MOSCOW | Fri Mar 15, 2013 1:20am EDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Three Russian and American astronauts are stuck for one more day aboard the international space station after foul weather delayed their landing on Friday in the steppes of Central Asia.

Since October, NASA's Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin have been aboard the orbiting outpost, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles above Earth.

Fog and freezing rain at the landing site in Kazakhstan prevented helicopters from setting up for the crew's return to Earth, NASA TV commentary said during live mission streaming.

A spokesman for the Russian space agency Roskosmos said the landing would be pushed back by one day and is now scheduled for 7:06 a.m. Moscow time (0306 GMT).

The crew's descent back to Earth aboard a Russia Soyuz spacecraft will take less than four hours.

In preparation for their departure, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield took the helm of the space station on Wednesday, becoming the first Canadian to take command of the outpost.

It is only the second time in the 12-year history of the station, a project of 15 nations that has been permanently staffed since November 2000, that command has been turned over to someone who is not American or Russian.

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.

(Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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1 of 3. Former U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney stands onstage for remarks to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, March 15, 2013.

OXON HILL, Maryland | Fri Mar 15, 2013 7:47pm EDT

OXON HILL, Maryland (Reuters) - At a gathering for conservatives to plot their future, there was a stark reminder of the past on Friday as failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney made his first public speech since election night.

"I am sorry that I won't be your president," Romney told the audience of the Conservative Political Action Conference, "but I will be your co-worker and I will stand shoulder to shoulder beside you."

Since he accepted defeat to President Barack Obama in the early hours of the morning on November 7 in Boston, Romney has largely vanished from view. He is occasionally spotted on the ski slopes with his family, pumping gas, or shopping at Costco.

He and his wife Ann have retired to La Jolla, California, where the Romney family keeps a home, although they did give an interview to Fox News last month.

The former Massachusetts governor was the first losing presidential candidate in nearly 25 years not to be in Washington on Inauguration Day.

Looking tanned since his time off the campaign trail, Romney delivered what sounded very like his campaign speech. He told vignettes about the Americans he met as he traveled across the country on the way to his eventual defeat.

Romney said he realized the awkwardness of his position.

"As someone who just lost the last election, I'm probably not the best person to chart the course for the next election," he said.

ROCKY RELATIONSHIP

Romney has never had a simple relationship with the conservative base, which always suspected he was too moderate on healthcare, abortion and other issues.

In past years, Romney won the conference's straw poll for preferred presidential candidate, but audiences like CPAC are often filled with the sort of Republicans who were most suspicious of his conservative credentials.

Appearing at the same event last year, Romney declared himself to be "severely conservative." That strained formulation did not warm conservatives' hearts and led to ridicule from some in the media.

For many gathered at a hotel here south of Washington, the lesson from Romney's loss is a simple one: Republicans nominated a candidate who wasn't conservative enough.

On Thursday, Texas Governor Rick Perry, once Romney's rival in the presidential primary, told the crowd: "The popular media narrative is that this country has shifted away from conservative ideas, as evidence by the last two presidential elections. That's what they think, that's what they say. That might be true if Republicans had actually nominated conservative candidates in 2008 and 2012."

"The fact is the base didn't come out for him," said Bob Vander Plaats, the president of the Family Leader and a prominent social conservative in the early-voting state of Iowa. "No matter how much we did to push our base towards him that was a hard rope to push."

Romney was received warmly by the audience and the former candidate thanked them for their "earnest support."

He did have one warning for conservatives.

"We particularly need to hear from the governors of the blue and purple states," he said, advising conservatives not to give up on the states where he lost to Obama.

Romney mentioned two governors — New Jersey's Chris Christie and Virginia's Bob McDonnell — who were not invited to participate in the influential conference.

Both governors have been criticized for taking positions that part with Republican orthodoxy. But a Reuters/Ipsos online poll on Friday showed Christie as the Republican with the best rating against possible 2016 Democratic opponents Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden. [ID:nL1N0C76P2]

LARGELY IGNORED

Since his defeat, Romney has rarely been mentioned by conservatives.

