Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg's death Monday presents the state's popular Republican governor with a series of decisions that carry consequences beyond who will serve as New Jersey's next U.S. senator. While Republicans and Democrats alike will be watching Christie's next moves closely, there's no telling what the governor who has staked out a reputation for going his own way will do.

"I give him praise on a life well-lived," Christie said of the Democratic senator with whom he frequently tangled. The governor made the comment during an appearance at a women's conference and then canceled the rest of his public schedule Monday, clearly mindful of the high stakes involved in choosing Lautenberg's successor.

Christie said he would discuss the succession plan at a Tuesday afternoon news conference in Trenton. He didn't say he would be announcing a successor.

Christie has wide latitude to choose Lautenberg's successor but it would be unusual for him to select a Democrat. Four states require the governor to choose a member of the outgoing senator's political party but New Jersey is not among them. With Lautenberg's death, the Senate now has 52 Democrats, 45 Republicans and two independents who often side with the Democrats.

For Christie, who has enjoyed strong approval ratings, picking the wrong successor might reflect poorly on him as he looks to win by a large margin against Democratic state Sen. Barbara Buono, who is considered an underdog against the well-known governor. Choosing a conservative might help him with national Republicans but could undercut his moderate bona fides, which have helped him connect with independents and Democrats in his state.

In the longer term, the wrong person could irk Republican leaders in Washington and activists in early voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. If Christie selects a Republican with views that are out of step with the GOP base someone who supports abortion rights or gun control, for instance it might hurt Christie with party stalwarts. The appointee's vote could tip the balance on issues like immigration reform, which the Senate is expected to begin debating in the weeks ahead.

Christie's appointee also could offer a window into the governor's own thinking on issues and thrust Christie into an ongoing fight between establishment Republicans and the GOP's tea party wing.

The governor, who has brought a blunt-speaking independent streak to the Republican Party, took flak from fellow Republicans when he appeared alongside President Barack Obama on the Jersey Shore in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which struck the state about a week before the 2012 election. He appeared again with Obama last week to promote the Jersey Shore's recovery and repeatedly has spoken of the need for politics to be set aside for the good of his state.

Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for the U.S. Senate Republicans' campaign committee, said the governor has "demonstrated time and again that he will do what he believes is best" for his home state.

Picking a Democrat to carry the torch from Lautenberg however unlikely might win him bipartisan love in liberal-leaning New Jersey but would enrage Republicans already suspicious of Christie's chummy relations with Obama after Sandy. Christie has maintained good relations with Newark's Democratic mayor, Cory Booker, who decided to run for Senate instead of challenging Christie, but appointing the media-savvy Booker might be viewed as treasonous to Republicans.

"I don't envy the governor on his decision," said Julie Roginsky, a New Jersey-based Democratic strategist.

If Christie is looking for a well-regarded placeholder, he could turn to former Republican Gov. Tom Kean, who served two terms as governor from 1982 to 1990 and served as chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

Other Republican possibilities include Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, likely viewed as Christie's heir apparent if the governor runs for president; Kean's son, state Sen. Tom Kean Jr., who was defeated by Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez in 2006; state Sen. Joe Kyrillos, a Christie ally who was defeated by Menendez last year; former Gov. Christie Whitman; state Sen. Kevin O'Toole; or Bill Baroni, the deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., has also been mentioned.

Roginsky said appointing a caretaker Republican like Kean, the moderate former governor, would not be viewed favorably by Republican leaders or party activists in early presidential voting states. But appointing a hard-core conservative "would definitely hurt him at home" as he runs for re-election.

While Christie appoints a senator to fill Lautenberg's seat, it's unclear when that new senator would face an election. Even that process carries risks for Christie.

He could decide to hold a special election in November, but the presence on the ballot of Booker, the likely Democratic Senate nominee, might drive more Democratic turnout and affect Christie's ability to win big against Buono. If Christie says the next Senate election should wait until 2014, the governor runs the risk of a hand-picked Republican getting trounced by Booker only months before launching a presidential bid.

