-year rate of 6.72 to the dollar and a pick-up to 6.60 by year-end.

"Earlier this month Li Daokui, an economist at Tsinghua University and former member of the PBOC MPC, said foreign reserves needed to be kept above $3 trillion. We expect tighter exchange controls and macroprudential measures to enable the authorities to do that and curb depreciation pressure while cutting interest rates," ING said in a research note.

China has jolted global markets twice in the last six months by allowing sudden, sharp slides in the yuan and then intervening aggressively to stabilize it, sparking confusion over its policy.

Central bank action to temper the depreciation has brought China's foreign reserves down to about $3.3 trillion from nearly $4 trillion in the middle of 2014.

(Reporting by Nathaniel Taplin, Samuel Shen and Shanghai and Beijing newsrooms; Writing by Wayne Cole and Will Waterman; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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Powerful snowstorm threatens U.S. East Coast; flights canceled | Reuters

WASHINGTON Washington D.C., New York and other East Coast cities readied fleets of snow plows, thousands of flights were canceled or delayed and residents stocked up on groceries ahead of a winter storm expected to dump up to 30 inches (76 cm) of snow on the region.

At least five states had declared emergencies by Thursday afternoon, as the season's first major Atlantic Coast storm started to move over the Mid-South before barreling on an expected north and eastward course bringing up to two feet of snow to some areas.

Blizzard warnings were out in the nation's capital and Baltimore, with extreme conditions expected to begin on Friday afternoon, while New York City was under a blizzard watch for Saturday morning.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which includes the second-busiest U.S. subway system, said it would suspend operations from late on Friday through Sunday.

The Virginia National Guard said it planned to bring in up to 300 troops to assist in response operations.

Federal employees in the Washington area were told their offices would close at noon to let them go home early.

Grocery store shelves were being stripped of bread, milk and other essentials as millions of residents in the storm's path prepared to hunker down for a wintry weekend. Consumer watchdogs warned against illegal price gouging for such essentials as generators, batteries, flashlights and hotel lodging.

Airlines began cancelling Friday and Saturday flights, with many of the more than 2,400 cancellations for Friday at Washington and North Carolina airports, according to FlightAware.com.

American Airlines Group Inc (AAL.O) scrapped all Friday flights into North Carolina's Charlotte Douglas International Airport, and Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL.N) canceled about 120 flights in the Southeast region. American scrapped most Saturday flights into Washington, New York and Philadelphia, and Delta was poised to cancel many of the same.

The National Weather Service said blizzard conditions could be life-threatening across much of the mid-Atlantic on Friday night and early Saturday.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio urged motorists to stay off roads, starting on Friday.

"Anyone who has the illusion you’re going to be taking big trips over the weekend, get that out of your mind," de Blasio said at a news conference.

Bowser said the U.S. capital's public schools would be shut on Friday.

Asked on Thursday how she thought Washington would cope with the blizzard, Patricia DeWolf, a 63-year-old retiree, said, “If last night was an indication, not very well.” She spoke outside a Safeway grocery store, where she had been loading up on supplies.

The National Weather Service put Washington and Baltimore under blizzard warnings from 3 p.m. Eastern (2000 GMT) Friday through Sunday morning.

It forecast up to 2 feet (61 cm) of snow in the capital, and as much as 30 inches (75 cm) in western suburbs, with winds gusting to 50 miles per hour (80 kilometers per hour).

In North Carolina, two women died late on Wednesday in car accidents on slippery roadways, the governor’s office said.

The storm was expected to deliver a slightly weaker wallop to the New York and Long Island areas with blizzard conditions from Saturday morning through Sunday.

New York canceled its Winter Jam in Central Park, set for Saturday, even after the snow-starved city had spent days making artificial snow for the winter sports festival.

Governors in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Pennsylvania joined Bowser in declaring states of emergency, and the governor of West Virginia declared a state of preparedness.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago, Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Tim Ahmann in Washington; Editing by Frank McGurty and Diane Craft)

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Yuan barely budges as central bank holds steady this week | Reuters

SHANGHAI China's yuan barely moved against the dollar on Friday and was set to end this week flattish, with dealers slightly reducing bearish positions against the yuan and the central bank keeping daily guidance rates in a tight range.

"Trading was relatively tepid this week as the spot rate barely moved," said a trader at a Chinese city bank in Shanghai. "Trading volume averaged around $15 billion this week."

Daily trading volume CNYSPTVOL=CFXT stayed above $20 billion last week and once touched $38 billion on Jan. 7.

The People's Bank of China set the midpoint rate CNY=SAEC at 6.5572 per dollar prior to market open, only 0.02 percent firmer than the previous fix at 6.5585.

The guidance rate was kept within a tight range of 25 pips over the past week.

The spot market CNY=CFXS opened at 6.5797 per dollar and was changing hands at 6.5800 at midday, almost unchanged from the previous close.

The yuan is set to post a mild weekly loss of 0.1 percent if it closes at the midday level.

Bearish positions on the Chinese currency eased slightly in the last two weeks, a Reuters poll showed, as markets were wary of central bank intervention after it ramped up efforts to stabilize a faltering currency.

ING issued a research note which stuck by its forecast that the yuan would weaken to 6.72 per dollar by mid-year, and recover to 6.60 by the year-end.

"We expect tighter exchange controls and macroprudential measures to enable the authorities to do that and curb depreciation pressure while cutting interest rates," ING wrote in the note.

ING also noted that earlier this month Li Daokui, an economist at Tsinghua University and former member of the PBOC MPC, said foreign reserves needed to be kept above $3 trillion.

China's foreign exchange reserves posted their biggest annual drop on record in 2015, falling to $3.33 trillion.

The fall was partly due to capital outflows sparked by weakness of the Chinese currency, and concern over the economy's slowdown.

"A hard landing is practically unavoidable," Billionaire investor George Soros said on Thursday from Davos. "I'm not expecting it, I'm observing it. China can manage it. It has resources and greater latitude in policies, with $3 trillion in reserves."

On Friday, the offshore yuan CNH=D3 was trading at 6.6110 per dollar, 0.47 percent softer than onshore. Traders said the spread between the onshore and offshore markets was "acceptable".

The onshore yuan strengthened 0.5 percent against the euro EURCNY=CFXS to 7.1368. It also firmed 0.8 percent against the Japanese yen JPYCNY=CFXS, hovering at 5.5855 to 100 yen.

(Reporting by the Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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Michigan governor will be called to congressional hearing on Flint water crisis | Reuters

CHICAGO Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and other officials will be called to testify next month to a congressional panel about the crisis over lead-contaminated water in the city of Flint, a congressional office said on Thursday.

U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence, a Democrat, requested the Feb. 3 hearing of the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week, said her communications director, Tracy Manzer. The invitation will be specifically for the governor and he cannot send a representative on his behalf, Manzer said.

Susan Hedman, administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency's Region 5 office in Chicago, and Dan Wyant, former director of Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality, are among the other invitees. Wyant resigned in December over the growing crisis in Flint.

Flint, a financially strapped city north of Detroit, switched water supplies in 2014 to save money. Complaints about the water began within a month of the change, but officials did not take steps to remedy the situation until October 2015 after tests showed elevated levels of lead in some tap water in the city and in some children.

"The purpose of the hearing is to identify precisely what went wrong in the process and to ensure that those who were responsible are to be held accountable and that this never happens again," Manzer said.

Snyder, a Republican, has rejected calls from critics for his resignation over the crisis. He asked the Michigan state legislature this week to approve $28 million to assist Flint and said there would be additional funding requests. The Michigan House approved the funding unanimously on Wednesday and the bill was in the Senate on Thursday.

The U.S. House committee can subpoena people to appear before it if they do not respond to invitations.

(Story corrects headline and paragraphs 1, 2 to show governor will be called to testify but has not been called yet. Representative Lawrence's spokeswoman corrected what she previously said.)

(Reporting by Fiona Ortiz in Chicago and Timothy Gardner in Washington; Editing by Frances Kerry)

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Israel says will seize West Bank land; demolishes EU structures | Reuters

JERUSALEM Israel confirmed on Thursday it was planning to appropriate a large tract of fertile land in the occupied West Bank, close to Jordan, a move likely to exacerbate tensions with Western allies and already drawing international condemnation.

In an email sent to Reuters, COGAT, a unit of Israel's Defence Ministry, said the political decision to seize the territory had been taken and "the lands are in the final stages of being declared state lands".

The appropriation, covers 154 hectares (380 acres) in the Jordan Valley close to Jericho, an area where Israel already has many settlement farms built on land Palestinians seek for a state. It is the largest land seizure since August 2014.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon denounced the move and Palestinian officials said they would push for a resolution at the United Nations against Israel's settlement policies.

"Settlement activities are a violation of international law and run counter to the public pronouncements of the government of Israel supporting a two-state solution to the conflict," Ban said in a statement.

The land, in an area fully under Israeli civilian and military control and already used by Jewish settlers to farm dates, is situated near the northern tip of the Dead Sea.

Palestinian officials denounced the seizure.

"Israel is stealing land specially in the Jordan Valley under the pretext it wants to annex it," Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Reuters. "This should be a reason for a real and effective intervention by the international community to end such a flagrant and grave aggression which kills all chances of peace."

The United States, whose ambassador angered Israel this week with criticism of its West Bank policy, said it was strongly opposed to any moves that accelerate settlement expansion.

"We believe they're fundamentally incompatible with a two-state solution and call into question, frankly, the Israeli government's commitment to a two-state solution," Deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Wednesday.

In a development likely to further upset Europe, Israeli forces demolished six structures in the West Bank funded by the EU's humanitarian arm. The structures were dwellings and latrines for Bedouins living in an area known as E1 - a particularly sensitive zone between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.

Israel has not built settlements in E1, with construction considered a "red line" by the United States and the EU. It could potentially split the West Bank, cutting Palestinians off from East Jerusalem, which they seek for their capital.

"This is the third time they demolished my house and every time I rebuilt it, this time also I will rebuild it and I am not leaving here. If we leave they will turn the place into a closed military zone," said Saleem Jahaleen, whose home was razed.

RISING TENSION

Israeli officals did not respond to requests for comment on the demolitions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week the EU was building illegally in the area.

"They're building without authorization, against the accepted rules, and there’s a clear attempt to create political realities," he told the foreign media.

Netanyahu was scheduled to address the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday. He met U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry there but it was not clear if the issue was raised.

The Palestinians want to establish an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

There are now about 550,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem combined, according to Israeli government and think-tank statistics. About 350,000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem and 2.7 million in West Bank.

Israel is hoping that in any final agreement with the Palestinians it will be able to keep large settlement blocs including in the Jordan Valley, both for security and agricultural purposes. The Palestinians are adamantly opposed.

The last round of peace talks broke down in April 2014 and Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged in recent months.

Since the start of October, Palestinian stabbings, car-rammings and shootings have killed 25 Israelis and a U.S. citizen. In the same period, at least 148 Palestinians have been killed, 94 of whom Israel has described as assailants.

Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said on Thursday he had revoked the residency rights of four Jerusalem Palestinians involved in two fatal attacks on Israelis, one in September and one in October, a spokeswoman said.

The measure, described as rare, was meant to deter others from carrying out attacks, Deri said in a statement.

(Reporting by Maayan Lubell, Luke Baker, Ali Sawafta; Nidal al-Mughrabi; editing by Luke Baker and Angus MacSwan)

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US News

- Oregon governor blasts federal response to refuge standoff

- Twelve Marines declared dead after helicopter crash off Hawaii

- Exclusive: California gas leak spotlights shoddy regulation of aging storage wells

- Powerful snowstorm threatens U.S. East Coast; flights canceled

- Taiwanese military pilot presumed dead in F-16 crash in Arizona

- Alabama to carry out first death penalty since 2013 on rapist: murderer

- Georgia grand jury indicts police officer for murder of black man

- EPA official resigns over Flint water crisis

- Wife of U.S. pastor imprisoned in Iran hopes to reunite, rebuild marriage

- No charges against Denver deputies in suffocation death of black inmate

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Oregon governor blasts federal response to refuge standoff | Reuters

Oregon's governor blasted the federal government's response to the occupation of a wildlife refuge by a group of armed men saying the situation was "absolutely intolerable" and costing the state about $100,000 a week.

Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, said she had been asked by federal officials to limit her public comments about the protest which began on Jan. 2 at the remote Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and that she had no wish to escalate the situation.

"But I will say this ... The situation is absolutely intolerable and it must be must be resolved immediately. The very fabric of this community is being ripped apart," Brown said on Wednesday at a news conference.

"The residents of Harney County have been overlooked and under-served by federal officials' response thus far."

The takeover at Malheur was the latest flare-up in the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion, a decades-old conflict over the U.S. government's control of millions acres of land in the West.

The occupiers have declared their move is in support of two local ranchers who were returned to prison this month for setting fires that spread to federal land. The ranchers' lawyer has said the occupiers do not speak for the family.

Law enforcement officials have so far kept their distance from the buildings at the refuge, 30 miles (48 km) south of the small town of Burns in rural southeast Oregon's Harney County, in the hope of avoiding a violent confrontation.

One of the occupiers was arrested last week after he drove a government vehicle to a local supermarket.

Brown called the situation a "spectacle of lawlessness" which must end and said she had conveyed her very grave concerns to the U.S. Department of Justice and the White House.

"Federal authorities must move quickly to end the occupation and hold all of the wrongdoers accountable," the governor said. "And until Harney County is free of it, I will not stop insisting that federal officials enforce the law."

The chair of the local Native American tribe has also called on the federal government to remove the occupiers.

Brown said the standoff was costing Oregon about $100,000 per week, mostly in additional law enforcement costs, and that she has asked her finance officials to "scour the budget" so they could subsidize the expense to Harney County.

"We will be asking federal officials to reimburse the state for these costs," she said.

(Reporting by Daniel Wallis in Denver; Editing by Alan Crosby)

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Twelve Marines declared dead after helicopter crash off Hawaii | Reuters

Twelve U.S. Marines missing after two military helicopters collided last week off Hawaii's Oahu island have been listed as deceased, the military said on Thursday.

The Coast Guard called off the search for the missing Marines on Tuesday after five days of search and rescue efforts across some 40,000 square nautical miles of ocean, along with shorelines.

The Marines were officially classified as deceased on Wednesday and Marine Corps officers personally notified each family, a statement from the Marines said.

The victims ranged in age from 21 to 41, the statement said.

The two CH-53E helicopters belonging to the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing from the Marine Corps Air Station at Kaneohe Bay were on a routine training mission when they were reported to have collided just before midnight on Jan. 14, according to the Coast Guard.

The search was hampered by storms.

A Coast Guard helicopter crew spotted debris in the water off the town of Haleiwa on the north shore of Oahu but no passengers were found. The debris field spanned more than 7 miles (11 km) off the coast, the Coast Guard said.

No distress call was issued by either aircraft.

(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere in Los Angeles; Editing by Paul Tait)

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Exclusive: California gas leak spotlights shoddy regulation of aging storage wells | Reuters

Long before a natural gas storage well sprung a disastrous leak near Los Angeles, California, utilities and national industry groups were raising alarms about the danger of aging underground storage infrastructure.

The leaking well’s owner, Southern California Gas Co, warned state utility regulators in 2014 of “major failures” without a rate hike to pay for comprehensive inspections of 229 storage wells.

Twenty-six of its wells were “high risk” and should be abandoned - even though they complied with state regulations, the utility wrote in a rate filing.

The previous year, Pacific Gas & Electric pointed to an absence of safety standards for storage wells as reason to launch its own monitoring program that went beyond state rules, according to an internal document obtained by Reuters.

The industry’s rising concern underscores the scant oversight of 400 underground natural gas storage facilities in 30 U.S. states. Most storage fields are regulated by states, but national industry groups have pushed for federal oversight - unusual in an industry better known for fighting regulation.

Jurisdiction over facilities storing gas to be transported across state lines falls to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. But the agency has never written rules for gas storage despite two decades of sporadic calls for regulation - and at least two deadly explosions.

Agency spokeswoman Artealia Gilliard declined comment on the agency’s hands-off posture.

Under state oil and gas regulations, Southern California Gas faces a maximum penalty of $25,000 for the leak near Los Angeles, which is unprecedented in scale. The well has spewed methane - a potent greenhouse gas - since October and displaced thousands of people in nearby Porter Ranch.

A bill introduced Tuesday by State Senator Fran Pavley calls for penalties of up to $25,000 per day for active leaks. It would also require the installation of automatic shutoff systems on all wells and continuous monitoring of wells within 10,000 feet of homes and schools.

Utilities and regulators have been “gambling” with wells that in many cases were drilled in the 1950s, Pavley said. She described their standard practice as, “Don’t fix it until it leaks or cracks or breaks.”

METHANE CLOUD

Southern California Gas, a division Sempra Energy (SRE.N), said it has inspected wells more rigorously since 2014, even though state utility officials have not approved a rate hike to cover the cost, said company spokeswoman Kristine Lloyd. The inspections, she said, “exceed traditional industry practices and regulatory requirements.”

Lloyd said she did not know if the leaking well in Aliso Canyon was among the 26 wells the company said should be abandoned because they are too old or “mechanically unsound,” as the rate filing described them.

A month before the well failed, the nation’s leading oil and gas lobbying group, the American Petroleum Institute, published 60 pages of guidelines for monitoring and maintenance of storage wells. Other industry groups have supported having the API standards adopted as federal regulation.

It’s telling that the industry is inviting more oversight, said Tim O'Connor, director of California oil and gas programs for the Environmental Defense Fund.

“Up and down, the general consensus is that the regulations that exist in California are wholly insufficient.”

The fracking boom has intensified pressure on the nation’s aging system of underground storage. About 20 percent of gas used in the U.S. during winter now comes from storage fields, according to the American Gas Association.

Many of the facilities are depleted oil or gas reservoirs that have been converted to store natural gas, which is then pulled from the ground by wells.

The Aliso Canyon leak increased the state’s methane emissions by 25 percent in its first month, estimated the California Air Resources Board. Methane is 72 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the 20 years after it is emitted, according to CARB.

Initial efforts to plug the well with mud and brine failed. The utility is now drilling two relief wells more than 8,500 feet below the surface and planning to pump in water and cement. The utility said on Monday that it expects to stop the leak by late February.

WARNING SIGNS

In its 2014 rate filing, the utility sought $180 million in rate increases over six years to evaluate its storage wells. The California Public Utility Commission has made no decision in the rate case.