Speaking a few hours before Romney, Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee, centered his remarks on the federal budget and made no mention of his former running mate.

In the aftermath of the last campaign, Republicans have set about refashioning their image, moving away from Romney's campaign positions.

Romney's campaign was marked by a hawkish view on immigration and was hindered by his remarks in secretly recorded video deploring nearly half of all Americans as "victims."

Now, Republican congressmen are playing leading roles in trying to reform immigration laws and leaders are encouraging reaching out to African-American and Hispanic voters, two groups that backed Obama by wide margins.

Influential Republicans like Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal have called on their party to embrace the people Romney appeared to reject in his infamous "47 percent" remarks about voters who receive government aid.

Despite his downfall, Romney was undeterred.

"It's fashionable in some circles to be pessimistic about America, about conservative solutions, about the Republican Party," Romney said. "I utterly reject that pessimism."

(Editing by Alistair Bell and Claudia Parsons)

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United Nations Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet speaks at the International Labour Conference (OIT) in Santiago December 19, 2011.

UNITED NATIONS | Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:21pm EDT

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet announced on Friday she would step down from a key U.N. post amid high expectations that the popular politician would campaign again for the top job in her homeland at a November election.

Speaking at the end of a U.N. policy-making conference on women's rights, Bachelet simply said she would leave her role as executive director of gender equality body U.N. Women to go "back to my country."

The pediatrician-turned-politician's 2006 to 2010 rule was one of Chile's most popular presidencies, thanks to Bachelet's amiable style, welfare policies and steady economic growth in one of the region's most developed countries.

Chile's fractured left-wing coalition, which President Sebastian Pinera ousted from a 20-year rule, is hoping Bachelet will stage a comeback. Pinera belongs to the right-wing Renovacion Nacional party.

Bachelet, a victim of torture under the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and a single mother of three, was one of conservative Chile's most unusual presidents since the return to democracy in 1990.

But her legacy was tainted by her government's slow response providing aid and halting looting after a devastating 8.8 magnitude earthquake in February 2010.

Under Chilean law, Pinera is banned from running for a second consecutive term. Former Public Works Minister Laurence Golborne, a charismatic businessman, and former Defense Minister Andres Allamand, a seasoned politician, are jostling to be the right-wing bloc's candidate.

About 49 percent of Chileans say they want Bachelet to be the country's next president, versus 11 percent for Golborne and 5 percent for Allamand, pollster CEP said in January.

Bachelet has led U.N. Women, a body for gender equality and the empowerment of women, since it was created in 2010 by the U.N. General Assembly.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Friday praised her "visionary leadership" for giving it the start it needed.

"Her record of achievement includes new steps to protect women and girls from violence, new advances on health and a new understanding that women's empowerment must be at the core of all we do at the United Nations," he said in a statement.

"Her drive and compassion enabled her to mobilize and make a difference for millions of people across the world," he said.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations and Alexandra Ulmer in Santiago; Editing by Todd Eastham)

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1 of 12. Newly elected Pope Francis I, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, meets cardinals in the Clementine Hall in a picture released by Osservatore Romano at the Vatican March 15, 2013.

VATICAN CITY | Fri Mar 15, 2013 7:57pm EDT

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Friday urged leaders of a Roman Catholic Church riven by scandal and crisis never to give in to discouragement, bitterness or pessimism but to keep focused on their mission.

Since his election on Wednesday as the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years, Francis has signaled a sharp change of style from his predecessor, Benedict, and has laid out a clear moral path for the 1.2-billion-member Church, which is beset by scandals, intrigue and strife.

"Let us never give in to the pessimism, to that bitterness, that the devil places before us every day. Let us not give into pessimism and discouragement," he told the cardinals who chose him.

The Vatican on Friday strongly denied accusations by some critics in Argentina that Francis stayed silent during systematic human rights abuses by the former military dictatorship in his home country.

Spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told reporters the accusations "must be clearly and firmly denied".

