ASPEN, Colo. (AP) -- The image was chilling: Snowmobile rider Caleb Moore, launched over his handlebars on a backflip gone wrong, rolled down the landing hill with his 450-pound machine somersaulting behind him.

Run over by his sled, Moore lay on the snow for several minutes before being helped off the course. As of Wednesday, he was hospitalized in critical condition because of bleeding around his heart and a complication involving his brain.

Moore's was the worst accident at the Winter X Games, which wrapped up Sunday night after four days of competition, but it wasn't the only harrowing moment. The wipeouts included a runaway snowmobile that sent spectators scrambling.

Even the highlights were hardly tame. Snowboarding star Shaun White soared a competition record 24 feet into the air during the superpipe competition, and fellow boarder Elena Hight showed off a difficult trick called a"double alley-oop backside rodeo" that involved a couple of backflips and a 180-degree rotation. It had never been seen in a competition.

All that, plus Moore's crash, has some wondering whether dialing up the difficulty each year improves action sports or has simply made them too dangerous.

"Should we be asking these questions? We absolutely should be," said Dan Lebowitz, the executive director of Sport in Society at Northeastern University, which examines the role of sports to promote healthy development and social responsibility.

The people performing these superhuman feats "really are just human," he said. "How do we maintain safety in that progression when that progression sometimes pushes every envelope to some amazingly extreme point?"

Moore's injuries underscore the dangers at Winter X, which was filled with numerous cover-your-eyes crashes.

Halldor Helgason of Iceland over-rotated on a flip in the snowboard big air competition and had to be taken off on a sled with a concussion. Rose Battersby of New Zealand sustained a lumbar spine fracture in a wipeout during practice before the skiing slopestyle competition, which will be an Olympic sport next winter at the Sochi Games.

Then there was this: Summer X Games motocross champion turned snowmobile newcomer Jackson Strong tumbled off his machine during the best trick competition, the throttle sticking and the sled swerving toward fans as they scurried away. The machine came to a rest when it got tangled in some netting and no one was seriously hurt.

Such a scenario had already crossed the mind of Levi LaVallee, a snowmobiler who captured two gold medals only to be sidelined for the final two competitions after tearing a muscle in his back.

"I've always thought about, 'What happens if the thing tips over and the throttle sticks?'" LaVallee said. "It was good, though, because it showed that X Games has a good setup with the fencing."

Whether action sports are too dangerous is an issue that's been raised before.

When freestyle skier Sarah Burke died in a training accident a little more than a year ago in Park City, Utah, there were questions about the halfpipe. Before that, the sport was examined when snowboarder Kevin Pearce suffered a severe brain injury in a fall in the same pipe as Burke two years earlier. Pearce has recovered and served as an analyst at Winter X.

But in general, the athletes accept the risks and defend their disciplines.

"To lose Sarah was such a blow to this entire industry," said snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler, who didn't compete this year as she recovers from a serious eye injury she suffered in training. "This sport brings so much joy, happiness and balance to my life and that far outweighs what could happen. You can't ever live your life with what could happen."

In a statement, X Games officials said they've paid close attention to safety issues over the event's 18-year history: "We've worked closely with athletes, risk management specialists, sport organizers and event managers to present the best possible experience for athletes and spectators. Further measures are constantly being evaluated."

Athletes say they prepare as best they can by trying out new tricks into foam pits and air bags set up at the bottom of courses. But even all the caution in the world can't prevent the fact that sometimes well-practiced maneuvers can go wrong in the air.

"You don't want to live your life in fear because of a situation," LaVallee said. "Look, I'm driving down the road right now and the worst-case scenario is a car could swerve over into my lane and run over me there it is, end of the road.

"That's kind of the same thing we think when we're competing. Hopefully, the preparation and countless hours of training and practicing will prevent the worst-case scenario from happening."

Tucker Hibbert the Shaun White of snowmobiling after winning his sixth straight SnoCross title just hopes casual fans understand that what they see on television is not true snowmobiling.

"You're seeing the most extreme side of what we do," Hibbert said. "That's a lot different than what the average person does on a snowmobile."

Hibbert doesn't participate in events such as best trick because, "I just wasn't born with those skills. I sit back and watch those guys, enjoy what they do."

He paused.

"You just hate to see anyone crash, anyone get hurt," Hibbert said.

Moore was in the middle of an impressive run in the freestyle event when he caught the top of the hill that was serving as a landing area. He initially walked away with help and went to a hospital with a concussion.

Moore later developed bleeding around his heart and had surgery. His family said that Moore, of Krum, Texas, also had a complication involving his brain.