The CPUC also has not decided on a request from PG&E for more than $1 billion in rate increases to finance maintenance of its gas pipeline and storage infrastructure.

The commission did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.

PG&E, in a 2013 internal document, expressed little faith in state monitoring of gas storage wells, noting “an absence of industry standards.”

The company said it was working to fill this “gap” by helping API develop its guidelines. The industry group’s recommendations go into minute detail on matters including how storage facility data should be collected, how staff should be trained and how emergencies should be handled.

PG&E is working to incorporate those practices into its operations, spokesman Greg Snapper said.

Concerns about the nation’s natural gas infrastructure have intensified since 2010, when a PG&E pipeline exploded, leveling an entire neighborhood in San Bruno, California and killing eight people.

The National Transportation Safety Board later blamed PG&E for lax pipeline safety and faulted both the California PUC and the federal pipeline regulator for weak oversight.

SELF-REGULATION

California's oil and gas regulator - the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources - acknowledged problems with oversight but pointed to an effort launched before the leak to update regulations.

The industry also has an incentive to police itself, said agency spokesman Don Drysdale.

"Regardless of the regulations, it's in an operator's interest not to have leaks, because that means they're losing their product," he said.

Earlier this month, Governor Jerry Brown ordered the agency to issue emergency safety regulations for underground gas storage. Last week, it proposed requiring facilities to submit plans for inspections and leak detection and to test all safety valve systems every six months.

The lack of federal oversight has been debated sporadically for more than two decades.

Federal regulators declined to assume authority over gas storage facilities after three people were killed in a 1992 explosion at an underground cavern operated by Seminole Pipeline Co near Brenham, Texas.

That decision was criticized after a 2001 gas leak in underground salt caverns in Kansas caused explosions that killed two people.

The facility fell under federal jurisdiction, but federal and state regulators hit legal snags when they explored how to penalize the facility's operator, El Paso Corp, which sent its gas across state lines.

Kansas was forbidden from regulating interstate commerce - and the federal agency had not written rules it could enforce.

A decade later, in 2011, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration asked industry groups whether they supported federal regulation of storage facilities in such cases. The industry supported oversight, but the agency has still not crafted regulations.

Last year, U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, a Republican from Kansas, introduced a bill targeting "a dangerous lapse in the oversight” and proposing that states take over regulating all stored gas, even when it is slated for interstate transport.

A separate safety bill including the same provision passed a key Senate committee in December. It also directs the federal government to craft national safety standards for underground gas storage within two years.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Terry Wade and Brian Thevenot)

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Powerful snowstorm threatens U.S. East Coast; flights canceled | Reuters

WASHINGTON Washington D.C., New York and other East Coast cities readied fleets of snow plows, thousands of flights were canceled or delayed and residents stocked up on groceries ahead of a winter storm expected to dump up to 30 inches (76 cm) of snow on the region.

At least five states had declared emergencies by Thursday afternoon, as the season's first major Atlantic Coast storm started to move over the Mid-South before barreling on an expected north and eastward course bringing up to two feet of snow to some areas.

Blizzard warnings were out in the nation's capital and Baltimore, with extreme conditions expected to begin on Friday afternoon, while New York City was under a blizzard watch for Saturday morning.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which includes the second-busiest U.S. subway system, said it would suspend operations from late on Friday through Sunday.

The Virginia National Guard said it planned to bring in up to 300 troops to assist in response operations.

Federal employees in the Washington area were told their offices would close at noon to let them go home early.

Grocery store shelves were being stripped of bread, milk and other essentials as millions of residents in the storm's path prepared to hunker down for a wintry weekend. Consumer watchdogs warned against illegal price gouging for such essentials as generators, batteries, flashlights and hotel lodging.

Airlines began cancelling Friday and Saturday flights, with many of the more than 2,400 cancellations for Friday at Washington and North Carolina airports, according to FlightAware.com.

American Airlines Group Inc (AAL.O) scrapped all Friday flights into North Carolina's Charlotte Douglas International Airport, and Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL.N) canceled about 120 flights in the Southeast region. American scrapped most Saturday flights into Washington, New York and Philadelphia, and Delta was poised to cancel many of the same.

The National Weather Service said blizzard conditions could be life-threatening across much of the mid-Atlantic on Friday night and early Saturday.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio urged motorists to stay off roads, starting on Friday.

"Anyone who has the illusion you’re going to be taking big trips over the weekend, get that out of your mind," de Blasio said at a news conference.

Bowser said the U.S. capital's public schools would be shut on Friday.

Asked on Thursday how she thought Washington would cope with the blizzard, Patricia DeWolf, a 63-year-old retiree, said, “If last night was an indication, not very well.” She spoke outside a Safeway grocery store, where she had been loading up on supplies.

The National Weather Service put Washington and Baltimore under blizzard warnings from 3 p.m. Eastern (2000 GMT) Friday through Sunday morning.

It forecast up to 2 feet (61 cm) of snow in the capital, and as much as 30 inches (75 cm) in western suburbs, with winds gusting to 50 miles per hour (80 kilometers per hour).

In North Carolina, two women died late on Wednesday in car accidents on slippery roadways, the governor’s office said.

The storm was expected to deliver a slightly weaker wallop to the New York and Long Island areas with blizzard conditions from Saturday morning through Sunday.

New York canceled its Winter Jam in Central Park, set for Saturday, even after the snow-starved city had spent days making artificial snow for the winter sports festival.

Governors in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Pennsylvania joined Bowser in declaring states of emergency, and the governor of West Virginia declared a state of preparedness.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago, Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Tim Ahmann in Washington; Editing by Frank McGurty and Diane Craft)

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Taiwanese military pilot presumed dead in F-16 crash in Arizona | Reuters

PHOENIX A Taiwanese student pilot stationed at a U.S. Air Force base was presumed killed in the crash of his F-16 fighter jet on Thursday during routine air-to-air combat training maneuvers over northwestern Arizona, U.S. military officials said.

The pilot was believed to have died when his Fighting Falcon aircraft, a Taiwanese government-owned plane, went down shortly before 9 a.m. near the town of Bagdad, about 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Phoenix, the officials said.

The student aviator, whose name was not immediately released, was among a group of fighter pilots from allied foreign governments assigned for training to Luke Air Force Base, just west of Phoenix, according to Brigadier General Scott Pleus, the base commander.

“At this point, all indications lead me to believe that the pilot did not survive the accident,” Pleus told reporters at a news conference.

The plane carried no live ordnance, officials said.

Pleus said the Taiwanese aviator had been performing maneuvers under the guidance of an instructor pilot who was flying another aircraft when the accident occurred. The wreckage was found four hours later a few miles off a major road.

The Taiwanese pilot had been stationed at the Arizona installation for about six months, with experience flying F-16s and performing similar combat training, the general said.

The cause of the crash was under investigation.

The $25 million jet was assigned to the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base, which is responsible for training on F-16 and F-35 fighters. The accident marked the third crash of an F-16 from the base since 2013.

The previous such incident was in November, when a jet crashed in New Mexico during a routine training mission. The pilot managed to eject safely.

(Reporting by David Schwartz in Phoenix; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Steve Gorman and Peter Cooney)

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Alabama to carry out first death penalty since 2013 on rapist: murderer | Reuters

The state of Alabama on Thursday executed a 44-year-old man convicted of raping and murdering a woman in 1992, a prison official said, the first execution in that state since 2013.

Christopher Brooks was pronounced dead from lethal injection at 6:38 p.m. CST at the state's death chamber in Atmore, prison spokesman Bob Horton said.

Brooks' was the third U.S. execution of the year, coming just one day after an execution in Texas.

There were no complications with the execution, the spokesman said. This was the first time Alabama used a new three-drug protocol that includes midazolam, a sedative that has drawn national scrutiny after several botched executions.

Brooks gave a brief statement before he died, thanking family members, Horton said. "I hope this brings closure to everyone," Brooks said, according to Horton.

There were 28 executions in the United States last year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which monitors capital punishment nationwide.

Brooks was sentenced to death for bludgeoning 23-year-old Jo Deann Campbell to death in her apartment. The pair had previously met as summer camp counselors in New York. Shortly before her death, Campbell told a friend Brooks was "sleeping on her living room floor," court records show.

Brooks' DNA was found on Campbell's body, and his bloody fingerprint was identified on a doorknob in her apartment, according to records. When he was arrested, Brooks had her car keys, credit card and personal checks.

He was one of six Alabama death row inmates who had challenged the state's use of midazolam, a sedative used during the lethal injection protocol. The drug has drawn national scrutiny after several botched executions.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June said midazolam did not violate a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment and cleared the drug for use in a 5-4 ruling on a challenge brought by three Oklahoma death row inmates.

In March, the Alabama Supreme Court stayed Brooks' execution pending the outcome of the high court's ruling in the Oklahoma case, according to court records.

But U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins recently denied Brooks' request to further delay his execution over the Alabama challenge, noting that the inmate had not joined the litigation until late last fall.

"Naturally, Brooks wants in the game," Watkins wrote, "and he is of late on the roster."

(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida in Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Sandra Maler)

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Georgia grand jury indicts police officer for murder of black man | Reuters

ATLANTA A grand jury indicted a white police officer on Thursday for felony murder and other criminal charges in the shooting death of an unarmed, naked black man at an apartment complex near Atlanta last March.

The charges come as prosecutors face increased scrutiny over how they treat cases of police use of deadly force, particularly against minorities. The Black Lives Matter movement, sparked by police killings of unarmed black men since 2014, has focused attention on race and policing.

DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James told reporters that DeKalb County police officer Robert Olsen was indicted on six charges for the March 9 shooting of 27-year-old Anthony Hill.

Hill, a U.S. Air Force veteran who suffered from bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, was having a manic episode when he was shot to death while naked in the parking lot of his apartment building, according to his family.

Olsen told a civil grand jury last year that Hill was coming at him in a hostile manner and disobeyed commands to stop, making him feel threatened.

The grand jury at the time recommended further investigation.

Olsen was indicted on two counts of felony murder, aggravated assault, violating his oath of office and making a false statement, James said.

"My job as a prosecutor is to seek justice," James told the news conference. "That's what we do in every case, and that's what we did in this case.

James said a warrant was issued for Olsen's arrest and that he expected him to be taken into custody soon.

Olsen's attorney, Donald English, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Protesters in Atlanta braved frigid nights and camped out in front of the courthouse this week, demanding justice for Hill.

The charges come just weeks after an Ohio grand jury cleared two Cleveland police officers who fatally shot a 12-year-old black child who was playing with a toy gun in a park, sparking widespread anger.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Curtis Skinner and Peter Cooney)

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EPA official resigns over Flint water crisis | Reuters

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO The head of the Midwest region of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offered her resignation over the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, the agency said on Thursday, as it issued an emergency order to resolve the growing problem.

Susan Hedman, the second official to resign since the crisis unfolded, had played down a memo by an EPA employee that said tests had shown high levels of lead in the city's water, telling Flint and Michigan administrators it was only a draft report.

Hedman's resignation will take effect Feb. 1, the EPA said. Before the agency's announcement on Hedman, the White House said President Barack Obama will ensure officials will be held accountable if any wrongdoing is found.

The EPA on Thursday issued an emergency order requiring Michigan and the city of Flint to take immediate steps after determining that their response to the crisis had been "inadequate to protect human health."

Under the direction of a state-appointed emergency manager, Flint, a working class mostly African-American city of 100,000 north of Detroit, switched water supplies to the Flint River in 2014, to save money. The river is known locally as a dumping ground.

The more corrosive river water, which was not treated, caused more lead to leach from the city's aging water pipes than the Detroit water the city had tapped previously.

Complaints about the water began within a month of the change, but officials did not take steps to remedy the situation until October 2015 after tests showed elevated levels of lead in some tap water in the city and in some children. Lead is a neurotoxin that can damage brains and cause other health problems.

The city switched back to Detroit water in mid October, but the contamination continued.

The Flint crisis pushed EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on Thursday to issue a new policy to elevate any issues that appear to be a substantial threat to public health, or that "other authorities appear to be unable to address."

"Our strength can become a weakness if we interpret our responsibility as ending with simple technical compliance," McCarthy said in a memo to all EPA staff.

The EPA's inspector general agreed to evaluate the Midwest office's public water system supervision program and its implementation of its state oversight.

Representative Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said "The EPA is rife with incompetence and Region 5 is no exception. Mismanagement has plagued the region for far too long and Ms. Hedman’s resignation is way overdue."

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, noting that the Justice Department was investigating the contamination of Flint's water supply, told reporters that Obama will make sure that EPA officials are held responsible for any errors that may be uncovered.

By the end of next week, Michigan would have access to $80 million for water infrastructure funding agreed to in last month's bipartisan budget, Obama told a group of mayors at the White House.

GOV. SNYDER TO BE INVITED TO TESTIFY

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and other officials will be called to testify next month to a congressional panel. U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence, a Democrat, requested a Feb. 3 hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week, said spokeswoman Tracy Manzer. The invitation will be specifically for the governor and he cannot send a representative on his behalf, Manzer said.

However, Republicans on the committee said nothing about the hearing was set in stone and it was not yet on the committee's website calendar. Details being discussed about a hearing on Flint "are entirely premature," said a spokesman for Republicans on the committee who did not want to be named. "There are no confirmed details at this time, particularly with respect to a date or witness invitations,” the spokesman said.

Dan Wyant, former director of Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality, are among the other invitees. Wyant resigned in December over the growing crisis in Flint.

The hearing will "identify precisely what went wrong in the process and to ensure that those who were responsible are to be held accountable and that this never happens again," Manzer said.

Snyder, a Republican, has rejected calls from critics for his resignation over the crisis. He asked the Michigan state legislature this week to approve $28 million to assist Flint and said there would be additional funding requests. The Michigan House approved the funding unanimously on Wednesday and the bill was in the Senate on Thursday.

In recent weeks, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services also has said that it has seen an increase in Legionnaires' disease cases in the county that includes Flint covering the period in which the river water was the primary source. It could not conclude if the cases were related to the water switch. A report released on Thursday found 87 Legionnaires' cases in the county from June 2014 through October, including nine deaths.

(Reporting Timothy Gardner, David Shepardson, Ayesha Rascoe and Roberta Rampton in Washington, Fiona Ortiz in Chicago and David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Frances Kerry and Bernard Orr)

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Wife of U.S. pastor imprisoned in Iran hopes to reunite, rebuild marriage | Reuters

BOISE Naghmeh Abedini is looking forward to reuniting next week with her husband, Saeed, the Iranian-American pastor freed on Saturday after more than three years in an Iranian prison.

But she's not rushing the reunion.

In an interview at her parent’s home in Boise, Idaho on Wednesday, Abedini said that rebuilding their marriage after her husband's imprisonment will take time.

The relationship, she said, has been strained in recent months by the publication of an email she sent to friends and supporters late last year. Her note described “physical, emotional, psychological and sexual” abuse by her husband, who she said was addicted to pornography.

Reuters could not independently confirm Abedini’s allegations about her husband.

Saeed Abedini was traveling to Asheville, North Carolina on Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

Suzan Johnson Cook, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom under Obama for more than two years until late 2013, said she was not aware of any abuse allegations during the time she advocated on Saeed Abedini’s behalf.

“I dealt with it strictly from a political standpoint,” she said. “I came to know her through the meetings at the State Department, but in terms of private life, that wasn’t my business."

Saeed Abedini, 35, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was sentenced by an Iranian court in 2013 to eight years in prison for allegedly compromising Iran's national security by setting up home-based Christian churches there. He was arrested after returning to Iran for what was supposed to be a short trip to set up an orphanage.

"I have hope that we can work through all the issues and we can restore our marriage,” Naghmeh Abedini, 38, told Reuters in a wide-ranging interview. “My Christian faith does give me a lot of hope in that."

Naghmeh Abedini said she expects the family will enter counseling, and that she will continue working to promote religious freedom and bring attention to Christian persecution.

“PHONE-TO-PHONE CALLS”

In the first months of her husband’s confinement, Abedini said, their contact was limited to what she called “phone-to-phone calls.” He would occasionally be allowed to call his parents in Tehran, and they would then dial her on a separate line and hold the phones together. His parents subsequently moved to the United States.

“I could barely hear him. He could barely hear me,” Naghmeh Abedini recalled. “I just remember yelling into the phone, 'We're going to get you out! Hang in there!’”

Later, she said, the couple communicated directly on a number of occasions by phone or Skype. During that time, Naghmeh said, her husband became increasingly abusive, possibly because of  his long confinement. She declined to elaborate on the nature of the abusive behavior.

Half a dozen Saeed Abedini supporters reached by Reuters all said they had no direct knowledge of any abuse.

Mark DeMoss, a spokesman for Christian evangelist Rev. Franklin Graham, who advocated for Saeed’s release from prison, said, “I can't speak to his thoughts or reaction to anything Naghmeh has said or written about their marriage.”

Luke Caldwell, a family friend and son of the founder of Cavalry Chapel where the Abedinis attend church, described their reunion as a "complex situation" that requires "a lot of prayer and support.”

"You wish it was as easy as, everyone's fine, but 3-1/2 years of separation and disconnection,” he said. “Ultimately, they need to reunite that love and that connection.”

Graham and other faith leaders took up the cause of Saeed Abedini, whom they saw as a symbol of Christian persecution.

Politicians, too, advocated on his behalf. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz prayed for Abedini outside the White House, and Donald Trump hosted Naghmeh Abedini at a meeting in New York. President Obama, too, spoke with her, promising that he would do all he could to secure her husband’s release.

Saeed Abedini, who arrived in the United States on Thursday, will spend several days with his parents at a North Carolina retreat run by Graham, his wife said. She said she and their children - Rebekka, 9, and Jacob, 7 - will join him there on Monday.

North Carolina Rep. Robert Pittenger, who spoke with Saeed at a U.S. military hospital in Germany where the Idaho pastor received medical attention, said on Wednesday that Saeed was “in great shape” physically and looked “strong.”

At times, Abedini was convinced he wouldn’t make it out of jail alive, Pittenger said, but his captors began treating him better in the last months of his ordeal.

“He’s been through some pretty harsh treatment,” said Pittenger, who spent three years advocating for Abedini’s release. “He said, ‘I’m a changed person. I’ll never be the same after what I’ve been through.’”

Pittenger added: “He wants to be a good husband and father.”

“CRAZY ONE-YEAR MISSION”

Saeed and Naghmeh Abedini met in Iran in 2002, while she was there on what she says was a “crazy one-year mission” to share her Christian faith with her Muslim relatives. Captivated by Saeed’s religious passion, and his work in establishing home-based churches, Naghmeh, returned to Iran in 2003. The couple married about a year later.