Critics of Jorge Bergoglio, the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires, allege he failed to protect priests who challenged the dictatorship earlier in his career, during the 1976-1983 "dirty war", and that he has said too little about the complicity of the Church during military rule.

Setting out a clear and forceful moral tone in the early days of his papacy, Francis on Thursday told the cardinals they must stick to the faith's Gospel roots and shun modern temptations, otherwise the Church risked becoming just another charitable group without its divine mission.

Francis has given clear signs already that he will bring a new broom to the crisis-hit papacy, favoring humility and simplicity over pomp and grandeur.

OFF THE CUFF

On Friday he spoke to the cardinals in Italian from a prepared text but often added off-the-cuff comments in what has already become the hallmark of a style in sharp contrast to the stiffer, more formal Benedict.

Francis called the princes of the church "brother cardinals" instead of "lord cardinals" as Benedict did. Lombardi said Francis was still taking his meals with other prelates in the Vatican residence where the cardinals stayed during the conclave. "He just sits down at any table where there is a free spot, with a great sense of ease."

Another notable difference from the formal Benedict is the new pope's outgoing nature and sense of humor.

On Friday, he hugged cardinals, slapped them on the back, broke into animated laughter and blessed religious objects one cardinal pulled out of a plastic shopping bag.

In the afternoon, he slipped out of the Vatican for the second straight day, this time to visit a fellow Argentine, 90-year-old Cardinal Jorg Mejia, who had suffered a heart attack.

On Thursday morning, the day after his election, he left quietly to pray at a Rome basilica and to pay his bill at a residence where he had been staying before the conclave.

Earlier in the Sistine Chapel, in another sign of humility, Francis stopped cardinals who tried to kneel before him.

But his message was serious. The role of Church elders, including himself, was to set an example and pass on faith and values to younger people without being distracted by the temptations of wordliness.

"We are in old age. Old age is the seat of wisdom," he said, speaking slowly. "Like good wine that becomes better with age, let us pass on to young people the wisdom of life," he said.

TRIBUTE TO BENEDICT

He made a point of paying tribute to Benedict, who shocked the Church last month by becoming the first pontiff in some 600 years to resign instead of ruling for life, saying he had "lit a flame in the depths of our hearts" with his courage and example.

Morale among the faithful has been hit by a widespread child sex abuse scandal involving Catholic priests and in-fighting in the Church government or Curia, which many prelates believe needs radical reform.

Francis is seen as having a common touch and the communication skills that the aloof Benedict lacked.

Whereas Benedict delivered his first homily in Latin, laying out his broad vision for the Church, Francis adopted the tone of parish priest, focusing on faith.

"When we walk without the cross, when we build without the cross and when we proclaim Christ without the cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are worldly," he told the massed ranks of cardinals clad in gold-colored vestments.

"We may be bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, all of this, but we are not disciples of the Lord (if we don't follow Jesus)," he added, speaking slowly in Italian.

The new pope signaled immediately his intentions for the papacy when he adopted the name of St. Francis of Assisi, who gave up a life of privilege in the 12th century to follow a vocation of poverty.

He urged Argentines not to make costly trips to Rome for his inauguration next week but to give money to the poor instead.

No Vatican watchers had expected the conservative Argentinian to get the nod, and some of the background to the surprise vote has already trickled out, confirming that cardinals wanted a pastoral figure to revitalize the global Church but also someone who would get the dysfunctional Vatican bureaucracy in order.

French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard told reporters: "We were looking for a pope who was spiritual, a shepherd. I think with Cardinal Bergoglio, we have this kind of person. He is also a man of great intellectual character who I believe is also a man of governance."

After more than a millennium of European leadership, the cardinals who chose Francis looked to Latin America, where 42 percent of the world's Catholics live. The continent is more focused on poverty and the rise of evangelical churches than questions of materialism, rising secularism and priestly sexual abuse, which dominate in the West.

Francis' inaugural Mass will be held next Tuesday, with many world leaders expected to attend.

(Editing by Barry Moody and Giles Elgood)

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1 of 3. U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel speaks at his news conference at the Pentagon in Washington March 15, 2013.

