1 of 3. Taking advantage of a weightless environment onboard the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, Expedition 34 Flight Engineer Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency juggles some tomatoes, which he probably considers to be among the more delicious components of a recent ''package'' that arrived from Earth, in this Handout photo courtesy of NASA, taken March 3, 2013.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:01pm EDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield took the helm of the International Space Station on Wednesday, only the second time in the outpost's 12-year history that command has been turned over to someone who is not American or Russian.

"It's a huge honor and a privilege for me, but also for all the people at the Canadian Space Agency and for my entire country," Hadfield, 53, said during a change of command ceremony aboard the station broadcast on NASA Television.

"Thank you very much for giving me the keys to the family car," Hadfield told outgoing station commander Kevin Ford, who is due to depart on Thursday along with Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin.

"We're going to put some miles on it, but we'll bring it back in good shape," Hadfield said.

Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin have been aboard the station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles above Earth, since October.

Command of the station, a project of 15 nations that has been permanently staffed since November 2000, normally rotates between primary partners United States and Russia.

But in May 2009, Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne became the first station commander from the European Space Agency.

Hadfield, a veteran of two space shuttle missions, is the station's first Canadian commander.

Hadfield will be part of a three-man skeleton crew until NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin arrive later this month.

Hadfield, astronaut Thomas Marshburn and cosmonaut Roman Romanenko have been aboard the station since December 21. They are due to return to Earth on May 13.

Among Hadfield's first duties as commander is overseeing the packing and release of the visiting Space Exploration Technologies' Dragon cargo capsule. The capsule, making a second resupply run for NASA, is due to depart the station on March 25.

Hadfield has taken to Twitter to share his experiences in orbit with short messages and pictures dispatched several times a day. His followers now number more than 512,000.

"My heartfelt congratulations to Commander Hadfield and his family on what is an important milestone for all Canadians," Canada's Industry Minister Christian Paradis said in a statement.

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Phil Berlowitz)

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OSLO | Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:15am EST

OSLO (Reuters) - A new United Nations plan to involve all nations in marshalling science to fix environmental problems ranging from toxic chemicals to climate change will be put to the test from Monday at talks in Nairobi.

The 40-year-old U.N. Environment Programme will open its annual governing council to all the world's almost 200 nations, up from a current group of 58, under reforms aimed at making the world economy greener at a time of weak economic growth.

"A strengthened UNEP will ... improve and enhance international cooperation on the environment," Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP, said of the annual February 18-22 meeting in a telephone interview with Reuters.

Environment ministers or senior officials from about 150 nations are due to attend, out of almost 200 possible worldwide. Until now, UNEP's governing council has left out many smaller states, from Guyana to Albania.

The shift is meant to sharpen world focus on problems such as toxic chemicals, over-fishing and global warming. Getting more countries in the room will not necessarily make reaching agreements easier but should give UNEP decisions more authority.

Steiner said the talks would be a first chance to see how the new approach works. UNEP oversees many scientific studies guiding U.N. work, such as monitoring climate change or the pace of extinction of animals and plants.

Under an agreement last year at an Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, UNEP will get a bigger budget. "By (February 22) the plan is that we will have the final steps in implementing the Rio summit's decisions to reform UNEP," Steiner said.

The Rio deal fell short of calls by some nations, such as France, to create a completely new U.N. environment agency.

"The seeds of what we are seeing will be seen only 5 or 10 years down the line," Steiner said.

"One of the major issues is a new strategy for the organization and a programme of work for the next 3 years," Steiner said of the Nairobi talks that will lay guidelines for work on issues from oceans to slowing extinctions.

OZONE, MERCURY

UNEP has registered some successes, such as the 1987 Montreal Protocol for limiting emissions of gases blamed for thinning the planet's protective ozone layer, or a treaty due to be signed in Japan this October to limit toxic mercury.

Climate change has proved far tougher to solve as global emissions of greenhouse gases have continued to rise. China, the United States and the European Union are top emitters.

Governments aim to work out a deal by the end of 2015 to slow global warming and make it effective from the end of 2020. World leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama failed to nail down a treaty at a summit in Copenhagen in 2009.