“He just grabbed my attention,” she said. “He was really passionately worshipping. I feel like there was a light on him.”

Abedini said that she and her twin brother converted to Christianity from Islam when they were 9 years old, soon after moving to the United States with their parents to escape the war with Iraq. She said they were introduced to the religion by a family member living in the United States.

At the time, she said, her Muslim parents were horrified by the conversion, but 13 years later, they and her younger sister also embraced Christianity.

Naghmeh Abedini’s parents declined to be interviewed.

Saeed Abedini, who became a Christian in 2000, came to the attention of Iranian authorities because of his work encouraging home-based Christian churches, his wife said . After he was taken in for questioning in late 2005, the couple left the country rather than risk arrest.

United Nations human rights officials have repeatedly called on Iran to stop detaining Christians on vague national security charges.

Iranian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the circumstances of Abedini’s legal troubles and imprisonment in Iran.

When the Abedinis and their children returned to visit his family in 2009, Naghmeh Abedini said, Saeed was under house arrest for three months, during which time he was questioned repeatedly for up to 14 hours at a time.

Another family visit to Iran in 2011 was cut short by fears of another arrest, Naghmeh Abedini said, causing her to decide never to return. Her husband went back in 2012, however, with plans to establish an orphanage. He was placed under house arrest in June of that year and imprisoned in late September.

"It was probably not the smartest idea to go back, with all the history,” Naghmeh Abedini said, “but he did it, and as a wife, I just let him.”

PUBLIC ADVOCACY, PRIVATE PAIN

During most of her husband’s time in prison, Abedini served as the public face of the campaign for his release. But their private conversations, she said, became ever more fraught.

“I just couldn't understand - the more I fought for him the more abusive he was becoming,” she said.

Because of that, and out of concern that she wasn’t spending enough time with her children, Naghmeh Abedini decided to pull back from her advocacy work in the fall of 2015. At that time, she sent the emails about her marriage that attracted so much attention. She said she was “very upset” when they were made public, in a Christianity Today article, and that her husband was “devastated.”

"I don't know what's next, and that's OK,” she said. “Right now, in my life, I'm at a place of complete unknown, and I've come to find peace with that."

(Additional reporting by Heather Somerville in San Francisco, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Louis Charbonneau in New York; Editing by Sue Horton and Brian Thevenot)

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No charges against Denver deputies in suffocation death of black inmate | Reuters

DENVER Five sheriff’s deputies will not face criminal charges after a black Denver jail inmate died last year while they restrained him during a schizophrenic episode, the district attorney said on Thursday.

Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said in a letter that while he sympathized with the family of Michael Marshall, he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the deputies acted criminally.

“Absent that certainty of proof, criminal charges are not appropriate and are not justice,” Morrissey said. “There is no evidence suggesting any force was used for the purpose of harming Mr. Marshall.”

The death of the 50-year-old Marshall in November came amid scrutiny of police killings and in-custody deaths of young black men since mid-2014. Those killings have triggered waves of protest and fueled a civil rights movement under the name Black Lives Matter.

Autopsy results released this month by the Denver medical examiner’s office ruled the death a homicide. The report concluded that the 5-foot-4 (1.6-meter), 112-lb (51-kg) Marshall choked on his own vomit and died from asphyxiation "while being physically restrained by law enforcement.”

A lawyer for the Marshall family, Mari Newman, said she was not surprised by the district attorney’s decision.

“Morrissey has never prosecuted any law enforcement for killing anyone, and this empowers Denver law enforcement officers to act recklessly, knowing that they will never be held accountable for their conduct,” Newman said. “This is a broken system and it needs to be changed.”

Marshall was being held at the city’s main lockup on a trespassing charge, and for two days leading up to the incident refused to take his schizophrenia medication and became aggressive with another prisoner, the district attorney’s statement said.

Marshall refused repeated commands from officers, became combative with them, and despite his diminutive stature “deputies described Mr. Marshall as surprisingly strong,” the decision letter said.

“No choke holds or carotid restraints were used. Tasers were not used. The physical force used by the deputy sheriffs during this incident was applied by holding Mr. Marshall and by preventing him from getting up,” the letter said.

Morrissey noted that Marshall suffered from emphysema and heart disease, and that his "agitation from psychosis" was not caused by the deputies.

“Sadly, this situation is an example of how difficult it is for society as a whole, including deputies in a jail, to handle the complex issues presented by those suffering from severe mental illness,” he said.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Lisa Shumaker)

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World News

- Don't read too much into military drills, China says after Taiwan alarm

- Russia's Putin probably approved London murder of ex-KGB agent Litvinenko: UK inquiry

- North Korea says detains U.S. student for 'hostile act'

- Twelve Marines declared dead after helicopter crash off Hawaii

- Islamist gunmen kill 17 in Somalia beach restaurant attack

- U.S. Navy's Fort Worth LCS ship suffers gear damage in Singapore

- Myanmar releases political prisoners before power transfer

- Japan lifts nuclear sanctions on Iran

- South Korea's Park seeks 5-party talks on North's nuclear program

- Murder rate climbs in Mexico, while other crimes fall

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Don't read too much into military drills, China says after Taiwan alarm | Reuters

BEIJING China's Defence Ministry said on Friday people shouldn't read too much into a state media broadcast of live-fire military and landing drills, just days after a landslide election win by an independence-leaning opposition party in Taiwan.

The self-ruled island expressed serious concern on Thursday over the mainland's broadcast. Its defense ministry confirmed China recently carried out "winter exercises", but said that the pictures in the video were archive clips spliced together of drills conducted in 2015.

China considers Taiwan a wayward province, to be brought under its control by force if necessary. Defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.

"The relevant media report is a summary of training maneuvers organized last year by troops. There is no need to over-interpret them," China's Defence Ministry said in a two-sentence statement faxed to Reuters.

Late on Wednesday, Chinese state television said the 31st Group Army, based in China's southeastern city of Xiamen, opposite Taiwan, had carried out the drills in "recent days", but it did not give an exact location.

The channel broadcast images of amphibious armored vehicles ploughing through the sea towards a landing site, helicopters firing missiles at shore locations and soldiers parachuting down from helicopters.

The report made no direct mention of the Taiwan election, but a Taiwanese military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the broadcast may be "psychological warfare" warning the new Taiwan government to tread carefully.

Since Saturday's landslide win by Tsai Ing-wen and her Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan's presidential and parliamentary elections, China has warned against any moves towards independence and said it will defend the country's sovereignty.

The United States has expressed concerns about the danger of worsening China-Taiwan ties, at a time when China's navy is increasingly flexing its muscles in the South China and East China Seas and expanding territorial claims.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken met the mainland's Taiwan Affairs Office Minister, Zhang Zhijun, in Beijing on Thursday and "reiterated the United States' abiding interest in continued cross-Strait peace and stability‎", the State Department said in an email.

Taiwan's military has warned that China has practised attacks on targets modeled on places in Taiwan. Taiwan also estimates China aims hundreds of missiles at the island.

(Reporting by Michael Martina and Ben Blanchard)

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Russia's Putin probably approved London murder of ex-KGB agent Litvinenko: UK inquiry | Reuters

LONDON President Vladimir Putin probably approved a 2006 Russian intelligence operation to murder ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210 in London, a British inquiry concluded on Thursday, prompting a row with Moscow.

Russia, which had declined to cooperate in the inquiry, cautioned pointedly that it could "poison" relations. Britain accused the Kremlin of uncivilized behavior but did not immediately signal it would take any stronger action.

Litvinenko, 43, an outspoken critic of Putin who fled Russia for Britain six years to the day before he was poisoned, died after drinking green tea laced with the rare and very potent radioactive isotope at London's Millennium Hotel.

An inquiry led by senior British judge Robert Owen found that former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy and another Russian, Dmitry Kovtun, carried out the killing as part of an operation probably directed by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the main heir to the Soviet-era KGB.

"The FSB operation to kill Mr Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev, then head of the FSB, and also by President Putin," Owen said.

"I have concluded that there is a strong probability that when Mr Lugovoy poisoned Mr Litvinenko, he did so under the direction of the FSB. I have further concluded that Mr Kovtun was also acting under FSB direction," he said.

Litvinenko's death marked a post-Cold War low point in Anglo-Russian ties, marred further by Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But Britain's measured early response to the report appeared to acknowledge a need for Russia to exert its influence over Assad in negotiations to end the Syrian civil war.

Prime Minister David Cameron said he would not rule out further action, but added:

"Do we at some level have to go on having some sort of relationship with them because we need a solution to the Syria crisis? Yes we do. But we do it with clear eyes and a very cold heart."

Interior minister Theresa May, appearing before parliament, spoke of "a blatant and unacceptable breach of the most fundamental tenets of international law and of civilized behavior", while the opposition Labour Party described an "unparalleled act of state-sponsored terrorism".

POLONIUM TEA

The image of Litvinenko lying on his bed at London's University College Hospital, cadaverous and having lost his hair, was emblazoned across British and other Western newspapers and later shown to the inquiry. He took over three weeks to die.

From his deathbed, Litvinenko told detectives he believed Putin - a former KGB spy who went on to head the FSB before winning the presidency - had directly ordered his killing.

The Kremlin has always denied any involvement but the claim that Putin directly ordered a killing of an opponent with a radioactive isotope in a major Western capital provoked immediate censure from Moscow.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said what it called Britain's biased and opaque handling of the case had clouded relations.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such inquiries risked poisoning relations and pointed out that the inquiry relied on unpublicised information from the intelligence services.

The judge said he was sure Lugovoy and Kovtun had placed the polonium 210 in a teapot at the Millennium Hotel's Pine Bar on Nov. 1, 2006 when they met Litvinenko for little more than 30 minutes. Litvinenko said he had only drunk three or four mouthfuls of the cold green tea made with lemon and honey.

High polonium contamination was found in the teapot and the hotel bar, and traces of the highly radioactive substance were left across London including offices, hotels, planes and Arsenal soccer club's Emirates Stadium.

Owen also concluded the two men had unsuccessfully tried to kill Litvinenko two weeks earlier at a meeting at a London security firm, and said it was "entirely possible" Lugovoy was planning to target him back in 2004.

The British government summoned Russia's ambassador Alexander Yakovenko, demanding the Kremlin provide answers and extradite the two main suspects.

RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE

Both Lugovoy and Kovtun, who declined to participate in the six-month British inquiry, have previously denied involvement and Russia has refused to extradite them. Lugovoy, now a Russian lawmaker, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying the accusation was absurd.

Owen cited several reasons why the Russian state would have wanted to kill Litvinenko, who was granted British citizenship a month before his death on Nov. 23, 2006.

The ex-spy was regarded as having betrayed the FSB by accusing it of carrying out 1999 apartment block bombings that killed more than 200 people in Russia and which the Kremlin, launching an offensive to restore control over the southern region of Chechnya, blamed on Chechens.

The FSB also had information Litvinenko had started working for Britain's foreign intelligence agency, MI6.

Litvinenko was close to leading Russian dissidents and opponents of Putin and his administration, whom he had accused of collusion with organized crime, and had made highly personal allegations about the Kremlin chief.

"There was undoubtedly a personal dimension to the antagonism between Mr Litvinenko on the one hand and President Putin on the other," Owen's report said.

Some of the inquiry was held in secret and evidence from the British government and spy agencies has not been publicly disclosed.

Litvinenko's widow, Marina, whose persistence led to the inquiry being held, called for Russian spies to be kicked out of Britain and for sanctions against Russia.

"I'm ... calling for the imposition of targeted economic sanctions and travel bans against named individuals, including Mr Patrushev and Mr Putin," she told reporters outside London's Royal Courts of Justice. Patrushev serves as secretary of Russia's Security Council.0

(Additional reporting by Costas Pitas and William Schomberg; Writing by Kate Holton and Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Ralph Boulton)

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North Korea says detains U.S. student for 'hostile act' | Reuters

SEOUL North Korea said on Friday it had detained a U.S. university student for committing a "hostile act" against the country who, if confirmed, would be the third western citizen known to be held currently in the isolated state.

The North's state-run KCNA news agency said the person entered North Korea as a tourist and was "was caught committing a hostile act against the state," which it said was "tolerated and manipulated by the U.S. government".

The Korean-language KCNA report said the detainee was a Virginia university student and had entered the country with an "aim to destroy the country's unity". It did not elaborate.

An official at the U.S. embassy in the South Korean capital Seoul said it was aware of the reported arrest.

A South Korean-born Canadian pastor was arrested in North Korea last year and given a life sentence for subversion. Earlier this month, a Korean-American man told CNN in Pyongyang that he was being held by the state for spying.

South Korea warned that the United States and its allies were working on further sanctions to inflict "bone-numbing pain" on the North after its latest nuclear test this month, in contravention of U.N. Security Council resolutions, and urged China to do its part to rein in its isolated neighbor.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park and James Pearson; Editing by Tony Munroe)

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Twelve Marines declared dead after helicopter crash off Hawaii | Reuters

Twelve U.S. Marines missing after two military helicopters collided last week off Hawaii's Oahu island have been listed as deceased, the military said on Thursday.

The Coast Guard called off the search for the missing Marines on Tuesday after five days of search and rescue efforts across some 40,000 square nautical miles of ocean, along with shorelines.

The Marines were officially classified as deceased on Wednesday and Marine Corps officers personally notified each family, a statement from the Marines said.

The victims ranged in age from 21 to 41, the statement said.

The two CH-53E helicopters belonging to the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing from the Marine Corps Air Station at Kaneohe Bay were on a routine training mission when they were reported to have collided just before midnight on Jan. 14, according to the Coast Guard.

The search was hampered by storms.

A Coast Guard helicopter crew spotted debris in the water off the town of Haleiwa on the north shore of Oahu but no passengers were found. The debris field spanned more than 7 miles (11 km) off the coast, the Coast Guard said.

No distress call was issued by either aircraft.

(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere in Los Angeles; Editing by Paul Tait)

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Islamist gunmen kill 17 in Somalia beach restaurant attack | Reuters

MOGADISHU At least 17 people were killed when Islamist gunmen struck a popular beachside restaurant in the Somali capital of Mogadishu late on Thursday, Somali police said.

Al Shabaab, a militant group aligned with al Qaeda, said its members set off two car bombs at the Beach View Cafe on Mogadishu's popular Lido beach, engaging in a gun battle for hours with government troops trying to flush them out.

"The operation ended at 3 a.m. last night and at least 17 civilians were killed," police officer Osman Nur told Reuters on Friday.

Police said al Shabaab fighters set off the first car bomb at dusk. A huge second blast, which witnesses said echoed around the city center, struck about an hour later as government soldiers laid siege to the restaurant.

(Reporting by Feisal Omar; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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U.S. Navy's Fort Worth LCS ship suffers gear damage in Singapore | Reuters

WASHINGTON The USS Fort Worth, a new coastal warship built by Lockheed Martin Corp for the U.S. Navy, suffered damage to its combining gears while the ship was in port in Singapore, the Navy said on Thursday, citing an apparent crew error.

The issue occurred during an operational test of the ship's port and starboard main propulsion diesel engines on Jan. 12 when a lack of lube oil triggered high temperature alarms on both sets of gears, according to a Navy official.

Technical experts and shipyard personnel were on board to evaluate the gears and make needed repairs, the Navy said in a statement released late Thursday. It was unclear when the repairs would be completed, it said in the statement.

Combining gears allow the Fort Worth to configure different types and combinations of engines for propulsion at sea. The ship left her homeport of San Diego in November 2014 and is now on a 16-month rotational deployment to the U.S. 7th Fleet.

Lieutenant Commander Matt Knight, U.S. Pacific Fleet spokesman, said problems involving watchstanding procedures were rare since crews were well-trained and familiar with the ship, one of two models of the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) class.

"We have the right resources in place to conduct the necessary inspections, determine the extent of the damage and required repairs, and return Fort Worth back to operational status," Knight said. "We are working diligently to minimize the operational impact of this maintenance casualty."

The incident comes after a spate of issues involving the Navy's newest class of warships, which were designed to carry out a range of missions, including hunting for mines, submarines and surface warfare.

The accident occurred just weeks after Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to truncate orders of the LCS class ships at 40, instead of ordering 52 ships as previously planned, a decision that Navy officials still hope to reverse.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

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Myanmar releases political prisoners before power transfer | Reuters

YANGON Myanmar began releasing the first of about 100 political prisoners on Friday, government officials said, days before democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi's party is to form a new government after an election victory in November.

The freeing of prisoners by the outgoing administration of President Thein Sein comes after U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Myanmar to free all of its political prisoners during a visit on Monday.

"So far, 18 political prisoners were released from Insein Prison. They will release a total of 21 people today," a prison official at Yangon's Insein prison told Reuters on Friday.

Insein is one of Myanmar's largest prisons. It is used for jailing political prisoners and is notorious for its poor conditions and bad treatment of inmates.

A senior official from the Home Ministry told Reuters that more than 100 prisoners would be freed from various detention centers across Myanmar.

Another senior official from the President's Office said the political prisoners were being released as a commemoration of the World Buddhist Peace Conference that starts in Myanmar on Friday.

Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

"Most of them were arrested for staging protests. As far as I know, there will be 101 political prisoners who will be released in the coming days," said Bo Kyi, Joint Secretary of political prisoner watchdog the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

Myanmar's incarceration of more than 2,000 journalists, activists, politicians and even comedians during decades of military rule was a key factor behind Western sanctions.

Hundreds were released by Thein Sein's semi-civilian government, which replaced the junta in 2011 and embarked on a series of political and economic reforms.

However, human rights groups had complained that many were still in jail. In December, there were 129 political prisoners incarcerated in Myanmar and 408 activists were awaiting trial for political actions, according to AAPP's website.

A new parliament dominated by Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) will sit for the first time on Feb. 1.

(Reporting by Hnin Yadana Zaw, Aung Hla Tun and Timothy McLaughlin; Editing by Kim Coghill and Paul Tait)

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Japan lifts nuclear sanctions on Iran | Reuters

TOKYO Japan on Friday lifted sanctions on Iran, falling in line with major world powers after the United Nations atomic energy agency confirmed last weekend that Tehran had fully taken steps to curb its disputed nuclear program.

Iran emerged from years of economic isolation when the U.S. and other countries lifted crippling sanctions against the Islamic republic.

Tens of billions of dollars worth of Iranian assets are now unfrozen and global companies that have been barred from doing business there will be able to exploit a market hungry for everything from automobiles to airplane parts.