WASHINGTON | Fri Mar 15, 2013 8:10pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced plans on Friday to bolster missile defenses in response to "irresponsible and reckless provocations" by North Korea, which threatened a preventative nuclear strike against the United States last week.

Hagel said the Pentagon would add 14 new anti-missile interceptors at Fort Greely in Alaska - an effective reversal of an early Obama administration decision - and move ahead with the deployment of a second missile-defense radar in Japan.

The Pentagon also left open the possibility of creating a site on the East Coast where the Pentagon could field more interceptors capable of striking down an incoming missile. The 14 additional interceptor deployments would cost nearly $1 billion and must be approved by Congress.

"By taking the steps I outlined today we will strengthen our homeland defense, maintain our commitments to our allies and partners, and make clear to the world that the United States stands firm against aggression," Hagel told a news conference.

North Korea issued its threat last week to stage a preemptive nuclear attack against the United States as the United Nations readied new sanctions against Pyongyang in response to its February 12 nuclear test.

Experts say North Korea is years away from being able to hit the continental United States with a nuclear weapon, despite having worked for decades to achieve a nuclear capability.

But Hagel said the moves announced by the Pentagon were justified to stay ahead of the threat, underscored by the nuclear test and a December rocket launch that analysts believe was aimed at developing technology for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Hagel also cited North Korea's display last April of what appeared to be a road-mobile ICBM.

The Pentagon said the United States had informed China, North Korea's neighbor and closest ally, of its decision to add more interceptors but declined to characterize Beijing's reaction.

U.S. SAYS SYSTEMS NOT AIMED AT CHINA OR RUSSIA

Officials say its missile defense systems are not designed to counter the large number of ICBMs in arsenals in China or Russia and are focused instead on the threat from North Korea or, potentially, Iran.

Friday's announcement came with a key caveat - the Pentagon said it would only purchase the extra interceptors if they perform appropriately in tests. The interceptors in question have not hit a target since 2008, a defense official said.

Boeing Co. is the prime contractor of the system. Key Boeing subcontractors include Raytheon Co., which makes the kill vehicle, and Orbital Sciences Corp, which makes the rocket booster.

Admiral James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed confidence in the missiles and said he believed the steps taken by the United States would make North Korea's young leader, Kim Jung-un, think twice before acting on bellicose rhetoric.

"We not only intend to put the mechanics in place to deny any potential North Korean objective to launch a missile to the United States, but also to impose costs on them if they do," he told reporters.

"And we believe that this young lad ought to be deterred by that. And if he's not, we'll be ready."

The addition of another 14 interceptors amounts to a reversal of an Obama administration decision in 2010 to stop expansion of the missile interceptor system at 30 interceptors. The Bush administration had planned to deploy a total of 44.

The United States currently has 26 interceptors deployed at Fort Greely and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Congressman Mike Turner, chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, said the Obama administration had began "to realize the shortcomings of its missile defense strategy."

"Now that the administration has decided to see clearly, America can get back on the right course," Howard McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement, lamenting lost time and resources.

In a sign of fiscal pressures facing the Pentagon, U.S. officials acknowledged they were also forgoing development of a new anti-missile interceptor that would have been deployed in Europe. They said European defense would be unaffected.

Officials said the United States would move forward with congressionally mandated environmental impact studies for alternative sites in the United States for deploying additional ground-based interceptors, if needed.

Winnefeld said locations on the East Coast were being considered but declined to offer details.

"We're still looking at sites," he said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and David Brunnstrom)

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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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People walk toward the U.S. Capitol in Washington March 4, 2013.

WASHINGTON | Fri Mar 15, 2013 5:26pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan group in the House of Representatives is close to completing work on a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would include a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, according to congressional aides.

Two of the aides confirmed on Friday that the negotiators were still trying to agree on the issue of how to handle temporary laborers coming into the United States.

House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, was briefed on Friday on the legislation, which congressional aides described as being nearly complete. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi received a briefing on Thursday, said one senior Democratic aide.