Dayspring said a 2013 contest could mean a "potentially ugly and quick" primary between Booker, who already had announced a Senate bid, and potential challengers like Reps. Frank Pallone and Rob Andrews. A 2014 race, he said, would allow a Republican appointee to "build trust and name identification with voters."

The state's laws on choosing a successor appear to be contradictory. One provision says that if a vacancy occurs more than 70 days before a regularly scheduled statewide general election, the vacancy would be filled on the next statewide general election Nov. 5, 2013 when Christie will be on the ballot. But another law says the election would be held during the next general election only if the vacancy occurs 70 days before the state's primary, which was being held Tuesday. In that case, the Senate election would be held in November 2014, when Lautenberg's seat was scheduled to be considered by voters. The late senator had said he would not run for re-election.

National Republicans say they want the Senate election to be held in 2014 and hope Christie appoints a GOP official who will run for the seat outright. The thinking: It would give the appointee more than a year to serve in the Senate and build a record that might help the person in the Democratic-tilting state.

New Jersey has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972. The last Republican to serve in the Senate was Nicholas Brady, who was appointed by Kean in 1982 to finish the term of Democrat Harrison Williams, who resigned amid scandal in the last year of his term. Lautenberg won the seat later that year and remained in the Senate until his death, except for a brief retirement in 2001 and 2002.

Many governors have taken the placeholder route in recent years: Ted Kaufman, a longtime aide to Joe Biden, was appointed to the Senate when Biden became Obama's vice president; Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick chose his former chief of staff, William "Mo" Cowan, to fill Secretary of State John Kerry's Senate seat on an interim basis until after a special election.

Other appointments have turned into political liabilities. Former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, withstood criticism from Latinos for appointing then-Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet to a Senate seat in January 2009 to replace Ken Salazar, who became Obama's interior secretary.

___

Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

Follow Geoff Mulvihill on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/geoffmulvihill

___

Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield. Angela Delli Santi contributed from Trenton.

But there are signs this dinosaur's celebrity status made headlines as the subject of a custody battle andhere in the United States may help change that.

"We didn't have a single star who can be a representation of the whole paleontological heritage that we have," Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, Mongolia's minister of culture, sports and tourism, told LiveScience at a repatriation ceremony for the fossil. "That's why [the dinosaur] became like a hero that fascinates everyone and just awakened the Mongolian public to learn more about paleontological heritage of the country." []

When the dinosaur arrives on Saturday (May 18), the new national Dinosaur Day, it will return to a country with no dedicated dinosaur museum, only three doctorate-level paleontologists, and no university-level courses in paleontology. However, Mongolian officials have plans to change all of this.

Unrecognized national treasures

A landlocked nation situated between China and Russia, Mongolia is slightly smaller than the state of Alaska, and is home to 3.2 million people. In 1990, the country left behind its communist Soviet system for democracy and a free market.

A number of factors including the prolongedeconomic depression following this transition, little access to English in the past, a publishing industry that was nonexistent until recently, a shortage of paleontologists, and cultural attitudes toward bones and the dead have inhibited the Mongolian public's interest in the country's fossil heritage, Oyungerel told LiveScience.

In recent years, mining has spurred economic growth in Mongolia, and more Mongolians are learning English. As a direct result of the Tarbosaurus case, plans are underway to establish the country's , the Central Museum of Mongolian Dinosaurs, and to train the paleontologists needed to staff it and study the nation's fossils.

Currently, one museum in Mongolia, the national natural history museum, displays dinosaur fossils. But this museum's building is old and at risk of collapsing, Oyungerel said.

In need of a new generation

While many foreign paleontologists come to Mongolia to work, the country has only three doctorate-level, or full-fledged, vertebrate paleontologists, who study the fossils of animals with backbones, including dinosaurs.

One of the three paleontologists, the youngest and the only one trained in the United States, Bolortsetseg Minjin, has been tapped as assistant director of the new museum and its chief paleontologist. The other two were trained by the Soviets, while Mongolia was a communist country.

"We really need to work hard to have a young generation (of paleontologists) as soon as possible," Bolortsetseg said.