Colten Moore, Caleb's younger brother and defending champion in the event, separated his pelvis in a crash later that same night.

LaVallee is no stranger to horrific wipeouts.

While training for the "Red Bull: New Year. No Limits" daredevil series two years ago in Southern California, LaVallee lost control of his snowmobile high in the air and landed violently on his side, bouncing down the landing ramp. He broke ribs, cracked his pelvis, collapsed one lung and punctured the other.

But he returned the next year and jumped a record 412 feet, 6 inches.

"We're passionate about the sport that we're in," LaVallee said.

"Anyone who competes has that drive to succeed, to go bigger than the next person or be the first one to do it."

The mentality is similar throughout action sports, even if the bar keeps getting raised.

"There are going to be benchmarks set and people trying to exceed that benchmark," Lebowitz said. "That's just the essence of our society and our social culture."

include hurricanes and typhoons, storms that form in the world's tropical latitudes and spin ferociously around a center called an eye. Only eight named tropical cyclones hit Hawaii between 1979 and 2010, said scientists at the University of Hawaii's International Pacific Research Center. But the researchers' new model predicts a two-to-three-fold increase in such storms between 2075 and 2099. The study is detailed in the May 5 issue of the journal Nature Climate Change.

The results illustrate how global warming can lead to strong regional climate differences, the researchers said. "Computer models run with global warming scenarios generally project a decrease in tropical cyclones worldwide. This, though, may not be what will happen with local communities," lead study author Hiroyuki Murakami said in a statement.

In the Pacific Ocean, tropical cyclones that could threatentypically arise off the west coast of Mexico from June through November. But lack of moisture over the Pacific and strong westerly winds usually stop the storms from reaching the islands.

But the new model predicts that these westerly winds called aand similar to the polar jet stream will shift northward in the next 60 years, removing the roadblock. The projections also suggest the eastern Pacific Ocean will warm, giving storms more fuel in the form of rising moisture.

"The yearly number we project, however, still remains very low," study co-author Bin Wang said in a statement. Between 1979 and 2003, on average, one tropical cyclone pummeled the islands every four years. The researchers expect that number will double or triple.

The storm projections are based on athat includes the history of North Pacific tropical cyclones and a temperature rise of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius).

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Companies in the video games industry have begun releasing earnings reports for the latest quarter. Here's a look at selected companies that make or sell video games or machines.

April 3: Mobile game developer Rovio Entertainment Ltd. says the popular Angry Birds franchise helped it double revenue in 2012 to 152 million euros ($195 million). Net income surged more than 55 percent to 55.5 million euros ($71.2 million).

April 18: Microsoft Corp. says revenue from its Xbox 360 business grew by $641 million, or 55 percent, in the January-March quarter. That's from higher revenue from its Xbox Live service and the recognition of $380 million in deferred video game revenue. Revenue is deferred when video games are sold with software upgrades and enhancements. Like other video game companies, Microsoft spreads that out over time, while the game is played, rather than all at once.

April 24: Zynga Inc.'s surprise profit in the first three months of the year gets overshadowed by a revenue decline, a drop in the number of users and a lower-than-expected second-quarter forecast. The online games company manages a small profit of $4.1 million, or breakeven per share, by cutting expenses. CEO Mark Pincus says 2013 will "continue to be a transition year."

Nintendo Co. says it returned to profit for the fiscal year that ended March 31 as a lift from the weakening yen offset sales struggles caused by software delays for its latest home console, Wii U. Both profit and sales results are slightly worse than the projections of analysts surveyed by FactSet. Wii U sales of 3.45 million units fell short of Nintendo's target of 4 million units in the fiscal year. That already had been lowered from an earlier projection of 5.5 million.

Microsoft sends out invites to an Xbox event on May 21. That's when the company will likely reveal its next video game console.

May 1: Activision says the next installment in its successful "Call of Duty" franchise will be titled "Call of Duty: Ghosts" and feature a new story and characters. It will be released Nov. 5 for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and next-generation consoles.

Coming up:

May 7: Electronic Arts Inc.

May 8: Activision Blizzard Inc.

May 9: Sony Corp. (PlayStation)

May 13: Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.

Chasing a fourth title of the year and the 50th of her career, Williams had too much power for the slightly-built Dominguez Lino, who nonetheless managed to unsettle her illustrious opponent with some clever drop shots and lobs.

Williams, 31, said she had enjoyed the test and the experience would stand her in good stead the next time she came up against a player like the 47th-ranked Spaniard, who likes to mix up her shots.