Michael Steel, a spokesman for Boehner, said: "The speaker had a good talk with the Republicans in the bipartisan immigration reform group. They've made real progress on a tough issue." He said the group would continue to work on the measure.

Boehner's office would not comment on details of the bipartisan group's work.

The back-to-back briefings for Pelosi and Boehner were "to let them know they were close to a finished product," said one House aide with knowledge of the issue.

In the Senate, a bipartisan group also neared completion of its own broad immigration bill, said senators and Senate aides.

Andrea Zuniga DiBitetto, a lobbyist for the AFL-CIO labor federation, said, "We're confident that a deal is going to be reached."

Leading senators have said the goal is to introduce a bill by early April. If things go as planned, the legislation could be ready for Senate floor debate by June or July.

Proponents in the House hope to pass their version of a bill this year.

A comprehensive reform bill, if it comes together, would aim to further toughen border security, deal with the millions living illegally in the United States and develop a way to streamline the future legal flow of immigrants, including temporary workers.

Prospects for legislation got a major boost last November, when Hispanic-Americans voted overwhelmingly to re-elect Democratic President Barack Obama.

The election results jolted Republicans, many of whom had taken a hard-line stance against any immigration reforms other than securing the southwestern border with Mexico and luring more skilled workers from abroad for U.S. high-tech firms facing labor shortages.

Although most Republicans say they now want to see some sort of immigration bill enacted this year, many are still hesitant about, or opposed, to giving 11 million illegal immigrants a special pathway to citizenship, arguing that would reward them for breaking the law and encourage a new wave of illegal border crossings.

TOUGHEST CHALLENGE

Among the toughest issues the group of eight senators has wrestled with, more so even than a path toward citizenship, involves maids, waitresses and other low-paid foreign workers.

The group, which includes Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, is trying to create a system allowing businesses to hire more low-skilled workers to fill shortages, but only after they show that they cannot find Americans to take the jobs.

In the past two weeks, the senators have submitted proposals to the AFL-CIO, the biggest labor group, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest business group. But those two groups remain deeply divided.

Talks "have been difficult," Randel Johnson, the chamber's senior vice president of labor and immigration, told reporters on Friday. "What is the overall cap of the (temporary visa) program is an issue," he said.

The chamber wants 400,000 visas a year. The AFL-CIO wants to cap visas in "very low five figures," said Johnson.

The chamber and the AFL-CIO had agreed that a new temporary worker program, which unions previously opposed on grounds it exploits workers, would eventually let some of the immigrants earn U.S. citizenship.

Johnson could not say how many of the temporary workers would be allowed to earn citizenship, except to say they would have to meet certain criteria such as having no criminal record.

That also is the case for the 11 million undocumented people in the United States, according to the Senate initiative outlined in late January.

Under the Senate measure, they would have to have clean criminal records, pay back taxes and a penalty and learn to speak English. In practice, it could take up to 15 years for someone to earn citizenship. But they would not live under the threat of deportation.

The group has discussed creation of a commission, perhaps within the Labor Department, to oversee the annual admission of low-skilled foreign workers. It would consider factors including the jobless rate in specific sectors, such as those that employ hotel and restaurant workers.

(Additional reporting by Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Fred Barbash and Peter Cooney)

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1 of 2. A man walks in front of a company logo outside an Apple store in downtown Shanghai January 24, 2013.

SHANGHAI | Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:14pm EDT

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Technology giant Apple Inc and car maker Volkswagen AG were singled out by state-run China Central Television (CCTV) in its annual corporate malpractice expose.

On its "3.15" investigative special aired late on Friday, CCTV said that Chinese customers were not given the same post-sales service from Apple as it gave to users in other markets.

The report also said that the direct shift gearbox (DSG) transmission, a long-standing issue for Volkswagen, was causing cars to speed up or slow down during driving.

Volkswagen, which plans to almost double production capacity in China to 4 million cars in the next five years, promised action in response to the "3:15" show, whose name refers to the date of World Consumer Rights Day.