"On the current trajectory of negotiations it is not easy to see how by 2015 a new framework agreement will emerge," Steiner said. But some nations have been acting on their own and extreme events, such as a melt of the Arctic sea ice, droughts, floods and powerful storms, have underscored the risks.

"It is becoming more and more clear in the minds of the public that climate change is ... a clear and present danger that will require us to act," he said.

UNEP has overall responsibility for environmental problems among U.N. agencies but talks on fixing global warming are overseen by the Bonn-based U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.

(Reporting by Alister Doyle; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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1 of 6. U.S. President Barack Obama announces his nomination of White House chief of staff and budget expert Jack Lew (R) as his next treasury secretary, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, January 10, 2013.

WASHINGTON | Thu Jan 10, 2013 8:22pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The first black U.S. president is coming under fire from some of his own Democratic Party for naming a stream of white men to key cabinet and leadership posts in his second administration.

President Barack Obama on Thursday named Jack Lew as his Treasury secretary, the fourth white male he has named to the most prized cabinet posts in recent weeks.

Lew's nomination follows Obama's pick of Senator John Kerry to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. He has also named former Senator Chuck Hagel to be defense Secretary and John Brennan to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

Against this, he lost the first Hispanic woman in the cabinet when Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced her resignation on Wednesday. And last month Lisa Jackson, who is black, announced she was stepping down as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

"It's embarrassing as hell," New York Democrat Charles Rangel, one of the most senior black members of Congress, said of the Obama appointments.

New Hampshire Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, whose state has the only all-female delegation in Congress, described the appointments as "disappointing."

"We need a government that looks like America so we can address the concerns that we hear from across the spectrum," she said.

Republicans joined in the criticism with former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee accusing Obama of waging a "war on women," using the same words Democrats coined to criticize Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the election campaign last year.

"Now a lot of those females who supported Barack Obama are scratching their heads, and they're saying, ‘Whoa! How come there is so much testosterone in the Obama Cabinet and so little estrogen?'" the former Arkansas governor said on his radio show.

Obama beat Romney 55 percent to 43 percent among women, according to Reuters/Ipsos exit polling on Election Day. He also won large majorities of the African-American and Hispanic vote.

DIVERSITY AND DEMOGRAPHICS

Diversity in the United States is usually defined as including women and racial minorities, especially Hispanics and African-Americans. U.S. political pundits parse polling data of women, Hispanics, African Americans and other groups for signs of voting patterns.

They track the "gender gap," which is the percentage difference between Democratic and Republican support among women. Since Obama's re-election in November, many analysts have noted the rising percentage of U.S. ethnic minorities and described his victory as a reflection of changing demography.

The criticism of Obama is surprising because Republicans usually are the party accused of insensitivity to diversity.

Former President George W. Bush deflected this by pointing to the two secretaries of state during his eight years in office -- African-Americans Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. They were followed by Hillary Clinton.

If confirmed by the Senate, Kerry will be the first white male to hold the top U.S. diplomatic post in more than a decade.

Almost overlooked in the criticism is that the White House announced this week that Attorney General Eric Holder, who is black, will stay on as the nation's senior legal officer.

Obama also was widely reported to be considering an African-American woman, United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice as Secretary of State. She pulled her name from consideration because of Republican objections to her statements about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

White House spokesman Jay Carney urged critics on Wednesday to make their judgments only after Obama had completed his team.

"Women are well represented in the president's senior staff," he told reporters, noting that his team included Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Debbie Walsh, director of Rutgers University's Center for American Women in Politics, which tracks women in elective office, said Obama's choices were a missed opportunity to put women into powerful jobs such as heading the Pentagon.

"A case could be made that Barack Obama won on the strength of the support that he had with women, given the gender gap," she told Reuters.

With women filling 36 percent of Cabinet posts in his first term, Obama had the highest percentage of women in top jobs of any president other than fellow Democrat Bill Clinton, she said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Greg McCune)

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Guests are silhouetted at the launch event of Windows 8 operating system in New York, October 25, 2012.

LAS VEGAS | Thu Jan 10, 2013 9:28pm EST

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Holiday-season sales of personal computers fell for the first time in more than five years, according to tech industry tracker IDC, as Microsoft Corp's new Windows 8 operating system failed to excite buyers and many instead opted for tablet devices and smartphones.