"Japan would like to strengthen our cooperative relationship with Iran further and contribute to the peace and stability of the Middle East through our traditional friendly relationship with Iran," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said as he made the announcement at a regular press conference.

With the lifting of the sanctions, Japanese insurance companies will be able to issue policies covering trade deals involving Iran. Japanese business will also be able make new investments in Iran's oil and gas sector.

An investment agreement between Tehran and Tokyo is expected to be signed soon. Japanese companies are already lining up to resume business ties with Iran, with Suzuki Motor Corp on Thursday saying it was considering returning to the Iranian market.

The International Atomic Energy Agency ruled on Saturday, Jan. 16, that Iran had abided by an agreement last year with six world powers to curtail its nuclear program, triggering the end of sanctions.

The United States and other countries formally lifted banking, steel, shipping and other sanctions on Iran, a major oil producer that has been virtually shut out of international markets for the past five years.

Iran has always denied its nuclear program was aimed at obtaining an atomic bomb.

Washington still maintains separate, less comprehensive sanctions on Iran over its missile program.

That has left some companies cautious, with Japanese oil refiners telling Reuters last week they will keep using special government insurance to ship Iranian oil because of uncertainty over whether U.S. insurers can provide coverage.

(Reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Writing by Aaron Sheldrick; Editing by Tom Hogue)

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South Korea's Park seeks 5-party talks on North's nuclear program | Reuters

SEOUL South Korean President Park Geun-hye called on Friday for a meeting of five countries, excluding North Korea, to discuss the North's nuclear program alongside long-stalled "six-party talks" that include Pyongyang.

Park's comments came amid a flurry of diplomatic exchanges involving Washington and Beijing as the international community seeks to impose fresh sanctions on North Korea for its fourth nuclear test, on Jan. 6.

"In the past, six-party talks had usefulness as a framework to resolve North Korean nuclear issues via dialogue," Park said in remarks at the presidential Blue House.

"But even if the talks open but don't help denuclearize North Korea, the question of being effective will be brought up," she said.

China, Pyongyang's main ally, has been calling for a resumption of so-called six-party talks among the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia aimed at curbing North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Numerous efforts to restart the six-party talks have failed since negotiations collapsed following the last round in 2008.

"Relevant parties, although it is not an easy matter, should find out various and creative approaches such as trying five-party talks excluding North Korea," Park said.

Park also said China's role was essential in adopting strong sanctions at the United Nations Security Council, repeating her calls for Beijing to act.

"I expect China to take an effective measure that can make North Korea realize development of nuclear weapons is futile and come into the international community like Iran," she said.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Tony Munroe and Paul Tait)

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Murder rate climbs in Mexico, while other crimes fall | Reuters

MEXICO CITY Murders in Mexico jumped nearly 9 percent last year, their first increase in four years, as President Enrique Pena Nieto struggles to make good on his election pledge to end the country's drug violence.

But other crimes like kidnapping and extortion have fallen, according to government data released late on Wednesday, perhaps pointing to a shift toward more brutal tactics by some of the country's dozens of drug cartels.

Prosecutors from Mexico's 31 states and Mexico City reported 17,013 murders last year, the fifth-highest figure in nearly two decades, Interior Ministry statistics showed. There were 15,653 murders reported in 2014.

The rate equates to about 14 murders per 100,000 people, higher than the U.S. rate of about five per 100,000 people, but below that of Mexico's Central American neighbors.

Many experts have said only a fraction of all crime in Mexico is reported. Drug cartels and other gangs are known to routinely buy off police to turn a blind eye to their operations, leading to widespread impunity and lack of trust.

The central state of Mexico, which encircles much of Mexico City, had the highest murder rate last year. In second place was Guerrero, a southwestern state where 43 trainee teachers were abducted last year and believed by government officials to have been massacred by a drug cartel in league with local police.

The number of kidnappings nationwide fell 24.5 percent from 2014, the lowest level since 2008, while extortion dropped 12.6 percent.

(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Politics News

- Oregon governor blasts federal response to refuge standoff

- National Review magazine tells conservatives to shun Trump

- EPA official resigns over Flint water crisis

- U.S. appeals court declines to block Obama carbon emissions plan

- Fix the roads, California Governor Brown tells lawmakers

- Atlantic City, N.J., to hold emergency meeting to discuss bankruptcy

- Davos elite alarmed at prospect of nominee Trump

- U.S. tightens visa waiver rules for visitors after Paris attacks

- Drug exec Shkreli, lawmakers clash ahead of congressional hearing

- Michigan governor will be called to congressional hearing on Flint water crisis

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Oregon governor blasts federal response to refuge standoff | Reuters

Oregon's governor blasted the federal government's response to the occupation of a wildlife refuge by a group of armed men saying the situation was "absolutely intolerable" and costing the state about $100,000 a week.

Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, said she had been asked by federal officials to limit her public comments about the protest which began on Jan. 2 at the remote Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and that she had no wish to escalate the situation.

"But I will say this ... The situation is absolutely intolerable and it must be must be resolved immediately. The very fabric of this community is being ripped apart," Brown said on Wednesday at a news conference.

"The residents of Harney County have been overlooked and under-served by federal officials' response thus far."

The takeover at Malheur was the latest flare-up in the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion, a decades-old conflict over the U.S. government's control of millions acres of land in the West.

The occupiers have declared their move is in support of two local ranchers who were returned to prison this month for setting fires that spread to federal land. The ranchers' lawyer has said the occupiers do not speak for the family.

Law enforcement officials have so far kept their distance from the buildings at the refuge, 30 miles (48 km) south of the small town of Burns in rural southeast Oregon's Harney County, in the hope of avoiding a violent confrontation.

One of the occupiers was arrested last week after he drove a government vehicle to a local supermarket.

Brown called the situation a "spectacle of lawlessness" which must end and said she had conveyed her very grave concerns to the U.S. Department of Justice and the White House.

"Federal authorities must move quickly to end the occupation and hold all of the wrongdoers accountable," the governor said. "And until Harney County is free of it, I will not stop insisting that federal officials enforce the law."

The chair of the local Native American tribe has also called on the federal government to remove the occupiers.

Brown said the standoff was costing Oregon about $100,000 per week, mostly in additional law enforcement costs, and that she has asked her finance officials to "scour the budget" so they could subsidize the expense to Harney County.

"We will be asking federal officials to reimburse the state for these costs," she said.

(Reporting by Daniel Wallis in Denver; Editing by Alan Crosby)

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National Review magazine tells conservatives to shun Trump | Reuters

DES MOINES An influential conservative magazine published an editorial on Thursday urging Republicans to rally against the front-running presidential candidate Donald Trump, with Iowa poised to begin the search for a 2016 nominee in 10 days.

National Review, a New York-based magazine founded in 1955 by famed conservative thinker William F. Buckley Jr., drew heavy scorn from Trump, on Twitter and at a Las Vegas news conference, for its issue entitled: "Against Trump."

"Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP (Republican Party) in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones," National Review said.

The magazine's argument is one that has been made by several of his rivals for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, most notably by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

But nothing has stopped Trump from seizing control of the race and putting him in position to win not only Iowa's caucuses but also New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary on Feb. 9.

A CNN/ORC poll on Thursday said Trump had taken a solid lead over Texas Senator Ted Cruz in Iowa, with 37 percent to 26 percent for Cruz. Cruz has led other polls in Iowa.

National Review said Trump, a New York billionaire and former reality TV star, had in the past supported abortion, gun control and higher taxes on the wealthy, all positions that conservatives oppose.

The issue's cover read "Cage Match - The GOP's Internal Fight" and portrayed a bare-chested, double-chinned Trump, with a necklace of dollar signs tattooed across his torso, flanked by four less muscular rivals for the Republican crown.

Trump waved off the attack in characteristic fashion.

"The late, great, William F. Buckley would be ashamed of what had happened to his prize, the dying National Review!" he tweeted.

At a Las Vegas news conference, Trump said he would bring Republicans together if nominated.

"Honestly the party has to be healed, has to be brought together and I think the party can be brought together," he said.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency.

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EPA official resigns over Flint water crisis | Reuters

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO The head of the Midwest region of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offered her resignation over the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, the agency said on Thursday, as it issued an emergency order to resolve the growing problem.

Susan Hedman, the second official to resign since the crisis unfolded, had played down a memo by an EPA employee that said tests had shown high levels of lead in the city's water, telling Flint and Michigan administrators it was only a draft report.

Hedman's resignation will take effect Feb. 1, the EPA said. Before the agency's announcement on Hedman, the White House said President Barack Obama will ensure officials will be held accountable if any wrongdoing is found.

The EPA on Thursday issued an emergency order requiring Michigan and the city of Flint to take immediate steps after determining that their response to the crisis had been "inadequate to protect human health."

Under the direction of a state-appointed emergency manager, Flint, a working class mostly African-American city of 100,000 north of Detroit, switched water supplies to the Flint River in 2014, to save money. The river is known locally as a dumping ground.

The more corrosive river water, which was not treated, caused more lead to leach from the city's aging water pipes than the Detroit water the city had tapped previously.

Complaints about the water began within a month of the change, but officials did not take steps to remedy the situation until October 2015 after tests showed elevated levels of lead in some tap water in the city and in some children. Lead is a neurotoxin that can damage brains and cause other health problems.

The city switched back to Detroit water in mid October, but the contamination continued.

The Flint crisis pushed EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on Thursday to issue a new policy to elevate any issues that appear to be a substantial threat to public health, or that "other authorities appear to be unable to address."

"Our strength can become a weakness if we interpret our responsibility as ending with simple technical compliance," McCarthy said in a memo to all EPA staff.

The EPA's inspector general agreed to evaluate the Midwest office's public water system supervision program and its implementation of its state oversight.

Representative Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said "The EPA is rife with incompetence and Region 5 is no exception. Mismanagement has plagued the region for far too long and Ms. Hedman’s resignation is way overdue."

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, noting that the Justice Department was investigating the contamination of Flint's water supply, told reporters that Obama will make sure that EPA officials are held responsible for any errors that may be uncovered.

By the end of next week, Michigan would have access to $80 million for water infrastructure funding agreed to in last month's bipartisan budget, Obama told a group of mayors at the White House.

GOV. SNYDER TO BE INVITED TO TESTIFY

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and other officials will be called to testify next month to a congressional panel. U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence, a Democrat, requested a Feb. 3 hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week, said spokeswoman Tracy Manzer. The invitation will be specifically for the governor and he cannot send a representative on his behalf, Manzer said.

However, Republicans on the committee said nothing about the hearing was set in stone and it was not yet on the committee's website calendar. Details being discussed about a hearing on Flint "are entirely premature," said a spokesman for Republicans on the committee who did not want to be named. "There are no confirmed details at this time, particularly with respect to a date or witness invitations,” the spokesman said.

Dan Wyant, former director of Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality, are among the other invitees. Wyant resigned in December over the growing crisis in Flint.

The hearing will "identify precisely what went wrong in the process and to ensure that those who were responsible are to be held accountable and that this never happens again," Manzer said.

Snyder, a Republican, has rejected calls from critics for his resignation over the crisis. He asked the Michigan state legislature this week to approve $28 million to assist Flint and said there would be additional funding requests. The Michigan House approved the funding unanimously on Wednesday and the bill was in the Senate on Thursday.

In recent weeks, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services also has said that it has seen an increase in Legionnaires' disease cases in the county that includes Flint covering the period in which the river water was the primary source. It could not conclude if the cases were related to the water switch. A report released on Thursday found 87 Legionnaires' cases in the county from June 2014 through October, including nine deaths.

(Reporting Timothy Gardner, David Shepardson, Ayesha Rascoe and Roberta Rampton in Washington, Fiona Ortiz in Chicago and David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Frances Kerry and Bernard Orr)

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U.S. appeals court declines to block Obama carbon emissions plan | Reuters

WASHINGTON In a big victory for the Obama administration, a U.S. federal court on Thursday rejected a bid by 27 states to block its Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of its strategy to combat climate change by reducing carbon emissions from power plants.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a brief order denying an application seeking to stay the rule while litigation continues.

The states, led by West Virginia, and several major business groups in October launched the legal challenges seeking to block the Obama administration's proposal to curb carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

More than a dozen other states and the National League of Cities, which represents more than 19,000 U.S. cities, filed court papers backing the Environmental Protection Agency's rule.

The rule aims to lower carbon emissions from the country's power plants by 2030 to 32 percent below 2005 levels. It is the main tool for the United States to meet the emissions reduction target it pledged at U.N. climate talks in Paris last month.

For President Barack Obama, executing his climate change strategy would be a legacy-defining accomplishment.

"We are confident that the plan will reduce carbon pollution and deliver better air quality, improved public health, and jobs across the country," the White House said in a statement on Thursday.

The court action means the regulation remains in place but it is not the final word in the legal fight. The appeals court still has to hear oral arguments on June 2 and decide whether the regulation is lawful.

The decision by the court to deny the stay is a "good sign" for the EPA when it argues the merits of its case this summer, said David Doniger of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"Most of the time it's a pretty good hand, but I wouldn't overplay it yet," he told Reuters. "We will have to duke it out on the merits of the case now."

West Virginia's Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who led the multi-state challenge, said he is confident their challenge will succeed when the court decides the case on its merits.

He said West Virginia and other states will consider asking the Supreme Court to take a "second look" at whether to freeze the regulation.

Many states, even those that have sued the EPA over the Clean Power Plan, have started to work on plans to comply with the regulation. Their plans are due for EPA approval in September.

Jonathan Adler, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said states are "more likely to fall into line" and try to comply with the rule now that the stay has been denied.

It would have been a “significant setback” for the government if the challengers’ request had been granted, he added.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Will Dunham and Cynthia Osterman)

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Fix the roads, California Governor Brown tells lawmakers | Reuters

SACRAMENTO, Calif. California Governor Jerry Brown urged continued fiscal restraint amid the state's economic expansion but hinted broadly that new fees would be needed to pay for repairs of deteriorating roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

Improvements in the state's financial health and a weather pattern that is helping to ease four years of catastrophic drought put California on a stronger footing as Brown addressed the legislature for his 14th State of the State address on Thursday.

"We have to bite the bullet," said Brown, who last summer pushed unsuccessfully for new fees to help pay long-neglected repairs to the state's transportation infrastructure. Roads and bridges make up the bulk of an estimated $77 billion in delayed repairs to public property, he said, and, "One way or another the roads must be fixed."

Brown, who served two terms as governor from 1975 to 1983 before returning to California's top job in 2011, also called on Republicans to agree to proposed changes in a tax on some health insurers, with proceeds to help pay for healthcare for the poorest Californians.

Brown cited his administration's support for California's new $10 minimum wage, saying the January hike, combined with a tax credit for the working poor, will ease income inequality.

Brown has been tight-fisted since returning to office in 2011, reining in the state's liberal Democratic majority lawmakers to build a rainy day fund and hold down expenses after facing down a $27 billion budget deficit.

He is widely credited with stabilizing the state's finances, in large part by urging voters in 2012 to approve a temporary tax increase that allowed the state to cover its budget gap and restore some social services.

Earlier this month, Brown proposed a budget plan for fiscal year 2016-2017 that included a $2 billion payment to the state's rainy day fund and called for increases in spending on education, transportation infrastructure, as well as a modest increase in aid for the disabled.

But the fiscal moderate has held the line on committing more funds to such programs in the absence of new revenue streams for the state. He is hesitant to call for new taxes on income or sales after supporting a temporary tax three years ago, but has supported other fees, such as a road usage tax or an increase in the tax on gasoline.

Senate Republican leader Jean Fuller of Bakersfield said her caucus would work with Brown on infrastructure repairs, but opposes enacting new fees.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Bill Trott and Tom Brown)

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Atlantic City, N.J., to hold emergency meeting to discuss bankruptcy | Reuters

Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian on Thursday called an emergency City Council meeting next week to discuss whether the distressed New Jersey gambling hub should file for municipal bankruptcy.

Governor Chris Christie's veto on Tuesday of legislation that aimed to stabilize the city's tax base and boost its cash flow left the city with "no other option but to explore bankruptcy," Guardian said in a statement.

State lawmakers have been pushing for a full takeover of city operations, saying local officials have not done enough to cut costs. Only city officials can file for bankruptcy, but the state, which already oversees the city's finances, must ultimately approve it.

(Reporting by Hilary Russ in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler)

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Davos elite alarmed at prospect of nominee Trump | Reuters

DAVOS, Switzerland "Unbelievable", "embarrassing" even "dangerous" are some of the words the financial elite gathered at the World Economic Forum conference in the Swiss resort of Davos have been using to describe U.S. Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.

Although some said they still expected his campaign to founder before his party picks its nominee for the November election many said it was no longer unthinkable that he could be the Republican candidate.

Some noted that whatever the outcome, a heated campaign, which has also seen self-proclaimed Socialist Bernie Sanders provide a tough challenge to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, could alter the U.S. political environment, giving vent to new populist anger on both sides of the political divide.

Trump's nationalist rhetoric, particularly proposals to ban Muslims from entering the United States, tax goods made abroad and build a wall on the Mexican border, were never the sort of thing to appeal to the free trade crowd that typically gathers at events like the annual Davos economic forum.

“Clearly it is not a rhetoric that is inviting for integration," said Chile's Finance Minister, Rodrigo Valdes, referring to his comments on the campaign trail.

"In Chile we have a deep view that integration of the Americas is a good thing, whether it is goods, financing and yes people. So I’d be happier with a more welcoming rhetoric."

Among the present and former government officials in the Swiss resort was Eric Cantor, former Republican majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, now vice-chairman of Moelis & Co, an investment bank. Like much of the Republican party's establishment, he had cold words for Trump.

"He's not serious. He's amazing at promoting his personal brand and reflecting an underlying anger at home," Cantor said.

"Trump Fever is an unsustainable phenomenon that will not translate into a victory for the candidate."

But for Ray Nolte, chief investment officer of Skybridge Capital, a $13 billion hedge fund whose founder has supported other Republican candidates including Jeb Bush, such establishment pronouncements sound like wishful thinking.

“Is Donald going to be the nominee? I don’t know. It’s sure looking that way now," Nolte said. "Anyone here (at Davos) who is in the mainstream says there is no way he could possibly get the nomination. When I hear that, it probably means it is going to happen."

Noting the challenge to Clinton from Sanders, which he said could pull her to the left on issues like financial regulation, Nolte said institutional investors were already paying attention to the prospect of increased U.S. political volatility from the election.