The Mongolian government hopes to establish the dinosaur museum, withas its first specimen, in an old Lenin museum. This museum was established during communist times to display art and artifacts related to the life of the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin. []

However, ownershipof the former Lenin museum building is now tied up in a court case. After the dinosaur arrives on May 18, the country's new National Dinosaur Day, officials plan to house it in a temporary exhibition hall in the main square of the capital Ulaanbaatar, Oyungerelsaid.

The new museum will register all Mongolia dinosaurs, including those sent abroad on loan.

More fossils and more museums

Mongolian law makes all fossils found within its borders state property; U.S. officialsfrom a Florida fossil hunter and dealer, Eric Prokopi, charging that he smuggled it into the United States.

At 8 feet tall (2.4 meters) and 24 feet long (7.3 meters) when assembled, this juvenile Tarbosaurus bataar, requires some space to display, but it isn't the only large dinosaur heading back to Mongolia.

As part of the federal case, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office and Homeland Security Investigations have seized additional dinosaur fossils from Prokopi and a British dealer, Chris Moore. These include other large dinosaurs, among them more Tarbosauruses. Traveling dinosaur exhibitions in Europe and Japan will add to the tally when they return to Mongolia, Oyungerel said.

"Just one giant is enough to fill the biggest hall of any museum, so we need to accommodate this list, like 20 giants, somewhere. So we are envisioning a big Giants' House in the south of Ulaanbaatar," Oyungerel said.

South Gobi province is also interested in establishing a museum commemorating the expeditions by the paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews in the 1920s, and there is also discussion of a national dinosaur park, she said.

Studying abroad

Mongolia has provided foreign paleontologists with a rich source of fossils(251 million to 65.5 million years ago), but many would like to see more Mongolians studying the fossils unearthed in their country.

When Jack Horner, curator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies, first visited Mongolia about 20 years ago, he noticed the absence of young Mongolian scientists.

"Even though Mongolia had some paleontologists they weren't training anyone to replace them, and a lot of other institutions were going in there and collecting fossils and bringing them out and preparing them and publishing papers on them, and they also were not preparing Mongolian students," Horner said.

He has since worked with Bolortsetseg to train Mongolian students and to reach out to the public through a nonprofit she established called The Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs. Bolortsetseg has plans to begin another student-training program this summer, within another year, she hopes to have two future Mongolian paleontologists ready to begin graduate programs abroad. []

No paleontology courses are currently available in Mongolian universities, although there are plans for one to begin in 2014, Oyungerel told LiveScience.

After a visit to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University on May 9, Bolortsetseg said she found it to be an appealing place to send future Mongolian paleontology students.

Through a long-term project conducting environmental research at the ancient Lake Khuvshulin Mongolia, the Academy has helped produced 14 Mongolian doctorates and more than 20 master's degrees for Mongolians.

Involving Mongolians, or any local people, in research based in their country is a moral imperative, since the work is being done on their property, Clyde Goulden, who initiated the Khuvhsul project and serves as director of the Academy's Asia Center, told LiveScience in an email. It also makes for better science by deploying more researchers to explore and test hypotheses, he wrote. "Who else can do a better job of that than the scientists who live nearby and can continuously study and explore."

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The effort is a continuation of the Republican State Leadership Committee's Future Majority Project, a campaign founded by GOP strategist Ed Gillespie in 2011. In the past election cycle, Gillespie's team spent $5 million to recruit 125 Hispanic candidates and 185 women. For 2014, the group announced on Thursday a goal of investing "at least" $6 million to find more than 200 minority and female candidates.

"We as a party need to do a better job of having a sustained conversation with men and women of all backgrounds in our communities where we think we can make a difference. Not only telling them to run, but offering them help. I think that's an important point that we're trying to make here: that it's not only talking, it's about action," said Jose Felix Diaz, a Republican state representative from Florida taking part in the effort. "It's a good start, but we can and must do better."

Members of Future Majority Caucus, a group chaired by New Mexico Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, held a conference this week in Austin, Texas, to outline its goals and plan for the next election season. The effort is part of a wider Republican Party effort to hit a reset button with minorities and women after the party struggled with nonwhite male demographics in the 2012 election.

