SYDNEY (AP) -- The moon glided between the Earth and sun, blocking everything but a dazzling ring of light, for the few skygazers lucky enough to see Friday's "ring of fire" eclipse in northern Australia and the South Pacific.

The celestial spectacle is the second solar eclipse visible from northern Australia in six months. In November, a total solar eclipse plunged the country's northeast into darkness, delighting astronomers and tourists who flocked to the region from across the globe to witness it.

An annular eclipse is not considered as scientifically important or dramatic as a total eclipse. The moon is farther from Earth and cannot completely black out the sun, so instead of seeming to turn day into night, an annular eclipse just dims the sunlight.

"A total eclipse is overall far more spectacular, far more emotional," said Andrew Jacob, an astronomer at Sydney Observatory. Still, he said, Friday's eclipse "will give you a nice ring of sunlight in the sky it will be quite different."

At remote outposts across Australia, scientists and spectators gathered to watch as the eclipse began casting its approximately 200-kilometer-wide (120-mile-wide) shadow at dawn over Western Australia, before moving east through the Northern Territory and the top of Queensland state. The shadow was drifting across Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the tiny island nation of Kiribati, and will eventually end in a largely uninhabited area of the Pacific Ocean.

The eclipse lasted between three and six minutes, depending on its location, and blacked out around 95 percent of the sun at its peak. A partial eclipse was visible in other parts of Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand and the South Pacific.

U.S. astronomer Jay Pasachoff, who traveled to Australia to view his 57th solar eclipse, drove to a remote hill in the Outback about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the Northern Territory town of Tennant Creek, where he and around 100 others enjoyed one of the best and longest views of the eclipse in Australia.

Amateur astronomers clicked away on cameras and local high school students measured the drop in temperature as the moon moved in front of the sun and blocked out much of the light. The moment was magical, Pasachoff said.

"The color of the light changes in an eerie fashion, and you sense that something very strange and weird and wonderful is going on," said Pasachoff, an astronomy professor at Williams College in Massachusetts.

LONDON (Reuters) - British fashion designer and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham said life as a working mother is a struggle but she relishes the challenge and plans to expand her empire with a retail store in London.

As mother to three boys - Brooklyn, 14, Romeo, 10, and Cruz, 8 - and to 21-month-old daughter Harper, Beckham said balancing her family life and career was a constant juggle.

"The children are my priority and always have been and always will be so it's a little bit of a juggling act," she told the Vogue Festival at London's Royal Festival Hall on Sunday.

"I really enjoy being a mum, I love my kids more than anything, but I love doing what I do as well and it's just getting the balance right which is not easy, at all."

With her second son Romeo appearing in the latest Burberry campaign and football star husband David Beckham fronting an underwear campaign for H&M, 39-year-old Beckham is busy.

But she said she was keen to build further on her success in fashion with plans to open her first retail store in London.

"This is where I want to have my first store ... I'd like to do something that is really new, really fresh. Something a little bit conceptual but not too much," she said without giving any more details.

Beckham, who made her name as pop singer Posh Spice in the 1990s British all-girl band, entered into fashion in 2004 with American denim brand Rock and Republic, co-designing jeans, skirts and knitwear before launching her own line in 2006.

As a model she has also appeared in campaigns for designers Marc Jacobs and Dolce and Gabanna.

She introduced her Victoria Beckham collection of dresses in 2008 which was well received by the fashion industry and is now a regular fixture on the New York Fashion Week circuit.

Beckham, whose designs are worn by actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Anne Hathaway as well as singer Beyonce Knowles, said she wanted women to be empowered and confident in her clothes.

"A lot of thought goes into everything I design to make a women feel the best that she can feel," she said.

"Women are always going to feel a little bit insecure. There is a lot of pressure on women to look a certain way and I want to help women feel good about themselves."

Beckham's comments on body image came ahead of a debate on body size at the festival where models Daisy Lowe and David Gandy shared their experiences of working in fashion.

Earlier this month British Vogue magazine signed a 10-point agreement with trade union Equity to ensure that models will not work more than 10 hours a day and to ensure their working conditions in a studio or on location are healthy.

This comes as part of a wider initiative by the fashion industry to encourage a healthier approach to body image.

In February, the Council of Fashion Designers of America issued new guidelines at New York Fashion Week to stop the use of underage and underweight models from walking the runways.