The slump caps a miserable year for PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard Co, Lenovo Group and Dell Inc, which saw the first annual decline for more than a decade with no immediate signs of relief.

It underscores an unspectacular launch for the latest version of the Windows franchise, which Microsoft is banking on to fight off incursions into the PC arena by touch-friendly devices such as Apple Inc's iPad.

"The sense is that until Windows 8 is fully installed and prices start to come down, we will be in this state of negative dynamics in the PC market," said Aaron Rakers, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co.

Still, analysts warn against counting out Windows 8 -- the most radical change in the operating system in 20 years -- as consumers grow more comfortable with its tile-based interface and touch features.

In the past, a new operating system from Microsoft tended to stimulate a spurt of PC sales, but PC makers simply did not get enough attractive machines into the market, said IDC.

"Lost in the shuffle to promote a touch-centric PC, vendors have not forcefully stressed other features that promote a more secure, reliable and efficient user experience," said Jay Chou, senior research analyst at IDC.

This year could be better, he suggested, even in the face of talk about the death of the PC as tablets are on track to outsell full-featured machines for the first time in the United States.

"As Windows 8 matures, and other corresponding variables such as Ultrabook pricing continue to drop, hopefully the PC market can see a reset in both messaging and demand in 2013," said Chou.

PC makers sold 89.8 million units worldwide in the fourth quarter of last year, down 6.4 percent from the same quarter of 2011. That was slightly worse than expected by most, and the worst performance for more than five years, when the global economy shuddered to a halt and ushered in the worst recession since World War II.

For all of 2012, 352 million PCs were sold, down 3.2 percent from 2011. That was the first annual decline since 2001, according to IDC, in the wake of the tech stock crash and the September 11 attacks.

IDC is forecasting a meager 2.8 percent growth in PC sales for 2013.

"There's a lack of compelling reasons to upgrade," said Ashok Kumar, an analyst At Maxim Group, who said people are now waiting up to 10 years to replace computers rather than five in the past.

"Increases in performance have been smaller and there are fewer new applications that require more computing horsepower," he said. "In developing markets, the first purchase is not a PC, it's a smartphone, especially in markets where literacy levels are low."

NO MIRACLES AT CES

The numbers are bad news for Microsoft, which still provides the underlying software for nine out of 10 PCs but is suffering as Apple's iPad and other tablets eat away at the cheap end of the PC market.

Touch-friendly Windows 8 and Microsoft's own Surface tablet were designed to counter that shift, but the radical new-look software has not gripped consumers' imaginations.

"Windows 8 wasn't going to be as big a catalyst," said Shaw Wu, analyst at Sterne Agee. "It's so different, it's almost uncomfortably different from past Windows, and there's a risk that Windows 8 ends up like Vista."

Windows Vista, released worldwide in 2007, was Microsoft's least popular operating system with users in recent years.

Microsoft pulled out of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year, vacating its usual sprawling display area, but PC makers such as Asustek, LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics filled the gap with a dizzying array of big screen computers, lightweight laptops, tablets and combinations of those, all running Windows 8.

Many of the new models attracted jostling crowds on the show floor, like Panasonic Corp's 20-inch ultra-high-definition tablet and Razer's dedicated Edge tablet for PC gamers.

But none was hailed a show-stopper that might single-handedly turn around the fortunes of Windows.

"No single device will spur sales, it will take time for consumers to learn that Windows 8 even exists. CES will do little to change that," said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst for tech research firm Forrester. "Windows 8 is going to be a slow ramp, regardless of hardware quality."

Microsoft says it feels good about the progress of Windows 8, as sales hit 60 million this week after 10 weeks on the market. That is in line with Windows 7 three years ago, and well ahead of Vista, which took 100 days to reach 40 million sales.

Tami Reller, chief financial officer of Microsoft's Windows unit, said sales of Windows 8 PCs may have been held back by shortages of the most popular touch-screen machines.

"The level of demand I think surprised a lot of people. And frankly, the supply was too short," said Reller at an analyst presentation at CES this week.

Microsoft is looking to juice that demand further this month with its new Surface with Windows 8 Pro, a tablet running an Intel processor that is fully compatible with Office and traditional PC programs, unlike the first Surface it launched last year based on an ARM Holdings-designed chip.