Earlier this year, the National Republican Committee published a wide-ranging audit of the GOP's 2012 campaign efforts urging the party to invest significant resources into making inroads with minority communities. The party is currently seeking minorities to run for office on the state and local level and adopting a permanent presence in neighborhoods and districts that traditionally vote Democratic.

Jason Villalba, a Republican state lawmaker from Texas, said he anticipates the party will even veer away from hot-button issues like implementing voter identification laws in the future in fear that it could alienate minorities.

"We recognize as a party that those kinds of issues can become divisive," Villalba said. "I'll tell you philosophically that I'm not opposed to voter ID just because I believe it's about voter integrity, not about alienating our brothers and sisters. That being said, I also recognize the political implications of those kinds of issues and we want to avoid those issues that are perceived as divisive. So I think what you're going to see over the course of the next few election cycles is moving away from that kind of an issue."

According to a memo provided to Yahoo News, the Future Minority Project's goals for the 2013-2014 cycle include:

-Identify 200 new diverse candidates of all backgrounds. This reflects a doubling of our goals from last cycle when we initiated the project.

-FMP looks to not only recruit and encourage these candidates to runwe will help them win.

-Our goal is to elect 75 new candidates of diverse ethnicities across the country.

-Invest at least $6 million for the 2013-2014 election cycle.

international between England and New Zealand at the Roseball in

Southampton on Sunday.

New Zealand innings

M.Guptill not out 189

L.Ronchi b Anderson 2

K.Williamson b Swann 55

R.Taylor c Woakes b Anderson 60

B.McCullum not out 40

Extras (b-4 lb-4 w-5) 13

Total (for three wickets, 50 overs) 359

Did not bat: G.Elliott, J.Franklin, N.McCullum, D.Bracewell,

K.Mills, M.McClenaghan

Fall of wickets: 1-12 2-132 3-241

Bowling: Anderson 10-0-65-2 (2w), Bresnan 10-1-73-0 (1w),

Woakes 7-0-49-0 (1w), Dernbach 10-0-87-0 (1w), Root 3-0-16-0,

Swann 10-0-61-1

England innings

A.Cook b Mills 34

I.Bell c Franklin b Bracewell 25

J.Trott not out 109

J.Root c Bracewell b N.McCullum 28

E.Morgan c Ronchi b Elliott 21

J.Buttler c Guptill b McClenaghan 2

C.Woakes st Ronchi b Williamson 13

T.Bresnan run out 0

G.Swann b Williamson 1

J.Anderson b McClenaghan 28

J.Dernbach c Mills b McClenaghan 2

Extras (lb-3 w-6 nb-1) 10

Total (all out, 44.1 overs) 273

Fall of wickets: 1-50 2-64 3-122 4-166 5-169 6-212 7-213

8-218 9-265 10-273

Bowling: McClenaghan 8.1-0-35-3 (1nb 3w), Mills 9-0-55-1

(1w), Bracewell 8-1-55-1 (1w), N.McCullum 8-0-47-1, Franklin

5-0-40-0 (1w), Elliott 2-0-13-1, Williamson 4-0-25-2

New Zealand won the toss and chose to bat

Result: New Zealand won by 86 runs

(Compiled by John Mehaffey)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - EBay Inc pulled a listing on Wednesday for a Nike Inc t-shirt displaying the phrase "Boston Massacre," citing the online marketplace's policy against "offensive materials."

The t-shirt was listed for sale earlier this week on eBay and received bids of more than $150,000, according to bid history on the company's website.

The t-shirt refers to the rivalry between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox baseball teams and has images of red blood spattered on the word Boston.

In the wake of the Boston Marathon attack, Nike pulled all the shirts from stores, but a used one turned up on eBay.

An eBay spokeswoman said the shirt was removed because it violated a company policy that bans listings of items that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual, or religious intolerance, or promote organizations with such views.

EBay will also remove listings that graphically portray graphic violence or victims of violence, unless they have substantial social, artistic, or political value, according to the policy.

A check on Wednesday afternoon by Reuters confirmed that the listing was taken down.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Riot police used stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse the stone-throwing protesters, the Health Ministry said, adding that at least 55 people, including 13 police, were wounded in clashes. A police bus was set on fire.