"I think it's important for women to not just focus on the fantasy and the ideal, but actually what is right for themselves because everyone's bodies are different and all of them are beautiful in their own way," said Lowe.

(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Two Indian ministers embroiled in scandals quit on Friday, adding to speculation the prime minister may have to call an early election after the furor paralyzed parliament and forced the delay of economic reforms.

Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal had been widely expected to step down after police arrested his nephew on suspicion of accepting a bribe in a case that was seen as embarrassing to the Congress party-led government, which has been battered by a series of corruption scandals.

Law Minister Ashwani Kumar's departure comes days after the Supreme Court said the government substantially changed a report by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into alleged irregularities in the awarding of mining rights potentially worth billions of dollars to private companies.

They met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh late Friday and submitted their resignations, ruling Congress party spokesman Bhakta Charan Das told Reuters.

The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has also demanded Singh's resignation, but stopped short of calling a no-confidence motion in parliament to bring down the government.

However, the opposition clamor for the resignations proved so disruptive that parliament was adjourned on Wednesday until further notice, two days ahead of its scheduled close, as it became impossible to carry out meaningful legislative business.

The government has had to postpone economic legislation and a flagship program to give cheap food to 70 percent of the population.

DISARRAY

"The resignation of the two ministers shows that our demand for their resignation was justified and the government was unnecessarily adamant," BJP leader Sushma Swaraj wrote on Twitter.

"If they had accepted our demand for their resignations earlier, the parliament session could go on."

Led by octogenarian economist Singh, India's minority coalition government has been unsteady since two key allies pulled out and the resignations will add to speculation over whether Singh will call an election before May 2014.

The so-called Coalgate mining rights scandal has become one of the biggest headaches for Singh, who was coal minister when some of the blocks were awarded.

Bansal was appointed amid much fanfare last year to turn around the ailing Indian Railways, becoming the first railway minister from the Congress party since 1996 and the first to raise passenger fares in nine years.

However, his resignation seemed inevitable after his nephew, Vijay Singla, was arrested last week on suspicion of accepting a $160,000 bribe to arrange the promotion of a railways official. Singla has said he is innocent of the charges.

Bansal has denied any wrongdoing and is yet to be questioned by police. Indian media said the police were investigating how much Bansal knew about his nephew's activities.

Despite the seemingly endless stream of corruption scandals and setbacks, the Congress party is still hopeful of winning a third term in office.

The Hindu nationalist BJP is in disarray and has lost control of four state governments in the past year - most recently its only southern stronghold Karnataka - where Congress swept to victory on Wednesday.

(Additional reporting by Satarupa Bhattacharjya; Editing by Ross Colvin and Alison Williams)

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Two measures that would take lawmakers out of setting college tuition rates started advancing Tuesday in the Louisiana House.

The House Education Committee approved a bill that would allow boards for the state's four public college systems to increase tuition and fee amounts under a policy that would be established by the Board of Regents, which oversees higher education in the state.

The policy would include an outcome-based performance standard that schools would have to meet before they are allowed to raise tuition.

The proposal, by Rep. Walt Leger, D-New Orleans, was approved 13-4.

Currently, the power to increase tuition and mandatory fees lies with the Legislature. It takes a two-thirds vote of lawmakers to boost tuition, and Louisiana is the only state in the nation with such a requirement.

Leger said higher education officials needed the flexibility to govern their budgets and that lawmakers needed to get out of the "tuition business."

The proposal "seeks to put us in line with 49 other states and take us out of the business of having to vote by a two-thirds majority to deal with tuition issues, instead give it to the experts who work in higher education."

The bill would set a tuition cap equal to the Southern regional average.

Backers of the bill said higher education officials need the flexibility to set tuition that would give them a predictable revenue stream. The bill was amended to include a caveat that state funding for higher education would not be decreased if tuition were to be raised.

While agreeing that higher education has taken financial hits, Rep. John Bel Edwards, D-Amite, said tuition has steadily increased over the last five years. However, money from the state's general fund for higher education has consistently decreased, he said.

"That's not the component that's broken," he said. "We used to fund higher education from the general fund at 70 percent, now it's at 35 percent. Will we go to zero?"

Edwards voted against the bill.

A second bill approved Tuesday by the House and Governmental Affairs Committee without objection would take a different approach.

That measure by Rep. Thomas Carmody, R-Shreveport, would spell out in the Louisiana Constitution that college tuition and fee increases don't require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature like other fee hikes.