"I made a lot of errors, but her game kind of forces you to make errors," the American told a news conference. "It was a really good clay-court tennis match for me.

"Seeing as I have a few more tournaments on clay, it was perfect to play a match like this, so I know if I face another opponent like that I'll have that experience and I'll know how to play."

A 15-times grand slam singles champion, Williams will play unseeded Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic or 13th-seeded Russian Maria Kirilenko for a place in the quarter-finals.

Russian second seed Maria Sharapova was due to play her second-round match against American qualifier Christina McHale later on Tuesday.

Somalia, a co-host of the conference Tuesday, is expected to detail its plans to develop the country's security forces, justice sector and financial management systems in hopes of getting more international aid.

Delegates include a number of African heads of state and representatives from the IMF and the World Bank.

Human Rights Watch has urged those attending to make accountability and women's rights a priority.

The conference came in for harsh criticism from Al-Shabab, an al-Qaida affiliate active in Somalia.

Al-Shabab leader Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr released an audiotape in which he called the meeting a plot to "plunder" Somalia's mineral wealth "under the guise of international trade relations and fighting corruption." He said the international community wanted to discard Islamic law in Somalia and replace it with Western laws and constitutions.

In the same message Zubeyr urged his followers to increase suicide attacks to "permanently cripple" the Mogadishu-based government. The next day a suicide car bomb attack in Somali capital killed at least seven people.

Zubeyr blamed regional tensions over land and ethnicity on the Britain's colonial-era partitioning of Somalia between Kenya and Ethiopia.

Al-Shabab once controlled almost all of Mogadishu. African Union and Somali forces pushed the rebels out of the city in 2011, but the fighters have continued to carry out bomb attacks.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was elected by parliament in October at the end of the eight-year U.N.-backed transitional government.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Emergency helicopter transport is expensive, but could become cost effective if it's used mainly for cases where it will make a measurable difference in trauma patients' survival or long-term disabilities, according to a new analysis.

"For the routine use of helicopter emergency medical services to be considered good value for our health care dollars, there needs to be a modest reduction in mortality or some reduction in disability among patients who are flown out with serious injuries," said study author Dr. Kit Delgado, an instructor of emergency medicine at Stanford University Medical School.

But he noted to Reuters Health, "there's relatively little guidance based on the data how to best use helicopter EMS for trauma."

The analysis comes at a time when the healthcare industry is looking for cost savings, and weighing the evidence supporting heroic and expensive measures.

Ground ambulances typically cost nearly seven times less than the average $6,500 helicopter transport - although air transport has the advantage of speed and the ability to take patients across difficult terrain.

The debate is not merely academic: Close to 25 percent of U.S. trauma patients are uninsured and can get stuck with large medical bills after a helicopter transport.

The big question, experts said, is how to avoid transporting patients with minor injuries via resource-intense helicopters yet make sure that critically-injured patients don't get left behind, figuratively speaking.

To better understand long-term financial costs of using helicopters to transport trauma patients, Delgado and colleagues did a cost-benefit analysis of helicopter versus ground transport.

The researchers modeled cost estimates and the risks of dying in a group of nearly 161,000 patients who went to U.S. trauma centers by helicopter or by ambulance.

In addition to those modes of transport, the researchers modeled costs such as potential transportation accidents, hospital expenses, patients' loss of work (to disability) and lifetime medical costs.

In a hypothetical trauma center that accepts 400 patients per year, Delgado and his colleagues found that about half would have minor injuries more appropriate for ground transport but that might not be apparent to EMS crews. Of the remaining 200 severely-injured patients requiring trauma care, on average, 20 would die.

If 17 died instead, however - that is, if an additional three patients survived - the extra cost of helicopter transport would be good value for the money, the team reports in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

"Helicopter EMS becomes a much better value if we figure out who are the right patients to be transported," Delgado told Reuters Health.

"One way to improve the system is to have greater physician involvement," said Sam Galvagno Jr., assistant professor at the R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland, who was not involved in the new study.

Maryland recently halved the number of helicopter flights by linking EMS workers directly with trauma physicians who can request additional medical information and help judge whether air transport is appropriate, Galvagno told Reuters Health.

Ongoing research shows that patient mortality doesn't seem to have increased, suggesting that large reductions in air transport are possible without harming patients, according to Galvagno.

Dr. Eileen Bulger, chief of trauma at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, which serves five states, said an integrated system wherein EMS, trauma doctors and transportation services work in coordination works best.