Despite that bullishness, analysts have been edging down their earnings expectations for Microsoft lately.

"Win 8 is disappointing, the PC market will remain weak for awhile and margins are likely capped," said Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Holt on Thursday, as he downgraded the stock to 'equal-weight' from 'overweight'.

Investors are also nonplussed, driving Microsoft's shares down neraly 20 percent since last March, even as the Standard & Poor's 500 has marched upward to a five-year high this week. The shares are down 6 percent since the launch of Windows 8 on October 26.

(Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta, Miyoung Kim, Timothy Kelly, Sinead Carew and Noel Randewich in Las Vegas, and Alistair Barr and Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco.; Editing by Gary Hill and Steve Orlofsky)

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1 of 4. The Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1) or Naro, South Korea's space rocket is launched on the launch pad at Naro Space Centre in Goheung, about 485 km (301 miles) south of Seoul January 30, 2013 in this picture taken by Yonhap.

SEOUL | Wed Jan 30, 2013 12:38pm EST

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea launched its first space rocket carrying a science satellite on Wednesday amid heightened regional tensions, caused in part, by North Korea's successful launch of its own rocket last month.

It was South Korea's third attempt to launch a civilian rocket to send a satellite in orbit in the past four years and came after two previous launches were aborted at the eleventh hour last year due to technical glitches.

The launch vehicle, named Naro, lifted off from South Korea's space center on the south coast and successfully went through stage separation before entering orbit, officials at the mission control said. Previous launches failed within minutes.

South Korea's rocket program has angered neighbor North Korea, which says it is unjust for it to be singled out for U.N. sanctions for launching long-range rockets as part of its space program to put a satellite into orbit.

North Korea's test in December showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range, according to an intelligence assessment by South Korea.

However, it is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States.

The test in December was considered a success, at least partially, by demonstrating an ability to put an object in space.

But the satellite, as claimed by the North, is not believed to be functioning.

South Korea is already far behind regional rivals China and Japan in the effort to build space rockets to put satellites into orbit and has relied on other countries, including Russia, to launch them.

Launch attempts in 2009 and 2010 ended in failure.

The first stage booster of the South Korean rocket was built by Russia. South Korea has produced several satellites and has relied on other countries to put them in orbit.

South Korea wants to build a rocket on its own by 2018 and eventually send a probe to the moon.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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1 of 2. A giant squid is seen in this still image taken from video captured from a submersible by a Japanese-led team of scientists near Ogasawara islands taken in July 2012, in this handout picture released by NHK/NEP/Discovery Channel in Tokyo January 7, 2013. The scientists have captured on film the world's first live images of a giant squid, journeying to the depths of the ocean in search of the mysterious creature thought to have inspired the myth of the ''kraken'', a tentacled monster. Picture released on January 7.

TOKYO | Tue Jan 8, 2013 5:07pm EST

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese-led team of scientists has captured on film the world's first live images of a giant squid, journeying to the depths of the ocean in search of the mysterious creature thought to have inspired the myth of the "kraken", a tentacled monster.

The images of the silvery, three-meter (10 feet) long cephalopod, looming out of the darkness nearly 1 km below the surface, were taken last July near the Ogasawara islands, 1,000 km (620 miles) south of Tokyo.

Though the beast was small by giant squid standards - the largest ever caught stretched 18 meters long, tentacles and all - filming it secretly in its natural habitat was a key step towards understanding the animal, researchers said.

"Many people have tried to capture an image of a giant squid alive in its natural habitat, whether researchers or film crews. But they all failed," said Tsunemi Kubodera, a zoologist at Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science, who led the team.

"These are the first ever images of a real live giant squid," Kubodera said of the footage, shot by Japanese national broadcaster NHK and the Discovery Channel.

The key to their success, said Kubodera, was a small submersible rigged with lights invisible to both human and cephalopod eyes.

He, a cameraman and the submersible's pilot drifted silently down to 630 meters and released a one-meter-long squid as bait. In all, they descended around 100 times.

"If you try and approach making a load of noise, using a bright white light, then the squid won't come anywhere near you. That was our basic thinking," Kubodera said.

"So we sat there in the pitch black, using a near-infrared light invisible even to the human eye, waiting for the giant squid to approach."

As the squid neared they began to film, following it into the depths to around 900 meters.