"We do believe this is a sound concept, one that has been repeatedly recommended by policy groups," said Commissioner of Higher Education Jim Purcell, who said Louisiana's tuition rates are among the lowest in the South.

James Caillier, executive director of the Taylor Foundation which works on higher education issues, raised objections to Carmody's bill, saying it could make college out of reach for some students.

"We should try to make higher education as affordable as possible," Caillier said.

He said tuition shouldn't continue to be raised without the schools showing improved graduation rates and other performance measures.

The constitutional amendment would need support from two-thirds of lawmakers in the House and Senate, along with voters at a statewide election before it could take effect.

Both bills head to the full House for debate.

The education committee also approved a college tuition bill sponsored by its chairman, Rep. Stephen Carter, R-Baton Rouge, that would authorize a one-time tuition and fee increase by college boards in 2016.

However, the increase would have to be less than the average tuition and fees of Southern Regional Education Board peer schools and would come only if the school's graduation and retention rates were on par with its peer institutions.

___

AP reporter Melinda Deslatte contributed to this story.

While many spirits are useful for activities beyond swilling (vodka, for example, is a ), tequila holds some particularly magical powers. Not all of them bad. Here are seven of them.

1. Synthetic baubleIn 2008, a team of scientists in Mexico discovered that when the heated vapor from an 80-proof tequila blanco was combined with a silicon or stainless steel substrate, it resulted in the . These films can be used in commercial applications, such as electrical insulators, or to create one big fake diamond. Who knew that spending $50 on a bottle of Don Julio was such a wise investment?

2. Alternative energy sourceKeeping with the science theme: In 2011, researchers at England's University of Oxford suggested that we may one day be . They identified agave, the plant from which tequila is produced, as a potential biofuel source — and a particularly attractive one, as the plant itself is not consumed by humans and can thrive in desert climates.

3. Cold remedy"Plenty of liquids" is a well-known remedy for getting oneself out from under the weather. But expanding that definition to include a kicked-up shot of tequila makes a day laid out on the couch sound much more appealing. In the 1930s,the following concoction to fight off a cold:

5. Sleep aidTake three or more shots of tequila and you're bound to pass out. A single shot can have the same effect — just not in that drunken stupor kind of way. Relaxation is one of theof tequila drinking; a small amount (1 to 1.5 ounces) before bedtime can help you fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly. (But maybe don't make a habit of it.)

6. Colon cleanserToo much of a good thing may not bring a welcome turn of events for your liver... but your colon will thank you! Researchers at Mexico's University of Guadalajara haveas a potentially helpful source for delivering drugs to the colon in order to treat colitis, IBS, Crohn's disease, and even cancer.

7. Diabetes preventativeIf Ernest Hemingway had known about the healing properties of tequila, his signature drink might have been a margarita instead of a daiquiri. In 2010, experiments conducted at Mexico's Polytechnic Institute of Guanajuato(which is high in fructans, a fructose polymer) could stimulate the GLP-1 hormone, aiding in increased insulin production.

More from Mental Floss...

* 

* 

* 

View this article onGetIssues of The Week

Other stories from this section:

At risk is the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, a transition program that's become a lifeline for the so-called "uninsurables" people with serious medical conditions who can't get coverage elsewhere. The program helps bridge the gap for those patients until next year, when under the new law insurance companies will be required to accept people regardless of their medical problems.

In a letter this week to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, state officials said they were "blindsided" and "very disappointed" by a federal proposal they contend would shift the risk for cost overruns to states in the waning days of the program. About 100,000 people are currently covered.

"We are concerned about what will become of our high risk members' access to this decent and affordable coverage," wrote Michael Keough, chairman of the National Association of State Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans. States and local nonprofits administer the program in 27 states, and the federal government runs the remaining plans.

"We fear...catastrophic disruption of coverage for these vulnerable individuals," added Keough, who runs North Carolina's program. He warned of "large-scale enrollee terminations at this critical transition time."

The crisis is surfacing at a politically awkward time for the Obama administration, which is trying to persuade states to embrace a major expansion of Medicaid under the health care law. One of the main arguments proponents of the expansion are making is that Washington is a reliable financial partner.

The root of the problem is that the federal health care law capped spending on the program at $5 billion, and the money is running out because the beneficiaries turned out to be costlier to care for than expected. Advanced heart disease and cancer are common diagnoses for the group.