MAINSTREAMING

Arianna Huffington, whose Huffington Post news website once insisted on covering Trump, a former reality TV star, as an entertainment figure rather than a politician, said the site reversed its policy once he announced his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, which made him too "dangerous" to ignore.

"I feel the mainstreaming of Donald Trump, instead of him being treated as an extreme, dangerous candidate, is really the most troubling aspect of American politics right now," she said.

"He’s being interviewed on all the main shows, and he’s being asked questions about what his first State of the Union address would be like if he wins, instead of actually being forced to answer the tough questions about his policy, especially his policy of wanting to ban Muslims from entering the U.S., which is so dangerous, so un-American and should really be the center of the coverage of Trump."

For Dominic Barton, global managing director for business consultancy McKinsey, Trump has turned the political campaign itself into "entertainment", which could hurt the global image of the United States.

"It’s a bit embarrassing globally. But I think there’s a big difference between the rhetoric and the reality, and I think most people will see that and discount it. But it’s incredible how long its been going for. It’s just unbelievable,” he said.

But not everyone is worried. Sandeep Dadlani, executive vice president of Indian outsourcing firm Infosys, said his firm has earned the majority of its revenue in the United States for more than 30 years.

"We have seen many elections come and go. It is common in all election seasons for rhetoric and extreme personalities to shine. Inevitably we have found governments from both sides to eventually come up with sensible policies," he said.

(Reporting by Martinne Geller, Carmel Crimmins, Noah Barkin and others; Writing by Peter Graff; editing by Anna Willard)

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U.S. tightens visa waiver rules for visitors after Paris attacks | Reuters

WASHINGTON The United States on Thursday began implementing restrictions to its Visa Waiver Program under a law passed after last year's Paris attacks that makes it harder for citizens of some countries to visit.

Several of the Islamic State attackers who killed 130 people in France held European passports that would have allowed them to easily enter the United States under the former system.

Citizens of the 38, mainly European, countries in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP), who were previously able to travel to the United States for up to 90 days without a visa, must now obtain one if they have visited Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Syria since March 1, 2011.

They must also obtain a visa if they are dual Iranian, Iraqi, Sudanese or Syrian nationals, the U.S. State Department said.

Citizens from the 38 nations are required to obtain a travel authorization through the so-called Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) before coming to the United States.

The State Department said that as of Thursday it would revoke the ESTA travel authorizations held by citizens from the 38 Visa Waiver Program countries if they are dual Iranian, Iraqi, Sudanese or Syrian citizens.

However, it noted that under the new law the U.S. secretary of homeland security has the authority to issue waivers to the restrictions on law enforcement or national security grounds.

People who could be eligible for a waiver include those who visited Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria on behalf of international organizations or humanitarian groups, or journalists who carried out reporting in the four countries.

They may also include people who traveled for legitimate business reasons to Iraq or to Iran following the July 14, 2015 nuclear agreement.

The Visa Waiver Program nations are Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and United Kingdom.

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Lisa Shumaker)

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Drug exec Shkreli, lawmakers clash ahead of congressional hearing | Reuters

NEW YORK Former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli was on a collision course with Congress on Thursday as lawmakers warned he could be prosecuted for contempt if he does not appear next week for a hearing about drug prices.

A lawyer for Shkreli informed the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of his intent not to answer questions and asked that he be excused from appearing, committee chairman Jason Chaffetz wrote in the letter dated Wednesday.

The plan to remain silent contrasts with Shkreli's prolific use of social media, where he has been outspoken on Twitter and livestream video even after his indictment last month on criminal charges of securities fraud.

The Oversight Committee subpoenaed Shkreli to appear on Tuesday to discuss his decision as chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals to raise the price of a life-saving medicine, Daraprim, by more than 5,000 percent.

Shkreli, 32, has said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. On Twitter, he told followers it was "disgusting and insulting" for lawmakers to try to subvert that right.

The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says that no person shall be compelled in any criminal case "to be a witness against himself."

The dispute appeared likely to end in one of two ways: with Shkreli appearing in Washington on Tuesday to invoke that right, or with Shkreli staying home in New York, prompting the committee to vote to hold him in contempt and setting off a potential criminal prosecution.

Shkreli resigned as chief executive officer of Turing last month after his arrest on the fraud charges. Turing had acquired Daraprim, a 62-year-old drug, and caused a public furor when it drastically increased the price.

Fights over congressional testimony are common, especially when potential witnesses are facing criminal prosecution and their testimony could later be used against them.

Some well-known witnesses, such as former IRS official Lois Lerner and former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, refused to answer questions from Congress but were required to appear in person in front of lawmakers and cameras before invoking that right.

It was unclear on Thursday whether Shkreli would make the trip to do the same. His release on bond restricts him to certain parts of New York state, and he is required to ask a judge for a waiver to travel.

One of Shkreli's lawyers has informed the Oversight Committee that Shkreli has taken no steps to seek a travel waiver, said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the committee's top Democrat.

"If he plans on trying to use his own intentional inaction as some kind of bogus excuse for not showing up at Tuesday's hearing, people will see right through such a juvenile tactic," Cummings said in a statement on Thursday.

Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, warned in his letter to Shkreli defense attorney Baruch Weiss that Shkreli could face criminal prosecution for contempt if he fails to appear.

"Mr. Shkreli is uniquely qualified to answer questions about rising prescription drug prices," Chaffetz wrote.

The threat of prosecution is more than theoretical. In 1952, mobster Frank Costello was convicted of contempt of Congress for failing to appear as a witness when he said he had laryngitis.

Chaffetz in his letter held out the possibility of a compromise, writing that the committee may agree to hear testimony in a non-public session or to immunize the testimony so that it could not be used in the criminal prosecution. Immunizing the testimony, though, would require the support of two-thirds of the committee.

Complicating the dispute is Shkreli's decision this week to seek new lawyers, replacing a team from the law firm Arnold & Porter with others still to be named.

The criminal charges against Shkreli stem from his prior management of hedge fund MSMB Capital Management and biopharmaceutical company Retrophin Inc (RTRX.O).

Prosecutors said Shkreli engaged in a Ponzi-like scheme, defrauding hedge fund investors and then misappropriating $11 million in assets from Retrophin to repay them.

Shkreli, who was also until recently chief executive of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc KBIOQ.PK has pleaded not guilty, and on Twitter has called the allegations "baseless and without merit."

(Reporting by Nate Raymond and David Ingram; editing by Andrew Hay, Jeffrey Benkoe, Noeleen Walder and Bernard Orr)

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Michigan governor will be called to congressional hearing on Flint water crisis | Reuters

CHICAGO Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and other officials will be called to testify next month to a congressional panel about the crisis over lead-contaminated water in the city of Flint, a congressional office said on Thursday.

U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence, a Democrat, requested the Feb. 3 hearing of the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week, said her communications director, Tracy Manzer. The invitation will be specifically for the governor and he cannot send a representative on his behalf, Manzer said.

Susan Hedman, administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency's Region 5 office in Chicago, and Dan Wyant, former director of Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality, are among the other invitees. Wyant resigned in December over the growing crisis in Flint.

Flint, a financially strapped city north of Detroit, switched water supplies in 2014 to save money. Complaints about the water began within a month of the change, but officials did not take steps to remedy the situation until October 2015 after tests showed elevated levels of lead in some tap water in the city and in some children.

"The purpose of the hearing is to identify precisely what went wrong in the process and to ensure that those who were responsible are to be held accountable and that this never happens again," Manzer said.

Snyder, a Republican, has rejected calls from critics for his resignation over the crisis. He asked the Michigan state legislature this week to approve $28 million to assist Flint and said there would be additional funding requests. The Michigan House approved the funding unanimously on Wednesday and the bill was in the Senate on Thursday.

The U.S. House committee can subpoena people to appear before it if they do not respond to invitations.

(Story corrects headline and paragraphs 1, 2 to show governor will be called to testify but has not been called yet. Representative Lawrence's spokeswoman corrected what she previously said.)

(Reporting by Fiona Ortiz in Chicago and Timothy Gardner in Washington; Editing by Frances Kerry)

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Science News

- Researchers find possible ninth planet beyond Neptune

- State of play of Virtual Reality

- From sawdust to petrol

- U.S. agencies say 2015 was hottest on record, shatters records

- Prehistoric massacre in Kenya called oldest evidence of warfare

- Russian space agency scales back plans as crisis shrinks budget

- India launches satellite, moves closer to its own GPS

- Transgenic mosquito ready to join Brazil's war on Zika virus

- Biodegradable bodies for more eco-friendly robots

- SpaceX narrowly missed Falcon 9 rocket landing, video shows

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Researchers find possible ninth planet beyond Neptune | Reuters

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The solar system may host a ninth planet that is about 10 times bigger than Earth and orbiting far beyond Neptune, according to research published on Wednesday.

Computer simulations show that the mystery planet, if it exists, would orbit between about 200 and 1,000 times farther from the sun than Earth, astronomers with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena said.

So far, the planet has not been observed directly.

"It's a pretty substantial chunk of our solar system that's still out there to be found, which is pretty exciting,” said astronomer Mike Brown, whose discovery was published in this week’s Astronomical Journal.

Brown and astronomer Konstantin Batygin, also at Caltech, initially were skeptical that such a large planet would have eluded detection.

But they modeled the hypothetical planet’s gravitational effects on several known bodies in the region and found a near-perfect match.

The computer model also predicted the location of other objects beyond Neptune, in a region known as the Kuiper Belt, and those were found in archived surveys as well.

At that point, "my jaw sort of hit the floor," Brown said in a statement.

Brown's earlier research helped to demote Pluto in 2006 as the solar system’s ninth planet after other small, icy bodies were found beyond Neptune.

“All those people who are mad that Pluto is no longer a planet can be thrilled to know that there is a real planet out there still to be found," Brown said.

(This version of the story corrects orbit distance mentioned in the 2nd paragrah to 50 times farther from the sun, not 20 times)

(Reporting by Irene Klotz; editing by Bill Trott, Letitia Stein and Dan Grebler)

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State of play of Virtual Reality | Reuters

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA Valkyrie, a new action-packed space adventure developed by game company CCP, was designed to harness the latest in virtual reality technology. A VR headset is the best way to appreciate the truly immersive nature of the game. Two dimensional renderings do little justice to the 3D version - or the hardware used to play it.

That sums up the problem with virtual reality - it's hard to sell 3D in a 2D world.

"Today we use devices like smartphones and tablets. Tomorrow we want to change the dynamic around immersive, advanced, virtual reality," said JP Nauseef, the founder of Krush technologies, a company starting to develop virtual reality hardware.

Major advances in virtual reality are starting to take shape. Tech giants like Google, Facebook and Samsung are just some of the players heavily investing in VR. Cheaper, more sophisticated, headsets are coming to market every year.

At the same time, futuristic hardware like Moveo, a concept simulator developed by Krush, are expanding the scope of possibilities for virtual reality.

But according to Halsey Minor, founder of CNET networks and several other tech enterprises, accelerating growth in VR must be content driven.

"I think the biggest opportunities in VR are around the biggest opportunities in television and that requires the ability to do live streaming VR, which today has been a very difficult thing because of the technology involved," said Minor, who is heading up Reality Lab, a start-up focused on bringing VR into the mainstream.

Minor recently unveiled the Quantum Leap VR system, a device that starts paving the way towards a future where people will be able to experience live sporting events and concerts in virtual reality.

"It's 16 HD cameras all running at the same time and out of those 50 gigabytes of information, a huge amount of information, we have to craft to perfect 360 degree spheres for each eye and then transport that over the Internet," Minor added.

He predicts that just like the Internet is supplanting newspapers, VR will have the same effect on television.

"The most interesting thing that we are going to find out in 2016 is how fertile is the market right now. Are we going to sell 10 million of these? Are we going to send a million of these? But I think that is going to tell us what our trajectory is because where you start is going to determine how fast you grow," he said.

No matter the pace, Minor says immersive technology will increasingly turn the virtual world into our everyday reality.

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From sawdust to petrol | Reuters

As world governments mull over global emission targets agreed at last December's United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21), attention is turning to which new technologies can help them achieve this.

Researchers at the University of Leuven say they have part of the answer, having devised a way to convert sawdust into valuable chemicals and the building blocks for gasoline. By developing a unique chemical process in their laboratory at the Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis, outside Brussels, they can convert the lignin in sawdust into aromatic chemicals and the cellulose into hydrocarbon chains.

The hydrocarbons can be used either as an additive in gasoline or as a component in plastics.

Cellulose is the main substance in plant matter, present in all non-edible plant parts of wood, straw, grass, cotton and old paper, and containing strong carbon chains. Researcher Beau Op de Beeck developed a new method to derive these hydrocarbon chains from cellulose, while removing the oxygen inside, deemed undesirable in gasoline.

The university has a patent pending for its new type of bio-refining and built a unique chemical reactor.

Researcher Sander Van Den Bosch told Reuters that wood has three main components - lignin and two carbohydrate fractions, cellulose and hemicellulose. The cellulose is the key ingredient of these for making gasoline, but the lignin can also be converted into valuable chemicals for plastics or medicines.

"We add wood to a reactor and then we also need a catalyst, which is a specific material that will do the chemical reactions in the wood so it will selectively depolymerize our lignin material into chemicals; and then last but not least we also need solvent to extract the lignin out of the solid material and there we can use water for or also various kinds of bio-derived alcohols," Van Den Bosch said.

He added: "There are now already processes on a large scale that use the carbohydrates, such as the production of paper or the production of bioethanol, but lignin is still undervalued, so most of the times it's just burnt for energy. What we invented in our process now is the simultaneous extraction of the lignin from the carbohydrates in the wood and also at the same time we convert the lignin very selectively into chemicals."

Then it takes about 12 hours to convert the remaining cellulose in the wood shavings into saturated hydrocarbon chains, say the team, leaving one simple step to becoming fully-distilled gasoline.

Colleague Wouter Schutyser said woods from birch, poplar, and conifer trees work particularly well, and that by converting waste woods the environmental impact is minimized.

"What's really interesting is that we can also convert waste woods...used for construction, for furniture," said Schuyser. "These contain not only just wood, but also contain paints and other stuff, so we try to convert this, which is used as a low value energy source at the moment and we try to make high value chemicals and fuels from it."

The team has produced gasoline that could power a vehicle on its own, but say that in the short and medium term it would be best used as an additive in petroleum to help reduce impending CO2 emissions.

According to researcher Aron Deneyer, "we get the identical structures as we have from crude oil, so we have a very interesting fuel that we can use immediately but we think it's better to use it as an additive because in the short term you have a lot of targets we get from the European Union and from different governments to tackle problems like climate change and things like that. So we can tackle it by adding some percent(age), small percentage - five percent or something - into gasoline."

Deneyer told Reuters the CO2 produced by their biomass-produced gasoline was less problematic for the atmosphere than that produced by petrochemicals.

"When we produce our light naphta we burn it in our car and we get some CO2, but this CO2 can be used to build new biomass and so we have a very short cycle, while crude oil will last a very long cycle to replace the crude oil," Deneyer said.

The researchers reported their findings in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

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U.S. agencies say 2015 was hottest on record, shatters records | Reuters

WASHINGTON Last year’s global average temperature was the hottest ever by the widest margin on record, two U.S. government agencies said on Wednesday, adding to pressure for deep greenhouse gas emissions cuts scientists say are needed to arrest warming that is disrupting the global climate.

Data from the U.S. space agency NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed that in 2015 the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.90 Celsius) above the 20th century average, surpassing 2014’s previous record by 0.29 F (0.16 C).

Scientists at the United Kingdom's Met Office and East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit also published data on Wednesday confirming the U.S. agencies findings.

This was the fourth time a global temperature record has been set this century, the agencies said in a summary of their annual report.

“2015 was remarkable even in the context of the larger, long-term warming trend,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The sharp increase in 2015 was driven in part by El Niño, a natural weather cycle in the Pacific that warms the ocean surface every two to seven years. But scientists say human activities – notably burning fossil fuels - were the main driver behind the rise.

"The 2015 data continues the pattern we’ve seen over the last four to five decades," said Thomas Karl, director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

The latest El Niño started in late 2015 and will last until spring 2016. It is among the strongest ever recorded but Schmidt and others say the weather phenomenon played just a supporting role in the earth's temperature rise.

MORE THAN HALFWAY TO U.N. TARGET

The 2015 data underscores the urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions if the world is to hold temperature increases to well below 2 degrees C, the target agreed to by more than 190 countries at climate talks in Paris last December, scientists said.

With the global mean surface temperature in 2015 more than 1 degree C above late-19th century levels, the world is now halfway to the U.N. target, which would require stronger greenhouse gas emissions cuts.

"This announcement should put pressure on governments to urgently implement their commitments to act against climate change, and to increase the strength of their planned cuts in annual emissions of greenhouse gases," said Bob Ward, policy director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in London.

In the United States, some Republican lawmaker and those skeptical of human-caused climate change have pointed to a slowdown in temperature rise after the last powerful El Niño in 1998 as a sign that climate change is not a serious problem.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said in December at a hearing on climate change science that there had been no significant global warming for the past 18 years.

NOAA's Karl said that with two back-to-back years of record warming, likely to be followed with a third next year, any doubts that have been raised by skeptical lawmakers about a pause in global warming can be put to rest.

"There is no sign of a pause and slowing," Karl told reporters Wednesday, adding that it is a safe bet that 2016 will break the 2015 record given the long-term trend and the impact of El Niño in the first quarter of the year.

(Reporting By Valerie Volcovici; Additional reporting by Alister Doyle in Oslo; Editing by Bill Trott)

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Prehistoric massacre in Kenya called oldest evidence of warfare | Reuters

WASHINGTON Man's inhumanity to man, as 18th century Scottish poet Robert Burns put it, is no recent development.

Scientists said on Wednesday they had found the oldest evidence of human warfare, fossils of a band of people massacred by a troop of attackers with weapons including arrows, clubs and stone blades on the shores of a lagoon in Kenya about 10,000 years ago.

The remains of 27 people from a Stone Age hunter-gatherer culture were unearthed at a site called Nataruk roughly 20 miles (30 km) west of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya.

One man's skeleton was found with a sharp blade made of a volcanic glass called obsidian still embedded in his skull. Another man had wounds from two blows to the head apparently with a club, crushing his skull. A woman in the last stages of pregnancy appeared to have been bound by her hands and feet.

Victims also had projectile wounds to the neck and broken skulls, hands, knees and ribs.