"I've seen a lot of giant squid specimens in my time, but mainly those hauled out of the ocean. This was the first time for me to see with my own eyes a giant squid swimming," he said. "It was stunning, I couldn't have dreamt that it would be so beautiful. It was such a wonderful creature."

Until recently, little was known about the creature believed to be the real face of the mythical kraken, a sea-monster blamed by sailors for sinking ships off Norway in the 18th century.

But for Kubodera, the animal held no such terror.

"A giant squid essentially lives a solitary existence, swimming about all alone in the deep sea. It doesn't live in a group," he said. "So when I saw it, well, it looked to me like it was rather lonely."

(Reporting by Ruairidh Villar; Writing by Elaine Lies; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

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Cranes tower over the World Trade Center site in New York's lower Manhattan, December 12, 2012.

WASHINGTON | Wed Jan 2, 2013 10:12am EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Construction spending fell in November for the first time in eight months, as an extended bout of weakness in the business sector outweighed modest growth in outlays on residential projects.

Construction spending dropped 0.3 percent to an annual rate of $866 billion, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a 0.6 percent gain.

Businesses have shown signs they are holding back on investments because of worries over federal austerity plans, and the construction data could be another sign of flagging confidence.

Private spending on nonresidential projects slipped by 0.7 percent, the fourth decline in six months.

Spending on private residential projects, however, rose 0.4 percent, a reflection of the country's improving housing market.

Home building likely added to economic growth in 2012 for the first time since 2005, although the housing sector remains a shadow of what it was before the 2007-09 recession.

Public sector construction spending fell 0.4 percent. State and local spending edged 0.1 percent higher, while outlays on federal government projects - a relatively small component of overall construction spending - declined 5.5 percent.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Neil Stempleman)

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WARSAW | Thu Jan 3, 2013 7:15am EST

WARSAW (Reuters) - French power company EDF has launched its first wind farm in Poland, a 48 megawatt (MW) facility located in the northern part of the country, the firm said on Thursday.

The utility's unit, EDF Energies Nouvelles, bought the Linowo windfarm last year to strengthen its position in the coal-dependant European Union nation looking to boost the share of renewables in its energy supplies.

Poland has around 2,000 MW of installed wind energy, representing more than 5 percent of the power system's total capacity. It has targeted boosting that capacity to 6,000 MW by 2030.

Under EU law at least 15 percent of Poland's energy production must come from renewable sources by 2020.

(Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko; Editing by Michael Kahn and Mark Potter)

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WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 21, 2012 12:41pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - State and local government spending grew at a 0.3 percent annual rate in the third quarter, after 11 straight quarters of contraction, the U.S. Commerce Department said on Thursday.

The last time state and local spending expanded was in the third quarter of 2009, at a much more robust rate of 2.2 percent. Then, for nearly three years, spending contracted sharply, with the biggest drop in the first quarter of 2010 at 5.5 percent.

States are pinching pennies, keeping spending growth slow as the economy recovers from the 2007-09 recession and the federal government sends them fewer funds.

"The recent improvement in the national economy has not translated to strong growth in total state expenditures," said the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO) in a report also released on Thursday.

Total state spending likely grew only 0.1 percent in fiscal 2012, the lowest level since the group began tracking state spending in 1987, NASBO said. Most states' fiscal years end in June, which means that many have already started fiscal 2013.

The 2007-09 recession caused states' revenues to plunge and, because all states except Vermont must end their fiscal years with balanced budgets, many slashed spending, calling special legislative sessions to make emergency mid-year cuts.

The federal government stepped in to help with the 2009 economic stimulus plan known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which included the largest transfer of federal funds to states in U.S. history.

NASBO said state expenditures grew 3.8 percent in fiscal 2010 and 2.8 percent in fiscal 2011, mostly due to the assistance. By fiscal 2010 federal money made up nearly 35 percent of state spending, compared with 26.3 percent in fiscal 2008.

Now that the burst of stimulus money is over, states must once again shoulder the costs of public programs, even though their revenues are only beginning to return to pre-recession levels. Federal funds likely only represented 31.2 percent of state spending in fiscal 2012 and will continue to shrink, NASBO said.