Obama did not ask for any additional funding for the program in his latest budget, and a Republican bid to keep the program going by tapping other funds in the health care law failed to win support in the House last week.

Brian Cook, a spokesman for the HHS agency overseeing the health care law, took issue with idea that thousands of people could lose coverage, though he did not elaborate.

"These actions are part of our careful management of the program to ensure that there is a seamless transition ... for enrollees, and that funding is spent appropriately," he said in a written statement.

The administration has given the state-based plans until next Wednesday to respond to proposed contract terms for the program's remaining seven months.

Delivered last Friday, the new contract stipulated that states will be reimbursed "up to a ceiling."

"The 'ceiling' part is the issue for us," Keough said in an interview. "They are shifting the risk from the federal government, for a program that has experienced huge cost overruns on a per-member basis, to states. And that's a tall order."

State officials say one likely consequence of the money crunch will be a cost shift to people in the program, resulting in sudden increases in premiums and copayments. Many might just drop out, said Keough.

If a state and HHS can't come to an agreement, the federal government will take over that state's program for the rest of this year. Amie Goldman, director of the Wisconsin program, said that would be an unneeded and possibly risky disruption for patients who'll have to change insurance next year anyway, when the pre-existing conditions plan formally ends.

Goldman said in her state, for example, the University of Wisconsin hospital isn't part of the federal government's provider network. "My colleagues in other states have similar concerns about holes in the network," she said. "I think it puts people at medical risk."

At his news conference this week, Obama acknowledged the rollout of his health care law wouldn't be perfect. There will be "glitches and bumps" he said, and his team is committed to working through them. However, it's unclear how the pre-existing conditions plan could get more money without the cooperation of Republicans in Congress.

The program got off to a slow start, partly because insurance isn't cheap. It offers policies at market rates, and that can mean premiums of $500 a month for someone in their 50s. The first inkling of financial problems came in February, when HHS announced a freeze on new applications.

The plan was intended only as a stopgap until the law's main push to cover the uninsured starts next year. Subsidized private insurance will be available through new state-based markets, as well as an expanded version of Medicaid for low-income people. At the same time, virtually all Americans will be required to carry a policy, or pay a fine.

States are free to accept or reject the Medicaid expansion, and the new problems with the stopgap insurance plan could well have a bearing on their decisions.

The newly released study shows that about two out of three Americans say weather in the country has worsened over the past several years, with only one in 10 saying the weather has been improving.

Americans also have strong views about the link between .

Nearly 50 percent of the population believes global warming made thethat plagued the Midwestand the Great Plains last year more severe. Similarly, 46 percent of Americans believe climate change exacerbated the effects of Superstorm Sandy, which battered the Northeast in October 2012. []

"Americans are continuing to connect the dots between climate change and extreme weather in the United States," said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. "They're associating climate change with some of the major events that we experienced last year, like the ongoing drought."

Half of Americans also believe global warming was to blame for last year's record-breaking temperatures. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration named 2012 the , with every contiguous U.S. state registering above-average annual temperatures for the year.

Furthermore, 85 percent of Americans said they personally experienced one or more types of extreme weather in the past year, ranging from extreme heat (51 percent) to extreme high winds (60 percent).

The number of Americans who were significantly harmed by extreme weather events in the past year increased to about 37 percent up 4 to 5 percentage points since 2012, Leiserowitz told LiveScience.

"That's quite a significant number," he said. "It shows just how dramatic these extreme weather events have been."

And concern about the potentialdoes not appear to be dissipating. More than half of Americans (54 percent) believe extreme weather is "very" or "somewhat likely" to cause a natural disaster in their local area in the coming year.

The new report, titled "Extreme Weather and Climate Change in the American Mind," is based on a nationally representative survey jointly conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication in New Haven, Conn., and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication in Fairfax, Va.

For the study, 1,045 participants over age 18 were interviewed between April 8 and April 15. The researchers report a 95 percent confidence level, with a total average margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. This means that if the survey were conducted 100 times, the results would fall within 3 percentage points above or below the data collected in 95 of the 100 surveys.

The study was funded by the Surdna Foundation, the 11th Hour Project, the Grantham Foundation and the V.K. Rasmussen Foundation.

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter . Follow LiveScience , & . Original article on.

RBC, Canada's largest bank and a huge mortgage lender, measures affordability as the percentage of monthly pre-tax income for a household needed to cover the typical costs of owning a home, including mortgage payments, utilities and property taxes.