University of Cambridge paleoanthropologist Marta Mirazón Lahr said evidence indicates these people, who hunted animals, caught fish and gathered edible plants, were slain in a premeditated attack by raiders, perhaps from another region.

"It is a brutal, physical, lethal attack with the intention to kill those individuals who could put up a defense or mount a counter-attack, or who perhaps were of no use to them, whether it was a man or a very pregnant woman, too young or too old," Mirazón Lahr.

Our species arose 200,000 years ago in Africa. Many scholars had thought warfare first emerged long after the time of the Nataruk people when humans formed settled communities instead of a nomadic, hunter-gatherer existence.

The Nataruk fossils "raise the question of whether warfare has been part of the human experience for much longer than previously thought," Mirazón Lahr added.

A planned attack would suggest that resources the Nataruk people possessed, perhaps water, dried meat or fish, nuts or even women and children, were considered valuable, she said.

There were remains of 21 adults and six children, most under age 6. There were no older teenagers. "Whether they managed to escape, or were taken, we will never know," she said.

"At the end, all massacres are savage," Mirazón Lahr said. "How many examples do we have from our very recent, and current, history? But finding the remains of a massacre among the skeletons of hunter-gatherers of this period was totally surprising."

The research appeared in the journal Nature.

(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Russian space agency scales back plans as crisis shrinks budget | Reuters

MOSCOW Russia will spend 30 percent less on its space program in the next decade and scale back a slew of projects to save money in the face of tanking oil prices and a falling rouble, a plan presented by the country's space agency showed on Wednesday,

According to the blueprint, presented to Russian media by Igor Komarov, head of space agency Roscosmos, the space program budget for 2016-2025 will be cut to 1.4 trillion roubles ($17.36 billion), down from 2 trillion roubles.

That means plans to launch a manned flight to the moon will be pushed back five years - to 2035 from 2030 - and that development of a reusable space rocket meant to be built by 2025 will, for now, be abandoned.

"Russia is certain to implement this project, but at the moment the launch of a booster rocket with a reusable first stage is not economically viable," local media cited Komarov as saying. He did not elaborate.

A Roscosmos spokesman told Reuters the agency would return to the matter after 2025.

Russia's Cold War-era rival, the United States, has already successfully tested similar vehicles. Re-using the first stages of rockets, designed to return to Earth after launch, would make commercial rocket launches cheaper.

A new cosmodrome currently under construction in the country's Far East will also suffer under the slimmed down program. It will now get only one launch pad instead of the two originally planned.

The government is due to sign off on the new space program in March. It is unclear whether it could demand more cuts before then.

Heavily dependent on oil revenues, Russia has been forced to scale back spending plans across a range of sectors as it tries to navigate an economic crisis compounded by a weakening rouble and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.

The rouble hit a record low on Wednesday.

President Vladimir Putin has spoken many times of rekindling Soviet-era space glory. The USSR launched the first artificial "Sputnik" satellite in 1957, sent the first man into space in 1961, and conducted the first-ever space walk in 1965.

But the United States made six manned landings on the moon between 1969 and 1972, while the Soviet-built N-1 heavy rocket, designed to take cosmonauts to the moon, failed to make a single successful flight.

(Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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India launches satellite, moves closer to its own GPS | Reuters

NEW DELHI India successfully launched the fifth of a constellation of navigation satellites on Wednesday, as part of a programme that will reduce dependency on the United States' Global Positioning System (GPS) and other networks.

India's plan is to have seven satellites that will provide navigational information over the country and upto 1,500 kilometres (932.06 miles) around the mainland, Indian Space Research Organisation said.

The American GPS, Russia's Glonass and Europe's Galileo have dozens of satellites to provide information across the globe. China is also building its own global positioning system, known as Beidou or COMPASS.

The satellite IRNSS-1E was launched into orbit by a locally developed spacecraft from the Sriharikota space centre in southern India. Over the next few days, scientists will carry orbital manoeuvres to place the satellite into a geosynchronous orbit, ISRO said in a statement.

Two more satellites are planned to be launched over the next several months, it said. India's regional navigation system will provide open navigational information to all users but also restricted services to the military.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the scientists for their determination in setting up a home-grown navigational system. "Our scientists keep making us proud," he said in a Twitter post.

(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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Transgenic mosquito ready to join Brazil's war on Zika virus | Reuters

BRASILIA A genetically modified mosquito has helped reduce the proliferation of mosquitoes spreading Zika and other dangerous viruses in Brazil, its developers said on Tuesday.

The self-limiting strain of the Aedes aegypti mosquito was developed by Oxitec, the UK-subsidiary of U.S. synthetic biology company Intrexon. The male mosquitoes are modified so their offspring will die before reaching adulthood and being able to reproduce.

Oxitec, which produces the mosquitoes in Campinas, announced it will build a second facility in nearby Piracicaba, Sao Paulo state, following strong results there in controlling the population of the Aedes vector that also carries the dengue virus.

Zika virus, first detected in Africa in the 1940's, was unknown in the Americas until last year when it appeared in northeastern Brazil. The virus has quickly spread through Latin America.

Brazilian health authorities have linked the Zika outbreak to a surge in the number of babies born with unusually small heads, a damaging neurological condition called microcephaly.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel advisory last week warning pregnant women to avoid 14 countries and territories in the Caribbean and Latin America affected by the virus.

With Brazil's rainy season underway, authorities are scrambling to fight the seasonal surge in mosquito populations.

Two weeks ahead of Carnival celebrations, a highlight of Brazil's tourism calendar, officials want to stem international concern about the virus. They also want to reassure travelers who plan to attend the opening ceremonies of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which causes mild fever and rash.

Oxitec said its proprietary OX513A mosquito succeeded in reducing wild larvae of the Aedes mosquito by 82 percent in a neighborhood of Piracicaba, where 25 million of the transgenic insects were released between April and November. Authorities reported a big drop in dengue cases in the area.

"This is a powerful and versatile tool that can dramatically reduce the levels of infestation, which is the core of Brazil's prevention strategy right now," said Oxitec business development director in Brazil, Glen Slade.

The transgenic mosquito know as OX513A was approved by Brazil's National Technical Commission for Biosafety (CTNBio), but needs authorization from health surveillance regulator Anvisa to move to commercial production.

Oxitec began as a spin-off from Oxford University and was acquired in September by Intrexon, which has provided resources to invest in an expansion to fight the mosquito causing Brazil's public health emergency, Slade said.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by David Gregorio)

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Biodegradable bodies for more eco-friendly robots | Reuters

Scientists from the Italian Institute of Technology are developing 'smart materials' that could lead to robots that will decompose like a human body once they've reached the end of their life-span.

STORY: Robots are getting ever more life-like, but underneath their synthetic skin it's a different story. Their insides are still made mostly from metal and plastic - materials that are hard to dispose of. But researchers in Italy are developing 'smart materials' that could allow robots to be built from substances that will biodegrade when they've reached the end of their life-span.

By merging separate distinct materials at the nano level the scientists are creating new and novel materials that preserve the properties of the individual components, but exhibit characteristics that would not be possible individually.

"We are infusing any material with nano technology. So what we are doing apart from making these new composite materials - smart materials - we're also using them to change the properties of other materials, other existing materials like paper or cotton or different foams; from synthetic foams like polyurethane or forms of cotton. So like this, in all these existing materials we are giving new properties that these materials don't have so we can open up their application range," explained Athanassia Athanassiou, who leads the Smart Materials Group at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genoa.

The researchers say their 'smart materials' could eventually replace conventional plastic which is made from petroleum, a fossil fuel, and contributes to climate change. Bioplastics are made from plant material, but are more energy-intensive to produce. Athanassiou's team have developed a way to create bioplastic from food waste, and so hope to mitigate the additional energy required by using resources that would normally go to waste.

In particular, robotics could be an important application for their research, according to Athanassiou.

"These biodegradable materials, natural materials, they are very flexible so they can be used for robotic skins. But they can be also very hard so they can be used for internal parts of a robot. And also, in this flexible skin - robotic skin let's say - we can incorporate sensors so they have this tactile sensing that the robots need, but with biodegradable materials," Athanassiou told Reuters.

Nikos Tsagarakis, lead researcher on a humanoid robot project at the IIT, said that roboticists will have to move on from metal in order to build the next generation of robot.

"The main issue is it's actually difficult to see how you can achieve the properties that you want to have; say matching more the properties of the human body. So going to alternative materials would be this advantage - it will help us to make lighter robots, more efficient and, finally, also recyclable," said Tsagarakis, who is developing the Walk-Man humanoid robot to operate human tools and interact with its environment in the same way a person would.

Robots made from biodegradable material would certainly make them more human-like, and perhaps more easily accepted in the real-world. And if robots are to ever be truly ubiquitous, they also need to be easily disposed of once they reach the end of their useful life-span.

While Athanassiou believes biodegradable materials are imminent for the skin-like outer layer, she believes eventually the entire robot body could decompose just as if it was flesh and blood.

"I believe that the starting point would be to make part of the robot, like the outer part of the robot for example, with this biodegradable material. But, in a few year's time, I find it very feasible that all the robot can be biodegradable," she said.

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SpaceX narrowly missed Falcon 9 rocket landing, video shows | Reuters

MIAMI - The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that exploded into a fiery ball just after landing at sea off California on Sunday had descended with pinpoint accuracy onto an ocean barge before a landing leg buckled, causing the booster to tip over, a landing video showed.

Heavy fog at the rocket’s launch site in California may have caused condensation to collect in the latching mechanism and then ice it over, said technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, owner and chief executive of Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX.

SpaceX is seeking to develop a cheap, reusable rocket and a successful ocean landing would have marked a second milestone for the company, a month after it nailed a spaceflight first with a successful ground landing in Florida.

Musk posted the landing video on Instagram late on Sunday. The Falcon 9 blasted off earlier in the day from Vandenberg Air Force Base to put the U.S- and European-owned Jason 3 climate-monitoring satellite into orbit.

The feat of having made the landing on the tiny platform won accolades from fellow tech entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com Inc chief executive whose Blue Origin space company is pursuing similar technology.

"SpaceX will soon make Falcon 9 landings routine," Bezos posted on Twitter. "Kudos SpaceX!"

Blue Origin landed a suborbital rocket during a November 2015 test flight.

SpaceX’s landing attempt on Sunday was the third time the privately owned firm had tried to recover a rocket on an ocean platform.

"At least the pieces were bigger this time," Musk said on Twitter. "Am optimistic about upcoming ship landing."

Last month, a Falcon 9 booster touched down on a landing pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida after dispatching 11 small communications satellites into orbit.

SpaceX wants to be able to land rockets on ocean platforms as well as on the ground to accommodate a wide variety of space missions. It has more than 60 launches on its schedule, worth more than $8 billion.

(Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Frances Kerry)

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Environment News

- Exclusive: California gas leak spotlights shoddy regulation of aging storage wells

- Powerful snowstorm threatens U.S. East Coast; flights canceled

- EPA official resigns over Flint water crisis

- U.S. appeals court declines to block Obama carbon emissions plan

- U.S. to tackle oil and gas methane waste on public lands -sources

- When snow blows, Washington, D.C., cannot seem to cope

- Sarah the cheetah, world's fastest land mammal, dies in Ohio zoo

- Michigan governor will be called to congressional hearing on Flint water crisis

- Monsanto sues to keep herbicide off California list of carcinogens

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Exclusive: California gas leak spotlights shoddy regulation of aging storage wells | Reuters

Long before a natural gas storage well sprung a disastrous leak near Los Angeles, California, utilities and national industry groups were raising alarms about the danger of aging underground storage infrastructure.

The leaking well’s owner, Southern California Gas Co, warned state utility regulators in 2014 of “major failures” without a rate hike to pay for comprehensive inspections of 229 storage wells.

Twenty-six of its wells were “high risk” and should be abandoned - even though they complied with state regulations, the utility wrote in a rate filing.

The previous year, Pacific Gas & Electric pointed to an absence of safety standards for storage wells as reason to launch its own monitoring program that went beyond state rules, according to an internal document obtained by Reuters.

The industry’s rising concern underscores the scant oversight of 400 underground natural gas storage facilities in 30 U.S. states. Most storage fields are regulated by states, but national industry groups have pushed for federal oversight - unusual in an industry better known for fighting regulation.

Jurisdiction over facilities storing gas to be transported across state lines falls to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. But the agency has never written rules for gas storage despite two decades of sporadic calls for regulation - and at least two deadly explosions.

Agency spokeswoman Artealia Gilliard declined comment on the agency’s hands-off posture.

Under state oil and gas regulations, Southern California Gas faces a maximum penalty of $25,000 for the leak near Los Angeles, which is unprecedented in scale. The well has spewed methane - a potent greenhouse gas - since October and displaced thousands of people in nearby Porter Ranch.

A bill introduced Tuesday by State Senator Fran Pavley calls for penalties of up to $25,000 per day for active leaks. It would also require the installation of automatic shutoff systems on all wells and continuous monitoring of wells within 10,000 feet of homes and schools.

Utilities and regulators have been “gambling” with wells that in many cases were drilled in the 1950s, Pavley said. She described their standard practice as, “Don’t fix it until it leaks or cracks or breaks.”

METHANE CLOUD

Southern California Gas, a division Sempra Energy (SRE.N), said it has inspected wells more rigorously since 2014, even though state utility officials have not approved a rate hike to cover the cost, said company spokeswoman Kristine Lloyd. The inspections, she said, “exceed traditional industry practices and regulatory requirements.”

Lloyd said she did not know if the leaking well in Aliso Canyon was among the 26 wells the company said should be abandoned because they are too old or “mechanically unsound,” as the rate filing described them.

A month before the well failed, the nation’s leading oil and gas lobbying group, the American Petroleum Institute, published 60 pages of guidelines for monitoring and maintenance of storage wells. Other industry groups have supported having the API standards adopted as federal regulation.

It’s telling that the industry is inviting more oversight, said Tim O'Connor, director of California oil and gas programs for the Environmental Defense Fund.

“Up and down, the general consensus is that the regulations that exist in California are wholly insufficient.”

The fracking boom has intensified pressure on the nation’s aging system of underground storage. About 20 percent of gas used in the U.S. during winter now comes from storage fields, according to the American Gas Association.

Many of the facilities are depleted oil or gas reservoirs that have been converted to store natural gas, which is then pulled from the ground by wells.

The Aliso Canyon leak increased the state’s methane emissions by 25 percent in its first month, estimated the California Air Resources Board. Methane is 72 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the 20 years after it is emitted, according to CARB.

Initial efforts to plug the well with mud and brine failed. The utility is now drilling two relief wells more than 8,500 feet below the surface and planning to pump in water and cement. The utility said on Monday that it expects to stop the leak by late February.

WARNING SIGNS

In its 2014 rate filing, the utility sought $180 million in rate increases over six years to evaluate its storage wells. The California Public Utility Commission has made no decision in the rate case.

The CPUC also has not decided on a request from PG&E for more than $1 billion in rate increases to finance maintenance of its gas pipeline and storage infrastructure.

The commission did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.

PG&E, in a 2013 internal document, expressed little faith in state monitoring of gas storage wells, noting “an absence of industry standards.”

The company said it was working to fill this “gap” by helping API develop its guidelines. The industry group’s recommendations go into minute detail on matters including how storage facility data should be collected, how staff should be trained and how emergencies should be handled.

PG&E is working to incorporate those practices into its operations, spokesman Greg Snapper said.

Concerns about the nation’s natural gas infrastructure have intensified since 2010, when a PG&E pipeline exploded, leveling an entire neighborhood in San Bruno, California and killing eight people.

The National Transportation Safety Board later blamed PG&E for lax pipeline safety and faulted both the California PUC and the federal pipeline regulator for weak oversight.

SELF-REGULATION

California's oil and gas regulator - the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources - acknowledged problems with oversight but pointed to an effort launched before the leak to update regulations.

The industry also has an incentive to police itself, said agency spokesman Don Drysdale.

"Regardless of the regulations, it's in an operator's interest not to have leaks, because that means they're losing their product," he said.

Earlier this month, Governor Jerry Brown ordered the agency to issue emergency safety regulations for underground gas storage. Last week, it proposed requiring facilities to submit plans for inspections and leak detection and to test all safety valve systems every six months.

The lack of federal oversight has been debated sporadically for more than two decades.

Federal regulators declined to assume authority over gas storage facilities after three people were killed in a 1992 explosion at an underground cavern operated by Seminole Pipeline Co near Brenham, Texas.

That decision was criticized after a 2001 gas leak in underground salt caverns in Kansas caused explosions that killed two people.

The facility fell under federal jurisdiction, but federal and state regulators hit legal snags when they explored how to penalize the facility's operator, El Paso Corp, which sent its gas across state lines.

Kansas was forbidden from regulating interstate commerce - and the federal agency had not written rules it could enforce.

A decade later, in 2011, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration asked industry groups whether they supported federal regulation of storage facilities in such cases. The industry supported oversight, but the agency has still not crafted regulations.

Last year, U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, a Republican from Kansas, introduced a bill targeting "a dangerous lapse in the oversight” and proposing that states take over regulating all stored gas, even when it is slated for interstate transport.

A separate safety bill including the same provision passed a key Senate committee in December. It also directs the federal government to craft national safety standards for underground gas storage within two years.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Terry Wade and Brian Thevenot)

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Powerful snowstorm threatens U.S. East Coast; flights canceled | Reuters

WASHINGTON Washington D.C., New York and other East Coast cities readied fleets of snow plows, thousands of flights were canceled or delayed and residents stocked up on groceries ahead of a winter storm expected to dump up to 30 inches (76 cm) of snow on the region.

At least five states had declared emergencies by Thursday afternoon, as the season's first major Atlantic Coast storm started to move over the Mid-South before barreling on an expected north and eastward course bringing up to two feet of snow to some areas.

Blizzard warnings were out in the nation's capital and Baltimore, with extreme conditions expected to begin on Friday afternoon, while New York City was under a blizzard watch for Saturday morning.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which includes the second-busiest U.S. subway system, said it would suspend operations from late on Friday through Sunday.

The Virginia National Guard said it planned to bring in up to 300 troops to assist in response operations.

Federal employees in the Washington area were told their offices would close at noon to let them go home early.

Grocery store shelves were being stripped of bread, milk and other essentials as millions of residents in the storm's path prepared to hunker down for a wintry weekend. Consumer watchdogs warned against illegal price gouging for such essentials as generators, batteries, flashlights and hotel lodging.

Airlines began cancelling Friday and Saturday flights, with many of the more than 2,400 cancellations for Friday at Washington and North Carolina airports, according to FlightAware.com.