"We take this report very seriously and we will quickly make contact with our consumers to resolve the issue," it said on its official Chinese Weibo microblog.

In a statement Apple China said: "Our team is always striving to exceed our customers' expectations, and we take any customer concerns very seriously."

Apple looks to China not just as its main production base, but also to re-energize slowing growth, the result of rising smartphone penetration in mature markets. CEO Tim Cook sees the world's No. 2 economy as virgin expansion territory, and Apple singles out the region in every quarterly results report.

The television show has named and shamed a number of prominent Western companies in the past, hitting the sales and stocks of its targets in a retail market that is forecast to be the world's largest in three years.

Last year "3:15", one of the most widely watched shows in China, singled out fast-food giant McDonald's Corp and French hypermarket chain Carrefour SA for food safety violations.

The companies were forced to apologize and their shares slumped as China's army of half a billion microbloggers unleashed their anger online.

U.S. retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Korea's Kunho Tire Co Inc also have been blasted by state TV on Consumer Rights Day.

SAFETY CONCERNS

In December, a separate state television report triggered a food safety scare at Yum Brands Inc. restaurants, cutting its China same-restaurant sales by 20 percent in January and February.

Chinese companies have not been spared from scrutiny.

Public concern about food safety, pollution and corporate corruption has intensified over the last few years, after state media exposed malpractice at local firms including web search engine Baidu Inc and milk producer Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co.

"These TV exposes create the impression that you can't trust that brand," said Torsten Stocker, head of Greater China consumer practice at Monitor Deloitte. "If there's some smoke then maybe there's much bigger fire."

In a bid to preempt any negative publicity on Consumer Rights Day, some companies launched customer-friendly promotions ahead of the TV show. McDonald's will give out free breakfasts on Monday and Wal-Mart launched an "adopt-a-tree" campaign.

But some Chinese consumers said that the revelations from the "3.15" show would nonetheless have a significant impact on their choice of products in the future.

"I think the exposure of these companies makes them hard to believe again, at least I myself will boycott these companies," Sherry Chen, a clerk at DBS bank in Shanghai, told Reuters in the city's affluent financial district ahead of Friday's show.

The show also stirred up vitriol online in China. Within an hour of the broadcast, Apple had been mentioned 50,000 times on popular web microblog Weibo, China's version of Twitter which has more than half a billion users.

While many posts on Weibo were negative, the targeted companies may take solace that some users were not entirely convinced by the "3.15" show, which is a colorful mixture of under-cover footage and pro-consumer song-and-dance routines.

"Tonight's 3.15 hit out against corruption. But the most fraudulent thing at the end of the night was the show itself," posted Weibo user 'Soledad Horse'. "Oh CCTV, can't you try and find some intelligence from now on?"

(Additional reporting by Fang Yan; Editing by Miral Fahmy and Michael Roddy)

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A computer screen is pictured before a scientific seminar to deliver the latest update in the search for the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin, near Geneva July 4, 2012.

GENEVA | Thu Mar 14, 2013 11:08am EDT

GENEVA (Reuters) - Physicists who last summer triumphantly announced the discovery of a new particle but held back from saying what it was, declared on Thursday there was now little doubt it was the long-sought Higgs boson.

Latest analysis of data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator, where the boson was spotted as a bump on a graph early in 2012, "strongly indicates" it is the Higgs, said CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research.

Physicists believe the boson and its linked energy field were vital in the formation of the universe after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago by bringing flying particles together to make stars, planets and eventually humans - giving mass to matter, in the scientific jargon.

The particle and the field, named for British physicist Peter Higgs who predicted their existence 50 years ago, are also the last major missing elements in what scientists call the Standard Model of how the cosmos works at the very basic level.

But the CERN statement stopped short of claiming a discovery - which would clear the way to Nobel prizes for scientists linked to the project - and floated the idea that this might be an exotic "super-Higgs" offering a key to new worlds of physics.

"It remains an open question whether this is the Higgs boson of the Standard Model ... or possibly the lightest of several bosons predicted in some theories that go beyond the Standard Model," said CERN, a large complex on the edge of Geneva.