About 2,000 protesters had descended upon the Kumtor mine office near the eastern village of Barskoon, furthering a protest that began earlier this week to demand that the mine be nationalized and provide more social benefits in the impoverished nation.

The mine, operated by Toronto-based Centerra Gold, is the largest foreign-owned gold mine in the former Soviet Union.

Protesters had blocked the road leading to the mine. On Thursday night, several hundred demonstrators, some on horseback, besieged a power transformer unit and cut off electricity to the mine for several hours.

Riot police moved in overnight, detaining about 80 protesters and restoring the power supply.

Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev introduced a state of emergency in the area on Friday.

Centerra says the protests are illegal and that it's working with the government and local authorities to resolve the situation.

A senior cabinet member visited the area Friday and tried to persuade the protesters to disperse, saying that further disruptions to the electric supply would have crippled the mine and cost significant economic losses.

"The government is asking you to have patience and wait until the autumn, when we will look at the issue," Deputy Prime Minister Shamil Atakhanov told protesters.

Kumtor, which accounts for about 12 percent of the economy of the ex-Soviet nation, has been at the center of heated political debate between those seeking its nationalization and officials who believe that would deter much-needed foreign investment.

Kyrgyzstan, a country of 5 million people on China's mountainous western border, hosts a U.S. air base used to support military operations in nearby Afghanistan.

The nation has seen the overthrow of two governments since gaining independence amid the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the latest after bloody protests in 2010.

There's no consensus yet on how to do it. With the next election three years away, Republicans are tiptoeing around policy changes even as they size up potential candidates who range from tea party heroes to pragmatic governors in Republican- and Democratic-leaning states.

There's a partial road map, but it's more than two decades old, and the other party drafted it. Democrats, sick of losing elections and being tagged as out-of-touch liberals, moved their party toward the center and rallied behind Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in 1992.

Strategists in both parties say Clinton's achievement, however impressive, may look modest compared to what a Republican leader must do to construct a new winning formula, given the nation's changing demographics.

"Our challenge was to get voters back," said Al From, a chief architect of Clinton's political rise. "Their challenge is harder: get voters to come into a new coalition."

That will be complicated, From said, because the Republicans' conservative base "is more demanding and more important" than the Democrats' liberal base.

An array of Republican campaign veterans agree. They say the party's loyal base of conservative activists including evangelical Christians, anti-tax crusaders and anti-abortion advocates is too big, ideological and vital to be treated with anything but great care and respect. Republicans will go nowhere if they lose a hard-core conservative every time they pick up a new unaligned voter with a more moderate message.

While they circle that conundrum, Republican leaders hope for a charismatic nominee in the mold of Clinton or Ronald Reagan. They yearn for someone who can appeal to less ideological voters without prompting conservatives to feel their principles are losing primacy.

Several veteran strategists say Republicans should focus less on modifying their ideas than on improving their campaign mechanics and finding nominees with broader personal appeal than Mitt Romney, John McCain and Bob Dole.

"The foundation of the party as a conservative party hasn't been the principal liability, but the principal asset," said GOP campaign strategist Terry Holt.

"Among every voter group there are people who share our values," Holt said. The key to winning, he said, is to perform better at "micro-targeting" and other techniques designed to find and motivate potential voters.

In that area, he said, "the other party is about half a light year ahead of us."

Arizona-based Republican consultant Eddie Mahe said finding a charismatic candidate is more important than tweaking policies. Given Americans' low opinion of politics, he said, "to sell the party as a party is nonsensical."

Instead, Mahe said, Republicans must pick a nominee who appeals "to the non-voters, disinterested voters, the uninformed whatever you want to call them who are attracted to a personality, someone they feel good about."

The Republican who comes closest to that description, he said, is Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, a tea party favorite. But Mahe said he doubts she could win a general election.

Dan Schnur, a former aide to President George W. Bush who teaches political science at the University of Southern California, said: "Parties don't remake parties. Leaders remake parties."

Schnur agrees that Clinton was a gifted politician, but he also had some help and luck, which Republicans will need, too.