American Airlines Group Inc (AAL.O) scrapped all Friday flights into North Carolina's Charlotte Douglas International Airport, and Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL.N) canceled about 120 flights in the Southeast region. American scrapped most Saturday flights into Washington, New York and Philadelphia, and Delta was poised to cancel many of the same.

The National Weather Service said blizzard conditions could be life-threatening across much of the mid-Atlantic on Friday night and early Saturday.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio urged motorists to stay off roads, starting on Friday.

"Anyone who has the illusion you’re going to be taking big trips over the weekend, get that out of your mind," de Blasio said at a news conference.

Bowser said the U.S. capital's public schools would be shut on Friday.

Asked on Thursday how she thought Washington would cope with the blizzard, Patricia DeWolf, a 63-year-old retiree, said, “If last night was an indication, not very well.” She spoke outside a Safeway grocery store, where she had been loading up on supplies.

The National Weather Service put Washington and Baltimore under blizzard warnings from 3 p.m. Eastern (2000 GMT) Friday through Sunday morning.

It forecast up to 2 feet (61 cm) of snow in the capital, and as much as 30 inches (75 cm) in western suburbs, with winds gusting to 50 miles per hour (80 kilometers per hour).

In North Carolina, two women died late on Wednesday in car accidents on slippery roadways, the governor’s office said.

The storm was expected to deliver a slightly weaker wallop to the New York and Long Island areas with blizzard conditions from Saturday morning through Sunday.

New York canceled its Winter Jam in Central Park, set for Saturday, even after the snow-starved city had spent days making artificial snow for the winter sports festival.

Governors in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Pennsylvania joined Bowser in declaring states of emergency, and the governor of West Virginia declared a state of preparedness.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago, Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Tim Ahmann in Washington; Editing by Frank McGurty and Diane Craft)

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EPA official resigns over Flint water crisis | Reuters

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO The head of the Midwest region of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offered her resignation over the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, the agency said on Thursday, as it issued an emergency order to resolve the growing problem.

Susan Hedman, the second official to resign since the crisis unfolded, had played down a memo by an EPA employee that said tests had shown high levels of lead in the city's water, telling Flint and Michigan administrators it was only a draft report.

Hedman's resignation will take effect Feb. 1, the EPA said. Before the agency's announcement on Hedman, the White House said President Barack Obama will ensure officials will be held accountable if any wrongdoing is found.

The EPA on Thursday issued an emergency order requiring Michigan and the city of Flint to take immediate steps after determining that their response to the crisis had been "inadequate to protect human health."

Under the direction of a state-appointed emergency manager, Flint, a working class mostly African-American city of 100,000 north of Detroit, switched water supplies to the Flint River in 2014, to save money. The river is known locally as a dumping ground.

The more corrosive river water, which was not treated, caused more lead to leach from the city's aging water pipes than the Detroit water the city had tapped previously.

Complaints about the water began within a month of the change, but officials did not take steps to remedy the situation until October 2015 after tests showed elevated levels of lead in some tap water in the city and in some children. Lead is a neurotoxin that can damage brains and cause other health problems.

The city switched back to Detroit water in mid October, but the contamination continued.

The Flint crisis pushed EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on Thursday to issue a new policy to elevate any issues that appear to be a substantial threat to public health, or that "other authorities appear to be unable to address."

"Our strength can become a weakness if we interpret our responsibility as ending with simple technical compliance," McCarthy said in a memo to all EPA staff.

The EPA's inspector general agreed to evaluate the Midwest office's public water system supervision program and its implementation of its state oversight.

Representative Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said "The EPA is rife with incompetence and Region 5 is no exception. Mismanagement has plagued the region for far too long and Ms. Hedman’s resignation is way overdue."

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, noting that the Justice Department was investigating the contamination of Flint's water supply, told reporters that Obama will make sure that EPA officials are held responsible for any errors that may be uncovered.

By the end of next week, Michigan would have access to $80 million for water infrastructure funding agreed to in last month's bipartisan budget, Obama told a group of mayors at the White House.

GOV. SNYDER TO BE INVITED TO TESTIFY

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and other officials will be called to testify next month to a congressional panel. U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence, a Democrat, requested a Feb. 3 hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week, said spokeswoman Tracy Manzer. The invitation will be specifically for the governor and he cannot send a representative on his behalf, Manzer said.

However, Republicans on the committee said nothing about the hearing was set in stone and it was not yet on the committee's website calendar. Details being discussed about a hearing on Flint "are entirely premature," said a spokesman for Republicans on the committee who did not want to be named. "There are no confirmed details at this time, particularly with respect to a date or witness invitations,” the spokesman said.

Dan Wyant, former director of Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality, are among the other invitees. Wyant resigned in December over the growing crisis in Flint.

The hearing will "identify precisely what went wrong in the process and to ensure that those who were responsible are to be held accountable and that this never happens again," Manzer said.

Snyder, a Republican, has rejected calls from critics for his resignation over the crisis. He asked the Michigan state legislature this week to approve $28 million to assist Flint and said there would be additional funding requests. The Michigan House approved the funding unanimously on Wednesday and the bill was in the Senate on Thursday.

In recent weeks, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services also has said that it has seen an increase in Legionnaires' disease cases in the county that includes Flint covering the period in which the river water was the primary source. It could not conclude if the cases were related to the water switch. A report released on Thursday found 87 Legionnaires' cases in the county from June 2014 through October, including nine deaths.

(Reporting Timothy Gardner, David Shepardson, Ayesha Rascoe and Roberta Rampton in Washington, Fiona Ortiz in Chicago and David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Frances Kerry and Bernard Orr)

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U.S. appeals court declines to block Obama carbon emissions plan | Reuters

WASHINGTON In a big victory for the Obama administration, a U.S. federal court on Thursday rejected a bid by 27 states to block its Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of its strategy to combat climate change by reducing carbon emissions from power plants.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a brief order denying an application seeking to stay the rule while litigation continues.

The states, led by West Virginia, and several major business groups in October launched the legal challenges seeking to block the Obama administration's proposal to curb carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

More than a dozen other states and the National League of Cities, which represents more than 19,000 U.S. cities, filed court papers backing the Environmental Protection Agency's rule.

The rule aims to lower carbon emissions from the country's power plants by 2030 to 32 percent below 2005 levels. It is the main tool for the United States to meet the emissions reduction target it pledged at U.N. climate talks in Paris last month.

For President Barack Obama, executing his climate change strategy would be a legacy-defining accomplishment.

"We are confident that the plan will reduce carbon pollution and deliver better air quality, improved public health, and jobs across the country," the White House said in a statement on Thursday.

The court action means the regulation remains in place but it is not the final word in the legal fight. The appeals court still has to hear oral arguments on June 2 and decide whether the regulation is lawful.

The decision by the court to deny the stay is a "good sign" for the EPA when it argues the merits of its case this summer, said David Doniger of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"Most of the time it's a pretty good hand, but I wouldn't overplay it yet," he told Reuters. "We will have to duke it out on the merits of the case now."

West Virginia's Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who led the multi-state challenge, said he is confident their challenge will succeed when the court decides the case on its merits.

He said West Virginia and other states will consider asking the Supreme Court to take a "second look" at whether to freeze the regulation.

Many states, even those that have sued the EPA over the Clean Power Plan, have started to work on plans to comply with the regulation. Their plans are due for EPA approval in September.

Jonathan Adler, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said states are "more likely to fall into line" and try to comply with the rule now that the stay has been denied.

It would have been a “significant setback” for the government if the challengers’ request had been granted, he added.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Will Dunham and Cynthia Osterman)

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U.S. to tackle oil and gas methane waste on public lands -sources | Reuters

WASHINGTON The Obama administration is expected to propose new rules as soon as Friday to curb methane leaks from oil and natural gas production, its latest attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy production under its control, sources familiar with the plan said.

The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wants to limit venting and flaring natural gas at wells on public land, practices that let methane into the atmosphere.

Methane is the second most prevalent greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. Though it only lasts in the atmosphere for 20 years, methane is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat, and environmental groups have pressed the administration for tighter restrictions leaks.

A major methane leak from a natural gas storage site near Los Angeles that forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes for months is causing the public to demand stronger oversight, environmental groups said.

The Interior department is expected to present the new rules as a way to ensure that taxpayers receive full value in royalties from fossil fuel production on public lands, citing the lost revenues from methane that could be captured and sold commercially.

Under current rules, oil and gas companies are exempt from paying royalties on gas that is vented into the atmosphere or flared at the wellhead. The BLM proposal is expected to target existing oil and gas facilities, which account for the majority of methane emissions.

An Interior Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

"A strong BLM rule would ensure that industry has an incentive to capture and sell a valuable resource, ensuring taxpayers get the royalties that they deserve in return," said Chris Saeger, director of the Western Values Project, a grassroots group based in the Rocky Mountain region that advocates responsible, and profitable, energy development on federal land.

The BLM oversees 250 million acres of public land and manages royalties from oil, gas and coal leases. In 2014, there were over 23,000 producing oil and gas leases on federal lands, which accounted for 14 percent of total U.S. natural gas production.

Last week, the BLM announced it will freeze new leases for coal production while the Interior Department undertakes the first major review of the country's coal program in three decades to ensure a "fair return to American taxpayers and takes into account its impacts on climate change."

The proposed new rule on methane leaks forms part of the broader Obama administration strategy announced last January to reduce oil and gas sector methane emissions by up to 45 percent from 2012 levels by 2025.

The strategy includes an Environmental Protection Agency proposal announced in August targeting methane emissions from new or modified oil and gas processing and transmission facilities and wells.

A major snow storm predicted for Washington may cause the government to shut down on Friday, which could delay the release of the rule.

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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When snow blows, Washington, D.C., cannot seem to cope | Reuters

WASHINGTON As they stocked up on groceries, batteries and booze ahead of the first major snowstorm to hit the U.S. East Coast this year, residents of the nation's capital also shared in a time-honored ritual - complaining about how poorly Washington manages winter.

Residents of the city and its suburbs had good reason to be worried. An inch (2.5 cm) of snow on Wednesday brought the evening rush hour in the metropolitan area of more than 4 million people to a halt. Some commuters complained that drives that normally took 10 minutes stretched into three-hour odysseys.

"The motto seems to be: 'We're no worse than anybody else,' Patricia DeWolf, a 63-year-old retiree, said outside a Safeway supermarket after buying food and other supplies. "This is the national capital, this is a world-class city. It should act like it."

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser apologized for the traffic snarls and vowed to be ready for the blizzard that is forecast to begin on Friday night and drop up to 2 feet (60 cm) of snow.

"We should have been out with more resources," she told reporters about the problems on Wednesday, adding that officials were now "very focused on the blizzard that is focused on Washington, D.C."

Government and public services were already going into shutdown mode. The Metro regional transit service, which runs the second-busiest U.S subway system, said it would be suspending service from Friday night through Sunday.

Public school systems in the District of Columbia and the Virginia and Maryland suburbs will be closed on Friday. The U.S. House of Representatives canceled its votes on Monday and the Senate will not be in session.

The Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal workforce, has not decided whether the region's almost 400,000 government workers will go to work on Friday.

Washington has a long history of being overwhelmed by winter weather, with blizzards such as 2010's "Snowmageddon" shutting down the city for days.

But officials have also faced criticism for being perceived as overreacting to advancing storms, such as in March 2013, when the region's government workers were told to stay home because of an impending storm.

The storm was a no-show, with only a soupy slush covering roadways.

Washington's weather wimpdom may just be an indicator of its infrastructure problems. A study by Texas A&M University in August said the area had the worst traffic congestion in the country.

In the face of the impending storm, Washingtonians were preparing for the worst.

At another Safeway store, near the U.S. Capitol, store manager Robin Lee said: “We got people down the aisles. It is crazy in here right now.”

(Additional reporting by Tom Ramstack and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Scott Malone and Peter Cooney)

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Sarah the cheetah, world's fastest land mammal, dies in Ohio zoo | Reuters

CLEVELAND An Ohio zoo said on Thursday that Sarah, a cheetah designated the world's fastest land mammal by National Geographic magazine in 2012, has died at the age of 15.

The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden said in a statement that it had euthanized Sarah on Wednesday due to her "diminishing quality of life." The average life span of a cheetah, the fastest land mammal, is eight to 12 years, the zoo said.

Sarah was dubbed the fastest cheetah when she ran 100 meters in 5.95 seconds, or 61 mph (98.2 kph), during the filming of a National Geographic special, beating her previous world record of 6.13 seconds in 2009.

Cameras captured the record-breaking run on Sarah's first attempt as she chased a fluffy dog toy lure on a specially designed course certified by the Road Running Technical Council of USA Track & Field, the national governing body for running and walking organized sports.

That record was more than 3 seconds faster than human runner Usain Bolt of Jamaica, who holds the Olympic record for the same distance.

Sarah was brought to Ohio at the age of six weeks and raised by Cathryn Hilker, founder of the Zoo's Cat Ambassador Program. She was one of the first cheetah cubs to be raised with a puppy companion, named Alexa, a now-common practice intended to serve as a calming influence.

"She lived a full life and was a phenomenal ambassador for her species," said Linda Castaneda, lead trainer for the Cincinnati Zoo’s Cat Ambassador Program. Castaneda added that Sarah had a "very expressive face" that communicated what she wanted.

The population of cheetahs has shrunk to an estimated 9,000-12,000 worldwide compared with about 100,000 in 1900, zoo officials said.

(Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Matthew Lewis)

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Michigan governor will be called to congressional hearing on Flint water crisis | Reuters

CHICAGO Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and other officials will be called to testify next month to a congressional panel about the crisis over lead-contaminated water in the city of Flint, a congressional office said on Thursday.

U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence, a Democrat, requested the Feb. 3 hearing of the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week, said her communications director, Tracy Manzer. The invitation will be specifically for the governor and he cannot send a representative on his behalf, Manzer said.

Susan Hedman, administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency's Region 5 office in Chicago, and Dan Wyant, former director of Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality, are among the other invitees. Wyant resigned in December over the growing crisis in Flint.

Flint, a financially strapped city north of Detroit, switched water supplies in 2014 to save money. Complaints about the water began within a month of the change, but officials did not take steps to remedy the situation until October 2015 after tests showed elevated levels of lead in some tap water in the city and in some children.

"The purpose of the hearing is to identify precisely what went wrong in the process and to ensure that those who were responsible are to be held accountable and that this never happens again," Manzer said.

Snyder, a Republican, has rejected calls from critics for his resignation over the crisis. He asked the Michigan state legislature this week to approve $28 million to assist Flint and said there would be additional funding requests. The Michigan House approved the funding unanimously on Wednesday and the bill was in the Senate on Thursday.

The U.S. House committee can subpoena people to appear before it if they do not respond to invitations.

(Story corrects headline and paragraphs 1, 2 to show governor will be called to testify but has not been called yet. Representative Lawrence's spokeswoman corrected what she previously said.)

(Reporting by Fiona Ortiz in Chicago and Timothy Gardner in Washington; Editing by Frances Kerry)

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Monsanto sues to keep herbicide off California list of carcinogens | Reuters

CHICAGO Monsanto Co stepped up its defense of a widely used weed killer on Thursday by filing a lawsuit in California seeking to prevent glyphosate, the main ingredient in its Roundup herbicide, from being added to the state's list of known carcinogens.

The seed and agrochemicals company said it filed the suit against the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) and the agency's acting director, Lauren Zeise, in California state court, according to the filing seen by Reuters.

California law requires the state to keep a list of cancer-causing chemicals to inform residents of their risks.

OEHHA said in September that it planned to add glyphosate to the list after the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified it as a probable human carcinogen last March.

Monsanto has disputed assessment, citing decades of studies deeming glyphosate safe, including a 2007 study by OEHHA that concluded the chemical was unlikely to cause cancer.

"The IARC classification of glyphosate is inconsistent with the findings of regulatory bodies in the United States and around the world, and it is not a sound basis for any regulatory action," said Phil Miller, Monsanto's vice president of regulatory affairs.

Monsanto's lawsuit argues that listing glyphosate under Proposition 65, as the state's law is known, based on IARC's classification cedes regulatory authority to an "unelected, undemocratic, unaccountable, and foreign body" that is not subject to oversight by any state or federal entity.

Monsanto argues that the lack of oversight violates the company's right to procedural due process under California and U.S. law.

A listing would also require Monsanto and others offering products containing glyphosate to provide a "clear and reasonable warning" to consumers that the chemical is known to cause cancer, damaging Monsanto's reputation and violating its First Amendment rights, the company said.

OEHHA did not comment, as it had not seen the lawsuit.

The case is Monsanto Company v. Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, et al, case number 16-CECG-00183 in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Fresno.

Roundup is used by farmers around the world, generating Monsanto $4.8 billion in fiscal 2015 revenue. Genetically modified seeds designed to tolerate glyphosate are immensely popular among corn and soybean growers.

But questions from environmentalists and other critics about the safety of the herbicide have dogged Monsanto for years.

Since IARC's classification last year, Monsanto has been named in numerous lawsuits accusing the company of knowing of the dangers of glyphosate for decades.

(Editing by David Gregorio and Dan Grebler)

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Technology News

- Australia's ASX set to lead in blockchain for public companies

- Japan Display to produce OLED smartphone panels from 2018

- Oracle lawyer says Google's Android generated $31 billion revenue

- U.S. judge urges early end to first GM ignition-switch trial

- Yahoo to decide next strategic steps after quarterly earnings: sources

- Honda to offer new fuel cell vehicle in California in 2016

- Dating app Tinder adds STD testing locator, ending feud with non-profit

- Facebook launches real-time sports platform

- Verizon adds 1.5 million new monthly users; revenue beats estimates

- Fox News says Google to partner in Jan. 28 Iowa Republican debate

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Australia's ASX set to lead in blockchain for public companies | Reuters

SYDNEY Australian markets operator ASX Ltd on Friday said it has bought a minority stake in a U.S. blockchain developer, positioning itself to become the first stock exchange in the world to use distributed ledger technology for public companies.

The A$14.9 million ($10.43 million) investment in Digital Asset Holdings would help to cut costs, speed up transactions and make them more secure, ASX said in a statement, as it joined a slew of other financial firms that are buying into the technology originally developed for cryptocurrency bitcoin.

"Distributed Ledger Technology could provide a once in a generation opportunity to reduce cost, time and complexity in the post-trade environment of Australia’s equity market," ASX Managing Director and CEO Elmer Funke Kupper said in the statement.

"Moreover, it could stimulate greater innovation by ASX and other providers of services to issuers, investors and intermediaries."