"State revenues have not increased as fast as ARRA funds have declined, leading to a unique situation in which total state expenditure growth has slowed during the same time that the national economy has been improving," it reported.

Meanwhile, spending demands continue to grow, particularly for the Medicaid healthcare program for the poor that states operate with partial reimbursement from the federal government.

Over the last three years, the portion of state spending going to Medicaid has risen to 23.9 percent from 22.2 percent. Many states worry that Medicaid will eat up their budgets, and leave fewer dollars for other areas.

Spending on education dipped to 19.8 percent in fiscal 2012, the first time on record that the portion has been less than 20 percent, NASBO said.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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1 of 14. An automobile sits upside down in the car lot of Mercedes-Benz of Mobile following a winter storm in Mobile, Alabama, December 20, 2012. The first major winter storm of the year took aim at the U.S. Midwest on Thursday, triggering high wind and blizzard warnings across a widespread area, and a threat of tornadoes in Gulf Coast states to the south.

CHICAGO | Thu Dec 20, 2012 10:56pm EST

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The first major winter storm of the year hit the U.S. Midwest on Thursday, bringing a blizzard to the Plains and tornadoes to Alabama and Arkansas, and leaving some 133,000 customers without electricity.

Bad driving conditions led to a 25-car pileup on a highway near Clarion, Iowa, that left three people dead, authorities said. Blizzard warnings were in effect in eastern Iowa and parts of Wisconsin and Illinois Thursday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.

"It's going to be very windy with considerable blowing and drifting of snow," said Bruce Terry, a senior National Weather Service forecaster at the HydroMeteorological Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. He called the pre-Christmas storm "a major winter snowstorm" for the Midwest and western Great Lakes.

Accumulations of up to a foot of snow were expected in some areas, Terry said, adding there was a potential for severe weather on the so-called "warm side" of the storm in the U.S. Southeast.

Blowing snow led to school closures in parts of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri, plus the closure of all state government offices in Iowa.

"Thunder" snow was reported in Iowa Wednesday night, especially in southeastern Iowa, as thunder and lightning accompanied the storm as it surged across the state.

Travel was not advised on Iowa roads for the rest of the day, according to Annette Dunn with the Iowa Department of Transportation.

"We're going to have visibility and drifting problems through midnight," she said.

Late Thursday morning, troopers responded to a 25-car crash which killed three people on southbound Interstate 35 in northern Iowa. Iowa DOT closed I-35 at Highway 30 due to deteriorating conditions.

The Iowa National Guard has deployed about 80 soldiers from across the state to help highway assistance teams cope with the storm.

In Nebraska, portions of I-80 were closed Thursday due to snow-packed and icy road conditions. The entire road was expected to reopen before 4 p.m. local time.

In Chicago, rain was expected to change to snow Thursday night, with wind gusts of as much as 50 miles per hour, the NWS said.

Due to low visibility, airlines at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport were reporting delays of up to 90 minutes and have canceled more than 200 flights. At Midway Airport in Chicago, airlines canceled 150 flights and Southwest Airlines canceled all flights after 4:30 p.m.

A twister near downtown Mobile, Alabama, damaged buildings, snapped trees, downed power lines and flipped vehicles early on Thursday, but there were no reports of injuries, authorities said.

"The potential is there certainly for some isolated tornadoes," Terry said, referring to a broad swath of Gulf of Mexico coast and inland territory stretching from southeast Louisiana through the western Florida Panhandle.

The National Weather Service confirmed on Thursday that a tornado destroyed a mobile home southwest of Sheridan, Arkansas. There were no reports of injuries.

High winds of around 45 miles per hour in Tennessee knocked down trees and power lines.

While the heavy snow in the Upper Midwest will create potentially dangerous travel conditions, meteorologist Jeff Masters said it put an end to this year's "record-length snowless streaks in a number of U.S. cities."

Writing on his website weatherunderground.com, Masters said the storm would also provide "welcome moisture for drought-parched areas of the Midwest."

The winter storm, named Draco by the Weather Channel, began Tuesday in the Rocky Mountains and marked a dramatic change from the mild December so far in most of the nation.

High winds kicked up a dust storm in West Texas on Wednesday, leading to at least one death in a traffic accident near Lubbock.