Clinton has acknowledged that Gary Hart began tugging the Democratic Party from its liberal and outdated moorings in 1984 and 1988, even if he eventually fell short of the nominations. And a 1992 candidacy by New York governor and liberal hero Mario Cuomo might have doomed Clinton's lean-to-the-center strategy.

Republicans "need a Gary Hart before they get a Bill Clinton," Schnur said. And they may have trouble narrowing the ideological field in the 2016 primary and beyond, which could force the eventual nominee to embrace hard-right principles that excite GOP activists but turn off independent voters.

A 97-page post-mortem, commissioned by the Republican Party after Romney's loss last fall, said the GOP "is increasingly marginalizing itself, and unless changes are made, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future."

The report emphasized messaging and outreach more than possible changes to policies and proposals. "The party should be proud of its conservative principles," the report said, but it also must be more "welcoming and inclusive" to young voters, minorities and women.

From who founded the Democratic Leadership Council, a key proponent of Clinton's 1992 agenda says Republicans are on the wrong track. They must be more open to adjusting their policies, he said, if they want to win presidential elections.

In the early 1990s, From said, "people didn't trust Democrats on the economy, national security, crime, welfare." By pushing welfare reductions, community policing and other new ideas, he said, "we tried to systematically eliminate the obstacles. Republicans have got to do the same thing."

Clinton's 1992 team believed "if you get the argument right, people will vote for us," From said. "Republicans don't have the argument right."

Clinton campaign aide Paul Begala said parties that win presidential elections are "always more mainstream and more unified. Right now, the Republicans are neither."

Begala said liberal activists made only modest complaints about Clinton's shift toward the political center because they were sick of losing elections with nominees such as George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis.

He said Republicans might need one more presidential loss to create a similar level of frustration, which can open the way to pragmatism and moderation. Nominating a tea party-leaning "true believer" such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas could do the trick, Begala said.

Holt, who has advised numerous GOP campaigns, said Republicans have already learned the lesson. "The most effective remedy for any party is an overdose of defeat," he said. "We've suffered that."

The Republicans' challenge is spelled out in exit polls from President Barack Obama's win over Romney. Nearly two-thirds of Republican voters labeled themselves as conservatives. But fewer than half of all Democratic voters called themselves liberals.

That indicates Democrats are working with a less ideological, more flexible base, giving a nominee leeway to embrace issues that might attract non-aligned voters in the general election.

Republicans, on the other hand, depend on a more ideological base. That's one reason party leaders for now, anyway talk less of modifying party policies and more of changing mechanics, technology and messaging.

"The brand has suffered," Holt said, "but the values have been very consistent."

___

Associated Press polling director Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

Follow Charles Babington on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cbabington.

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The two look in better spirits, given the circumstances, compared to this instantly notorious AP photograph from Obama's visit last October, immediately following the storm. (Note also, if you wish, howis serving Christie.)

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Stay tuned for updates, video, and potential hugging.

Crabtree, San Francisco's leading receiver last season when they reached the Super Bowl before being beaten 34-31 by the Baltimore Ravens, injured his right Achilles during an organized team activity on Tuesday.

"(Coach) Jim Harbaugh tells media @KingCrab15 has torn Achilles tendon but has had successful surgery. Crabtree not expected to miss full season," the 49ers tweeted on Wednesday.

"We feel like someone is going to emerge there," Harbaugh later told reporters about the challenge facing the 49ers' younger receivers in Crabtree's absence.

Crabtree, 25, caught 20 passes for 285 yards and three touchdowns in last season's playoffs after setting career-best marks with 1,105 yards, nine touchdowns and 85 receptions during the regular season.

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Gene Cherry)

The problem for most people is that unlike , which because their great brilliance readily stand out against background stars, or Mars because of its distinctive fiery orange color, there is nothing overly distinctive abovewhen viewed with the naked eye. In terms of color, it appears white with a hint of yellow. In terms of brightness, it certainly is quite bright, though it lacks the kind of "here I am!" brightness that Venus and Jupiter can boast.

But this spring and summer I can promise you this: You'll have no problem in identifying Saturn even if you can't make heads or tails out of a simple star chart. And on Wednesday night (May 22), the task will be made all the easier by the proximity of a waxing gibbous moon to the great ringed beauty. []