Some places have competing air medical services that aren't integrated with the trauma system, "an area we could improve on," said Bulger, who also was not involved in the current study.

The public may not be directly involved in the debate over trauma transport costs, but if asked many people would be glad to have helicopter transport available should they ever need it, regardless of the cost, one expert noted.

"Helicopter transport does not have a particularly favorable cost effectiveness profile in relation to other interventions like drugs or medical services," said Colman Taylor, a health economist with the George Institute for International Health in Sydney who researched the cost-benefit of helicopter services in Australia.

Still, Taylor told Reuters Health, "The public may be willing to pay a higher cost effectiveness profile for helicopter transport because for whatever reason they value the option."

SOURCE: bit.ly/Zrh8jZ Annals of Emergency Medicine, online April 11, 2013.

Employees at Bellman's Jewelers in Manchester say Ronald Perley came in Thursday and was looking for an engagement ring.

Police say the 52-year-old Perley picked up a ring and ran toward the door.

Workers confronted him, saying they saw Perley put his hand to his mouth and swallow. He denied swallowing the ring.

Police got a search warrant and brought him to Elliot Hospital, where X-rays showed the 14-karat white-gold ring with princess-cut diamonds inside him.

Perley was arraigned on charges of theft and falsifying physical evidence. It wasn't immediately clear whether he had a lawyer. His $50,000 bail includes the ring's recovery.

The celebrated biologist Edward O. Wilson and U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass raised some profound questions and got more than a few laughs in their wide-ranging discussion here at the .

They even had to talk down a few overzealous members of the audience.

Poetry in nature, nature in poetry

Billed as a talk about "poetry in nature and nature in poetry," the conversation, which was more of a meandering discussion about poetry, science and environmental issues, included more than a few gems.

Wilson, whose studies of ants have made him the world's foremost myrmecologist, got off to a somewhat bookish start, backing his way into a discussion about anthropologist Franz Boas. He hit his stride when prompted by Hass to talk about his book, "The Social Conquest of Earth." The book, published earlier this year, discusses , namely through group selection, and the biological roots of morality, religion and the creative arts. Wilson has written many books, two of which have won Pulitzer Prizes. Hass was also awarded a Pulitzer for one of his poetry collections.

The ideas in Wilson's book may upset some. "I've always enjoyed being in trouble," he said. But Wilson discussed a time when he drew even more ire than now, even eliciting protests outside his lectures, when he put forth a biological basis for human nature.

Overzealous question

After the talk, the floor was opened up to questions. The first questioner, a self-described feminist, asked a lengthy, three-part question and demanded to know whether human nature is made up of two distinct parts: that of the conquering male, and the more nurturing, female nature.

Wilson, who couldn't hear the whole question, had to have it repeated to him by Hass. The audience member balked, saying it was an oversimplification of her query.

But Wilson had heard enough to respond. Are women and men's nature fundamentally different? Hass asked. "Only in degree," Wilson barked (if one can bark politely). "Anything else?"

Whence morality?

Before that, however, one of the most fascinating points of discussion revolved around the idea that morality is a result of the tug-of-war between the motivations of the individual and the group. "There is no equilibrium between altruism and selfish behavior," Wilson said.

Hass displayed an impressive grasp of biological theory, even prompting Wilson to ask, "Are you becoming too biological?" The pair discussed the profound influence of nature onthroughout history. []

Wilson mentioned that he was greatly disturbed by suggestions amongst some conservationists that humans should give up on wilderness, or concede that certain species are truly . "That gives me the opportunity to profess that I am an extremist," he said. "Save them all!" he said, referring to , to general applause.

The biologist said he wants large portions of the Earth to be designated as wilderness areas, and that he's trying to create a national park near his hometown of Mobile, Ala.

Bug period

Discussing his lifelong love of ants, Wilson said, "Every kid has a bug period, and I never grew out of mine." He also credited the Boy Scouts with fostering his love of nature, although he asked the crowd not to boo the organization. "We'll get this gay business straightened out," he said, referring to the group's anti-gay stance.

Both Wilson and Hass agreed that it's important to raise kids in nature to help them appreciate it and to inform their scientific and artistic sensibilities. Hass related a story of how, as a child, he had to see a doctor because he stuck a daisy up his nose "to see what would happen."

They also agreed that both nature and language are magical. "The way we name [the world] is what it is," Hass said. "It is magic."

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Manchester was struggling to get the third and final volume of his Winston Churchill biography off the ground. The first two installments, released in the 1980s and coming in at close to 1,000 pages each, were critical and commercial successes.