Power companies reported electrical outages in Iowa, Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee, with a peak of 400,000 customers without power Thursday morning. That fell to 133,000 by Thursday afternoon.

(Writing by Tom Brown and Nick Carey; Reporting by Mary Wisniewski in Chicago, Eileen O'Grady in Houston, Kaija Wilkinson in Mobile, Alabama and Keith Coffman in Denver, Tim Ghianni in Nashville, Kay Henderson in Des Moines, Iowa, Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, Matthew Waller in San Angelo, Texas and Suzi Parker in Little Rock, Arkansas.; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Greg McCune, Tim Dobbyn and Jim Marshall)

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1 of 2. ''Snake Ceiling,'' by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, is pictured at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo in 2009, in this handout photograph obtained on October 2, 2012. The work is part of Ai's first major U.S. art exhibition scheduled for launch at Washington's Hirshhorn Museum on October 6, 2012. The show, ''Ai Weiwei: According to What?'', groups sculpture, photography, video, audio and installation work.

WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 2, 2012 4:50pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China's most famous political dissident, Ai Weiwei, launches his first major U.S. art exhibition on Sunday with some unflinchingly political works, including an image of his brain bleeding from a police beating.

The show, "Ai Weiwei: According to What?" at Washington's Hirshhorn Museum groups sculpture, photography, video, audio and installation work.

The choice of the Hirshhorn on the National Mall reflects Ai's desire to connect with political leaders, hundreds of foreign diplomats and the network of think tanks in the U.S. capital, museum director Richard Koshalek told reporters.

Ai said in a statement: "This exhibition has been an opportunity to re-examine past work and communicate with audiences from afar. I see it as a stream of activities rather than a fixed entity."

Ai's 81-day detention last year sparked an international outcry. Activists see authorities' tax evasion case against him as an attempt to muzzle the artist over his criticism of the Chinese government.

The exhibition fills much of the ring-shaped museum with scores of Ai's works. It centers on such themes as the relationship between art, society and individual experience.

The works include dozens of ink jet prints of the construction of Beijing's 2008 Olympic Stadium, which he helped design, and "China Log," a 63-inch-high (1.61-metre-high) map of China made of ironwood taken from demolished temples.

Much of show is devoted to the deadly 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province and the thousands of schoolchildren who died when shoddily constructed buildings collapsed. Ai was among the dissidents who had challenged Chinese authorities to investigate the deaths.

The ghostlike magnetic resonance image of his bleeding brain, measuring 3.3 by 6.5 feet, he attributes to a 2009 police beating.

"Snake Ceiling" is a 295-foot (90-meter) sculpture of a twisting snake made from student backpacks and mounted on the museum's ceiling.

A wall-sized print shows the names of 5,000 students killed in the quake. They are recited on a three-hour, 41-minute voice recording nearby.

Ai, 55, who is not allowed to leave China, was in frequent contact with organizers about how his works were displayed, curator Mami Kataoka said.

China is piling more pressure on Ai, with the artist saying on Tuesday that authorities have revoked the business license of the company that produces his art.

"Ai Weiwei: According to What?" runs at the Hirshhorn until February 24, 2013. It then travels to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Miami's Perez Art Museum and the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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NEW YORK | Fri Sep 28, 2012 7:09pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hedge funds and other big speculators have pulled more than $5 billion from U.S. commodity markets, cutting their net long position for the first time in six weeks after sending oil, metals and crop prices to multimonth highs, trade data showed Friday.

The profit-taking in the week to September 25 was the biggest in four months by the so-called "money managers" in commodities, according to data issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and calculated by Reuters.

It was the first major snap in managed money net longs that had built up since early July in anticipation of stimulus measures from the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank.

In that period, hedge funds and other speculators pumped about $30 billion into U.S. commodities, by Reuters' estimates, creating new bullish milestones in crude oil, gold, copper and soybean prices.

Reuters' calculations of the CFTC's Commitment of Traders data showed the value of the net long position held by money managers in some 22 U.S. commodity markets fell to $112.3 billion in the week to September 25, from $117.8 billion in the week ended September 18.

The figures are calculated by Reuters based on the change in net positions from a week ago, multiplied by the contract's value at the end of the period. Because most investors trade commodities on margin, the change in the value of positions is not directly equivalent to total investment.