"Finding the answer to this question will take time."

Although some CERN physicists privately expressed irritation at the continuing refusal to - as one said - "call a Higgs a Higgs", others argued that this could only come when the evidence was all totally irrefutable.

If it is not what one CERN-watching blogger has dubbed a "common or garden Higgs" but something more complex, vistas into worlds of supersymmetry, string theory, multiple dimensions and even parallel universes could begin to unfold.

WHAT KIND OF HIGGS?

"To me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson, though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is," said Joe Incandela, spokesman for CMS, one of the two independent CERN LHC monitoring teams.

"There is every possibility that it is a Higgs boson from a more complex model, such as supersymmetry (a theory which says every elementary particle has a so-far unseen heavier partner)," another CMS researcher, John Conway, told Reuters.

In recent months, rumors have flown that the particle might be some sort of super-Higgs - "the link between our world and most of the matter in the universe" as predicted by U.S. physicist Sean Carroll in a new book.

But David Charlton, who speaks for the ATLAS team, said the latest analysis, presented on Thursday to a conference in the Italian Alps, pointed to the particle fitting the Standard Model - which would exclude exotica.

However, CERN scientists agree nothing startlingly new could be expected until much later in the decade, well after the LHC - shut down last month for two years to allow its power and reach to be doubled - resumes operations in early 2015.

In the giant subterranean collider, which started up in March 2010, particles are smashed together hundreds of times a second at near the speed of light to simulate the Big Bang. The debris is then tracked on huge detectors.

But the new particle turns up only once in every trillion collisions - leaving the thousands of physicists and analysts at CERN, and in laboratories around the world, the massive task of deciding what data to discard.

(Reporting by Robert Evans; Editing by Pravin Char)

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n">(Reuters) - Model year 2012 passenger vehicles sold in the United States had an average fuel economy rating of 23.8 miles per gallon, the highest on record, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday.

Last year's models showed a 1.4 mpg improvement over 2011, the biggest annual improvement since the EPA began keeping records on fuel economy.

Improving fuel economy is a key component of the Obama administration's effort to cut U.S. oil consumption and polluting greenhouse gases, which cause global warming.

Model year 2012 cars and light-duty trucks sold in the United States average emissions of 374 grams of carbon dioxide, down from 398 grams per mile in the previous model year, the EPA report said.

Carbon dioxide accounts for the lion's share of greenhouse gas emissions globally.

The EPA said the figures released in its report, which can be seen at 1.usa.gov/XcUqqj are preliminary.

Among major manufacturers, Honda Motor Co showed the highest average fuel economy of 26.4 mpg, followed by Volkswagen AG at 26.2 mpg, Mazda Motor Corp and at 25.9 mpg.

Among U.S. automakers, Ford Motor Co vehicles reported the best average fuel economy at 23.2 mpg, up from 21.1 mpg for its 2011 models, the EPA said.

Hyundai Motor Co would have the highest for 2012 vehicles, at 28.8 mpg, but its figures are under investigation by the EPA. In November, the EPA announced that it was investigating Hyundai and its corporate sister Kia Motors Corp after its own tests showed less performance than what the automakers claimed.

U.S. automakers have more pickup trucks and large sport utility vehicles in their lineups, which increases their corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) ratings.

Auto manufacturers have increased the number of hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles, plug-in vehicles as well as increased fuel economy for internal combustion gasoline engines in recent years, largely spurred on fuel economy targets set by the Obama administration.

In 2011, Obama reached a deal with major automakers that fuel economy for each manufacturer will rise to an average of 54.5 mpg by 2025. By model year 2016, U.S. cars and light-duty trucks by each manufacturer are to average 35.5 mpg.

The EPA said the longer term trend of improving fuel economy ratings began with the 2005 model year, during the Bush administration.

Since the 2007 model year, U.S. passenger vehicles have shown a 13-percent increase in fuel economy ratings and a 16 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; editing by Sofina Mirza-Reid)

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