Distributed ledger or blockchain technology maintains a continuously growing list of transaction data which cannot be tampered with or revised. Proponents say its use could make it easier to keep track of information and reduce settlement times.

ASX bought a 5 percent equity interest in New York-based Digital Asset. It will also fund an initial phase of development and acquire a warrant that will give it the right to purchase further equity and appoint a director to the board.

Nasdaq Inc, the exchange and clearing house operator where many global tech giants are listed, is testing the ground with blockchain technology on its market for private companies, Nasdaq Private Market. It completed its first transaction using the technology in December. Other exchange operators, including Deutsche Boerse and London Stock Exchange have joined hands with financial services and tech heavyweights to build platforms and applications using the blockchain technology.

ASX will work with Digital Asset to design a new post-trade solution for the Australian equity market.

Digital Asset's post-trade solutions will meet the regulatory, operational and security standards that apply to Australia’s financial markets, ASX added.

ASX shares rose in line with the broader market on Friday, closing up 1.3 percent.

(Additional reporting by Elzio Barreto in Hong Kong; Editing by Stephen Coates)

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Japan Display to produce OLED smartphone panels from 2018 | Reuters

TOKYO Japan Display Inc said it will begin mass production of organic light emitting diode (OLED) panels in 2018, aiming to catch up with Korean rivals amid speculation Apple Inc may adopt such screens for its iPhones soon.

Japan Display already supplies smartphone screens to Apple, but faces stiff competition from Asian rivals such as South Korea's LG Display Co Ltd.

"We will take advantage of our advanced thin-film transistor technology in developing OLED screens," Akio Takimoto, chief of Japan Display's research center, told reporters on Friday.

The announcements also comes as Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), Japan Display's biggest shareholder and state-backed fund, is in talks to invest in Sharp Corp and merge its display unit with Japan Display, according to sources.

Media reports say Apple may adopt OLED technology for its iPhone as early as in 2018, with LG Display and the panel-making unit of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd likely to be considered as supplier candidates.

OLED screens do not require backlights and can therefore be thinner or curved, but their manufacturing costs are for now higher than conventional liquid crystal display panels.

Japan Display was formed in a government-backed deal in 2012 from the ailing display units of Sony Corp, Toshiba Corp and Hitachi Ltd.

(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Miral Fahmy)

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Oracle lawyer says Google's Android generated $31 billion revenue | Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO Google's Android operating system has generated revenue of about $31 billion and profit of $22 billion since its release, an Oracle Corp lawyer told a U.S. court hearing the software company's copyright lawsuit against Google.

A lawyer for Google did not discuss the figure, according to a transcript of the hearing in a Northern California federal court last week. But he said the Alphabet Inc unit might be willing to disclose more information about the revenue produced by Android as part of the court proceedings, the transcript reviewed by Reuters showed.

The Android mobile operating system began with the release of the Android alpha in November 2007. The first commercial version, Android 1.0, was released in September 2008.

Oracle is accusing Google of using its Java software without paying for it to develop Android.

Google said in a court filing on Wednesday that the Android disclosures should not have been made public, and asked the court to place it under seal.

The document, which had been available electronically at a San Francisco courthouse, was removed from the publicly accessible portion of the court's computer system while a Reuters reporter was reviewing it on Thursday afternoon.

It is not clear what occurred or whether the document would become available again.

Google was not immediately available for comment. Oracle declined to comment.

The closely watched case involves how much copyright protection should extend to the Java programing language, which Google used to design the operating system. Oracle is seeking royalties for Google's use of some of the Java language, while Google argues it should be able to use Java without paying a fee.

Bloomberg previously reported the Oracle lawyer's comment.

(Additional reporting by Anya George Tharakan in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard Chang and Lisa Shumaker)

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U.S. judge urges early end to first GM ignition-switch trial | Reuters

NEW YORK A U.S. judge on Thursday urged parties in the first federal trial over a faulty General Motors ignition switch to consider resolving the case before it reaches a verdict, after evidence surfaced that cast doubt on testimony from the plaintiff bringing the lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan asked GM and lawyers for plaintiff Robert Scheuer to take a “very hard look at whether it’s worth the time and resources to carry this (trial) through to its conclusion.”

Instead, he suggested they should consider settling or otherwise resolving the case and moving on to the next in a series of early bellwether, or test, trials set for this year on the ignition switch defect linked to nearly 400 injuries and deaths.

Furman's comments could signal an early end to what was supposed to be a first test of GM's potential liability for similar lawsuits.

While not binding on other cases, verdicts in these bellwether, or test, trials are meant to help steer settlement talks in the overall litigation. But the latest twists have turned Scheuer's suit into an "outlier," Furman said Thursday.

Furman is overseeing federal litigation that hit GM after its 2014 recall of 2.6 million vehicles over defective ignition switches that can slip out of place. Scheuer’s lawsuit, selected by plaintiffs' counsel as the first to go to trial, alleges that the failure of the switch in his 2003 Saturn Ion prevented the air bags from deploying during a crash in May 2014, weeks after GM began its recall.

Scheuer's account of his crash injuries and post-accident finances have been called into question by GM, which sought earlier this week to introduce new witnesses and evidence that contradict testimony given by him and his wife at trial last week. Both Scheuer and his wife have retained criminal defense attorneys.

Furman said Thursday he would allow GM to present that new information to jurors. If GM's account is correct, he said, it would suggest that "plaintiff and perhaps his wife have committed a fraud on this court," Furman said.

Hilliard said Thursday that Furman's ruling and observations had been clear, and that they would evaluate the new information and discuss "all options" with GM. A GM spokesman, Jim Cain, said Furman rightly allowed jurors to hear the new evidence, and that it was too soon to comment on a possible settlement.

(Reporting by Jessica Dye; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Alan Crosby)

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Yahoo to decide next strategic steps after quarterly earnings: sources | Reuters

Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) will decide on its next strategic steps only after releasing quarterly earnings on Feb. 2, people familiar with the matter said, as the company continues to resist investor calls to explore a sale of its core Internet assets.

Yahoo wants to gauge shareholder reaction after presenting its strategic vision during the earnings conference call, one of the people said.

Yahoo this month rebuffed several potential buyers for its core Internet assets, including private equity firms, the three sources said this week. They declined to be identified because the deliberations are confidential.

Yahoo declined to comment.

Yahoo said last month it would pursue a tax-free spinoff of the core Internet business, which could take at least a year.

But investors are pressing for an outright sale, fearing that the business, which includes selling search and display ads on its news and sports sites and email service, could lose more value in the face of competition from Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google and Facebook Inc (FB.O).

Yahoo's resistance to the outright sale has set it on a collision course with activist investor Starboard Value LP, which earlier this month reiterated its call for the company to auction off the core business.

The last time Yahoo solicited interest in its core Internet assets was in December, ahead of a board meeting in which the spinoff of the assets was decided, one of the sources said.

At the time, the Sunnyvale, California-based company asked potential buyers to submit preliminary indications of interest and state how much they would be willing to pay for the Internet assets, that source said. No formal sale process was ever launched, the person added.

Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo declined to discuss whether the telecommunications company was considering buying Yahoo's core assets.

"You can't talk about something that's not up for sale," he said in an interview on Thursday. "We'll wait to see when it's kickstarted and then we'll decide."

Yahoo in December abandoned plans to spin off its stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA.N) and announced it would instead spin off other assets, including its stake in Yahoo Japan, into a new company.

Yahoo might find it hard to avoid a formal sales process for long, however, as investors, including Starboard, push more aggressively for a sale.

Other investors, including Canyon Capital Advisors and Mason Capital have also been urging Yahoo to sell its Internet business.

Yahoo investors have a one-month window to nominate a slate of board members starting Feb. 25, and Starboard has indicated in its last two letters to the board it is prepared to launch a proxy contest.

(Reporting by Liana B. Baker and Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Additional reporting by Malathi Nayak and Michael Flaherty in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)

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Honda to offer new fuel cell vehicle in California in 2016 | Reuters

Honda Motor Co said on Thursday it will start selling its new hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in California by year's end.

Honda is the latest automaker to bring a small number of hydrogen powered vehicles to market amid increasing zero emission vehicle mandates from California and other U.S. states.

The Japanese automaker made the announcement at the Washington auto show, saying the next-generation Honda Clarity Fuel Cell model will cost around $60,000 with a targeted monthly lease under $500. Honda declined to say how many it planned to sell.

The vehicle will go on sale in Japan in a few months and in the United States by end of the year. It will initially only be leased.

The vehicle's platform, or basic underpinings, will also be used for a new plug-in hybrid electric car due by 2018. Honda said it expects by 2020 that 20 percent of its U.S. vehicle sales will be hybrids. It will sell its 2017 Accord hybrid later this year.

One big issue for fuel cell vehicles is that there are only a handful of hydrogen refueling stations.

Sales will begin at some dealerships in Los Angeles and Orange counties, Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. Honda did not offer details about planned sales elsewhere in the United States.

Toyota Motor Corp began offering hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in October in California. Hyundai Motor Co has also leased fuel cell vehicles to about 100 U.S. customers. Both offer leases of fuel cell vehicles for $499 a month.

Toyota has plans to sell 30,000 fuel cell vehicles globally by 2020, ramping up from an expected 2,000 in 2016. Fuel cell vehicles are a major component of the company's plans to curb polluting emissions to nearly zero by 2050.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Tom Brown)

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Dating app Tinder adds STD testing locator, ending feud with non-profit | Reuters

NEW YORK A feud between the operator of popular "hook-up" software and a leading sexual health advocacy group was settled on Thursday after the dating site agreed to add links to sexually transmitted disease testing locations.

The battle between dating site Tinder and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation stretches back to last fall when the Los Angeles based non-profit group put up billboards and advertisements in Los Angeles and New York associating Tinder with sexually transmitted diseases such as Chlamydia and gonorrhea.

Tinder, which is part of Match Group Inc, owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp, sent a "cease and desist" letter to the group after the billboards were erected.

Now that Tinder is adding the STD testing locator to its application, the group is removing its billboards and advertisements mentioning the software.

In a statement, the foundation noted the reasons for its campaign, citing a report on a dramatic rise in STDs in 2014 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We are unfortunately now waging an uphill battle on this front," said Whitney Engeran Cordova, a senior director at the foundation. "The CDC also noted the majority of these infections are affecting young people - the demographic that is on their mobile phones all day long.”

Tinder on Thursday declined to comment on the cease and desist letter, but said in a statement, "An important aspect of any healthy relationship - whether formed on Tinder or otherwise - is ensuring sexual health and safety. While the CDC, who conducted the largest and most credible study on the topic, has never identified any connection that supports the idea that Tinder usage correlates with, let alone causes, an increase in STDs, we’re of course in favor of organizations that provide public education resources on the topic."

A free STD locator from the company Healthvana is available on Tinder's website under the health and safety section and under the frequently asked questions on the mobile application.

(Reporting by Anjali Athavaley)

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Facebook launches real-time sports platform | Reuters

Facebook Inc is tackling the sports arena with a new platform called Facebook Sports Stadium, which the social media site said will provide real-time updates on games, popular posts from fans, statistics and commentary from experts.

"With 650 million sports fans, Facebook is the world's largest stadium," it wrote in a post on Wednesday announcing the feature.

Facebook, which said it had an average 1.01 billion active daily users as of September, reports its fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday, Jan. 27.

The new service appears to be an effort to encroach on Twitter's territory. The micro-blogging site has long been a popular destination for so-called "live-tweeting" games.

MichaelAaron Flicker, president of XenoPsi, a New York City-based marketing firm, said the new product is Facebook's attempt at capturing "in the moment" engagement.

"They don't have that piece of the puzzle," Flicker said. "The challenge for Facebook is there are already a lot of communities (like Facebook Sports Stadium). This is not a unique offering."

Facebook Sports Stadium currently covers only American football games and comes ahead of next month's Super Bowl, on Feb. 7. But it will support other sports, including basketball and soccer, in the future, Facebook said.

The service can be accessed by searching for an individual game.

(Reporting by Amy Tennery; Editing by Dan Grebler and Sandra Maler)

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Verizon adds 1.5 million new monthly users; revenue beats estimates | Reuters

Verizon Communications Inc on Thursday reported higher-than-expected revenue for the fourth quarter as heavy promotions helped it counter aggressive offers and discounts from rivals and win new users.

Shares of the No. 1 U.S. wireless phone service provider, whose profit edged past analysts' estimates, rose 2.7 percent to $45.63 in morning trading.

Verizon added a net 1.5 million wireless retail postpaid, or monthly, subscriptions in the quarter, below 2 million a year earlier but above the analysts' average estimate of 1.42 million, according to market research firm FactSet StreetAccount.

The company, known for its high-quality network, withstood stiff competition from rivals in the saturated U.S. wireless market. Smaller rival Sprint Corp offered 50 percent off to encourage users to switch to its network, and T-Mobile US Inc launched a free video streaming plan.

For its part, Verizon rolled out holiday season offers such as a data giveaway on some plans, $100 discounts on certain phones and a $300 credit to trade in some models.

Customer defections, or churn, in Verizon's postpaid business fell to 0.96 percent from 1.14 percent a year earlier.

Average revenue per account, however, fell 6.6 percent to $148.30, below the analysts' forecast of $149.61, according to FactSet. Jefferies analyst Mike McCormack said Verizon must curb such declines in this measure this year.

Like its rivals, Verizon has switched from offering customers two-year contracts to monthly installment plans that have lower service fees and can weigh on revenue.

To increase revenue, Verizon is investing in its new "go90" mobile-video service and "Internet of Things," which connects everything from industrial machines to household devices to the Internet.

Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said in an interview that the company still expected full-year earnings growth, excluding special items, to be on "a flatter plateau" in 2016 than 2015 as a result of those investments and the shift to the installment model.

Revenue from Internet of Things-related offerings rose about 18 percent to $690 million in 2015.

In the quarter, sales at the company's FiOS high-speed Internet, TV and phone service rose 6.8 percent to $3.53 billion.

Net income attributable to Verizon was $5.39 billion, or $1.32 per share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $2.23 billion, or 54 cents per share.

Excluding special items such as pension adjustments, Verizon earned 89 cents per share, above the analysts' average forecast of 88 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Operating revenue rose 3.2 percent to $34.25 billion. Analysts had expected $34.10 billion.

(Reporting by Malathi Nayak in New York and Kshitiz Goliya in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Lisa Von Ahn)

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Fox News says Google to partner in Jan. 28 Iowa Republican debate | Reuters

Fox News Channel said on Thursday it would join with Google to host the Republican presidential primary debate to be held on Jan. 28 in Des Moines, Iowa.

The debate will incorporate real-time Google trends and data to determine questions for the candidates and viewers will be able to interact with the debate on the Google Trends home page, Fox News Channel said in a statement.

(Reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by David Alexander)

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Oddly Enough News

- Wisconsin hunter pink-wear bill reaches governor's desk

- Homeless woman gives birth outside Vatican, gets offer of home

- Giant church in shape of shoe to open in Taiwan

- New York thief sought for swiping more than $1,500 in nail polish

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Wisconsin hunter pink-wear bill reaches governor's desk | Reuters

MILWAUKEE Wisconsin hunters could choose blaze pink protective wear, a first for a U.S. state, if Governor Scott Walker signs a bill intended to draw more women to the sport.

The legislation, approved by the state Senate late Wednesday with bipartisan support, adds blaze pink to the bright orange hats, jackets and jumpsuits hunters are now required to wear.

The bill next goes to Walker. A spokesman said on Thursday Walker would review the legislation, giving no indication whether he would sign the bill.

The goal of the bill was to get more men and women off the couch and into the woods, bill sponsor, state Representative Joel Kleefisch has said.

Wisconsin would be the first U.S. state to allow hunters to wear blaze pink, the International Hunter Education Association said. Arkansas allows hunters to wear florescent chartreuse.

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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Homeless woman gives birth outside Vatican, gets offer of home | Reuters

VATICAN CITY A homeless woman gave birth on a cardboard box just outside St. Peter's Square early on Wednesday in near-freezing temperatures and later received an offer of one year's hospitality in a Vatican institution.

Police said the 35-year-old Romanian woman had gone into labor at about 2.30 a.m. in an Italian square just meters (yards) away from the Vatican.

An Italian policewoman, Maria Capone, helped deliver the baby, a girl, and her colleagues covered both with their jackets until an ambulance arrived.

"I think it was close to zero," Capone told Italian television.

"The baby regained color on her face after we covered her," another policeman said.

The head of Pope's Francis' charity office, Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, later visited the woman and baby in a hospital a few blocks away and offered her one-year's free accommodation in a Church-owned apartment, the Vatican spokesman said.

He said Krajewski knew the woman and her partner, also a Romanian, because they use showers and food services the Vatican has started to help the growing number of homeless in the area.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Gareth Jones)

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Giant church in shape of shoe to open in Taiwan | Reuters

CHIAYI COUNTY, Taiwan - Budai, a township in southwest Taiwan, is building a church in the form of a giant high-heeled shoe, made of metal and blue glass tiles, seeking to  attract more tourists to the area.

Still under construction, the structure is some 17 meters (55.77 ft) tall at the highest point, the heel.

Talia Pan, Recreation Section Manager of the Southwest Coast National Scenic Area Administration which is running the project, said she wanted to turn a sad part of history into something positive.

"Because of (a) drinking water shortage in the southwestern coastal area in the 1960s, (residents) had to drill deep wells to get drinking water. Because of arsenic in the water, there were cases of Blackfoot disease ... (which if) severe, the only option to save a life is to amputate both legs," she said.

"Because of this, a lot of women lost the opportunity to walk into marriage, walk into a new life chapter on high-heeled shoes ... Because of that history, we hope to create a place in Chiayi County, where people can get married, invoking the fairy tale of Cinderella."

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New York thief sought for swiping more than $1,500 in nail polish | Reuters

New York police were using more than fingerprints on Friday to search for a thief who made off with scores of bottles of high-end nail polish from a Manhattan drug store.

The New York Police Department released surveillance footage of a man caught on video burglarizing a Duane Reade store in the heart of Manhattan's tourist area.

The suspect cleaned out an entire 190-plus bottle display of Essie nail polish on Jan. 8, police said.

The goods were valued at more than $1,500, police said. Because of the dollar amount of the crime, the thief faces a charge of grand larceny.

(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere)

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Table of Contents

Reuters [Fri, 22 Jan 2016]

Top Stories

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Oddly Enough News

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Giant church in shape of shoe to open in Taiwan

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