In contract terms, the decline during the week to September 25 was 87,955 contracts, or nearly 6 percent lower from the previous week.

OIL LEADS LOSSES, GOLD SHINES

Oil accounted for much of the loss. Reuters' calculations showed a net outflow of $3.4 billion, or 36,885 contracts, in crude oil futures held by money managers on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Speculators were also bearish on natural gas, soybeans, raw sugar, cotton and arabica coffee -- trimming net longs or adding to net shorts in these markets.

The profit-taking did not mean that money managers were done on commodities, said some analysts, who placed high hopes on an even bigger rally down the road in markets such as gold due to inflationary pressure.

Managed money's net long in U.S. gold hit near seven-month highs on bets that major central banks would keep pumping money to stimulate growth.

"Gold is being utilized as a protest by investors against governments which are failing miserably to solve their deficit and debt problems," said Jeffrey Sica, chief investment officer of SICA Wealth Management, which has over $1 billion in assets.

Gold closed lower on Friday, but the precious metal posted its biggest quarterly gain in more than two years.

The 19-commodity Thomson Reuters-Jefferies CRB index, a bellwether for the asset class, also had its best quarter since the first quarter of 2011.

Monthly data issued separately by the CFTC on Friday showed the net length across U.S. commodity markets rose by $8.8 billion in August to $209 billion.

The CFTC figures account for only a portion of the investor capital invested in commodity markets worldwide. Much of the rest are invested in over-the-counter contracts, physical exchange funds or credit notes, or via banks, which are classified differently by the CFTC.

(Editing by Jim Marshall)

View the original article here

NEW YORK | Fri Sep 28, 2012 7:09pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hedge funds and other big speculators have pulled more than $5 billion from U.S. commodity markets, cutting their net long position for the first time in six weeks after sending oil, metals and crop prices to multimonth highs, trade data showed Friday.

The profit-taking in the week to September 25 was the biggest in four months by the so-called "money managers" in commodities, according to data issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and calculated by Reuters.

It was the first major snap in managed money net longs that had built up since early July in anticipation of stimulus measures from the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank.

In that period, hedge funds and other speculators pumped about $30 billion into U.S. commodities, by Reuters' estimates, creating new bullish milestones in crude oil, gold, copper and soybean prices.

Reuters' calculations of the CFTC's Commitment of Traders data showed the value of the net long position held by money managers in some 22 U.S. commodity markets fell to $112.3 billion in the week to September 25, from $117.8 billion in the week ended September 18.

The figures are calculated by Reuters based on the change in net positions from a week ago, multiplied by the contract's value at the end of the period. Because most investors trade commodities on margin, the change in the value of positions is not directly equivalent to total investment.

In contract terms, the decline during the week to September 25 was 87,955 contracts, or nearly 6 percent lower from the previous week.

OIL LEADS LOSSES, GOLD SHINES

Oil accounted for much of the loss. Reuters' calculations showed a net outflow of $3.4 billion, or 36,885 contracts, in crude oil futures held by money managers on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Speculators were also bearish on natural gas, soybeans, raw sugar, cotton and arabica coffee -- trimming net longs or adding to net shorts in these markets.

The profit-taking did not mean that money managers were done on commodities, said some analysts, who placed high hopes on an even bigger rally down the road in markets such as gold due to inflationary pressure.

Managed money's net long in U.S. gold hit near seven-month highs on bets that major central banks would keep pumping money to stimulate growth.

"Gold is being utilized as a protest by investors against governments which are failing miserably to solve their deficit and debt problems," said Jeffrey Sica, chief investment officer of SICA Wealth Management, which has over $1 billion in assets.

Gold closed lower on Friday, but the precious metal posted its biggest quarterly gain in more than two years.

The 19-commodity Thomson Reuters-Jefferies CRB index, a bellwether for the asset class, also had its best quarter since the first quarter of 2011.

Monthly data issued separately by the CFTC on Friday showed the net length across U.S. commodity markets rose by $8.8 billion in August to $209 billion.

The CFTC figures account for only a portion of the investor capital invested in commodity markets worldwide. Much of the rest are invested in over-the-counter contracts, physical exchange funds or credit notes, or via banks, which are classified differently by the CFTC.

(Editing by Jim Marshall)

View the original article here