By that measure, the cost of owning a home edged down by 0.2 percentage point to 42.1 percent for a detached bungalow, by 0.3 percentage point to 47.8 percent for a two-story home, and by 0.2 percentage point to 28.0 percent for a condominium, the RBC Housing Affordability index showed.

"Exceptionally low interest rates have been the key factor keeping home affordability from reaching dangerous levels in recent years," RBC chief economist Craig Wright said in a statement.

"Residential property values are elevated in Canada and, for many households, ownership remains accessible only because of rock-bottom mortgage rates. It could be a different story if interest rates were to move swiftly and significantly higher."

While a government move to tighten mortgage lending has helped cool Canada's hot housing market, RBC said it expects the restrictive effects of rule changes to dissipate, helping to offset otherwise subdued housing market activity in 2013.

Under changes that took effect in July, the maximum length of an insured mortgage was shortened to 25 years, and the amount homeowners could borrow with a home equity loan was capped. The changes made it more difficult for homeowners to take on too much debt trying to get into Canada's expensive housing market.

Wright said he expects the Bank of Canada to leave its overnight rate unchanged at 1 percent through 2013 and gradually begin to increase it in 2014. By then, the Canadian economy is expected to be on a stronger footing, offsetting some of the potential negative effects of higher borrowing costs, he said.

Home ownership remained least affordable in Vancouver, but improved, with the benchmark for detached bungalows down 2.6 percentage points from the previous quarter to 82.2 percent.

Affordability also improved in Toronto, with the benchmark down 0.4 percentage point to 52.8 percent. Montreal was down 0.9 percentage point to 39.3 percent, Ottawa was down 0.5 percentage point to 38.8 percent and Edmonton was down 0.1 percentage point to 30.7 percent.

Affordability went down in Calgary, where the benchmark rose 0.2 percentage point to 38.1 percent, the report showed. (Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)

It may comes a surprise, then, that Honduran national team head coach Luis Fernando Surez says that's a new thing.The technique and skill have always been there Garca very clearly has an abundance of talent but it It is off the field where Surez says his star has changed.Garca toiled in relative anonymity, at least on a regional level, while playing for Honduran powerhouses Olimpia. But just a year after taking MLS by storm he has established himself as a name in the league.

READ:

When he was [at Olimpia] he was always a very good player but he was just one more of the group, Surez said through a translator. Here hes more committed mentally and physically and he wants to be one of the frontrunners of the club.

Hes one of those players who Ill always have with me as long as Im the coach because of the fact that I know his quality, his characteristics, I trust him and I know hes always going to give an honest effort.

Surez is in Houston to meet with Garca and Dynamo head coach Dominic Kinnear as part of a series of visits he will make with the numerous Honduran national team players plying their trade in MLS.

Theyre the ones that have supported our club as of late, Suarez said about his MLS players. Especially with the games that we played against Canada and Cuba, they were the players that played a bigger role than others. I think theyre really going to support us this year especially as we get closer to the World Cup cycle.

READ:

Garca has been a standout among that group in the Hexagonal round of World Cup Qualifying. He had a man of the match performance inand was influential in .Moving forward, Garca will be a player counted on to put in the same type of performances to lead his team and a nation starving for big-time soccer success to the next level. It is a level of play the coach is happy to see come out of Garca since leaving his homeland.He always wanted to leave Honduras and he never had the opportunity to leave, Surez continued. Now that hes playing abroad hes showing a bigger level of commitment. Hes showing why he should have been out there from the beginning.

READ:During the session Garca and the Dynamo did light work, which meant there was little to see for the national team boss. But the presence of the coach was not lost on Garca.

It speaks to the importance I have within the national team group, Garca said through a translator. The fact he was able to come here and watch me play, it was very motivating to see that and that he sees me as a big part of the group. Its motivating moving forward.

However, he may just need a little more time to get back to his best. Garca missed his third game in a row through injury although he was on the bench , continuing his slow start to the season.

I think that the start of this year hasnt been that good, at least in MLS terms, because he hasnt had a lot of rhythm and hes been injured, Surez observed. This gives him a clean slate to come back fully fit and play at the level hes used to playing at. Im fully confident hell be able to come back and play as well as hes using to playing.Darrell Lovell covers the Houston Dynamo for MLSsoccer.com.