In 2003, Manchester who was in failing health, grappling with writer's block and unable to find a collaborator to his liking, gave Reid the toughest assignment of his life: write the final volume, with Manchester editing.

But less than a year later, Manchester died, leaving Reid with more than 5,000 pages of often opaque notes and an almost impossible legacy to fulfill.

Finally, on November 6 - almost 30 years after the first installment - the final volume was published, with Reid sharing credit on the book jacket with his late collaborator.

Reid, 63, spoke with Reuters about the book, "The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965":

Q: What did you think when Manchester asked you to write the final volume?

A: "I knew Bill for about five years and he had mentioned some people had auditioned ... he didn't like talking about it and I didn't push him. I just wanted to be a friend to an old ill man. I never saw it coming at all. When he asked me in October 2003, for a couple seconds I didn't know what he was talking about. I thought, 'Maybe he wants me to read (novelist) Elmore Leonard to him,' because he was reading (his book) 'Maximum Bob.' I was flabbergasted when he asked me."

Q: Did you try to mimic his writing style?

A: "No. Bill's writing style was formed in mid-20th Century. Like Stephen Ambrose or the official naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison, they saw black hats and white hats and heroes and villains and we tried to do something different. If someone said that I did a good job it would be on the storytelling, I hope. That's what Bill Manchester did beautifully. But the style, the pace, cadence - no, I didn't try to imitate him."

Q: Did you feel prepared and did you find anything out about Churchill that previous biographers had not?

A: "Well, my old man went to the Naval Academy, so I felt comfortable with that and World War Two. If Bill Manchester had written two volumes of a three-volume biography of Mozart, I'm not the guy. When I started I realized, however, that it was like an onion, peeling the layers away. I had felt pretty knowledgeable, but realized quickly that I wasn't.

"As to the second question, there are no earth-shattering revelations. I did develop perspectives that are not new, but I realized they were worth articulating. The first is that Churchill never believed the Germans were going to invade. He wanted to keep Britons on their toes and he wanted to convince the Americans that the Germans were coming."

Q: Churchill was danger-prone and made many military mistakes. How does he compare to modern statesmen in terms of leadership, courage and recklessness?

A: "He wanted to be in all places at all times and nothing went right. Try to imagine a modern statesman who gets the big picture and messes up the small picture over and over again. He would put on his tin hat and get in his armored car and drive around London during the blitz, which was really reckless.

"I don't think modern leaders can indulge those inclinations. The president or the UK prime minister might fly into Afghanistan unannounced with about a dozen F-16s hovering around. Churchill would've flown in and then got in an armored car and gone out to Kandahar. Churchill was reckless, but in his recklessness he inspired his country. I'll stop there because I'm certainly not advocating recklessness."

Q: Would you like to write more historical biographies?

A: "I definitely would. Who? I don't know. I have nothing definitive in the near future, but people have said the story of the story - of how the book came about and the story of the writing - for younger writers, might be worth writing about. I hate to say memoir, but a book about the book. It was a real honor. Bill Manchester entrusted me with a mandate to not let him down, don't let Churchill readers and fans down, and that's what I tried to do over the last eight years, because if I didn't get it done, it wouldn't get done. I just tried to do my duty."

(Editing by Patricia Reaney, desking by G Crosse)

Tears were shed. Feelings were shared. Cleats and gloves worn by Cruz to honor Jack Pinto at Sunday's game against Atlanta were given to his family.

The New York Giants wide receiver somberly recounted Wednesday his meeting with Pinto's parents and brother in Newtown, Conn.

He struggled in his retelling only when asked about the family's decision to bury the child in the receiver's No. 80 Giants jersey. The father of an infant girl, Cruz stopped for a moment, and his eyes became watery.

"You never go through some circumstances like this and circumstances where a kid faces or a family faces something of this magnitude at their school," Cruz said. "This definitely was the toughest by far."

Jack Pinto was buried on Monday and Cruz telephoned the family to ask whether he could visit them Tuesday.

The family disclosed after Friday's massacre that Cruz was Jack's favorite player. The boy was one of 20 first-graders and six adults killed in the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Cruz drove to Newtown with his girlfriend, Elaina Watley, and their daughter, Kennedy.

"I had no expectations. I was a little nervous," Cruz said. "I just didn't know how I was going to be received. You never know when they are going through something like that. You never know how it is going to go down."

Seeing the family outside the home along with some local children made Cruz feel better.

"They were still pretty emotional, crying and stuff like that," Cruz said. "I saw how affected they were by just my presence alone. I got out and gave them the cleats and the gloves and they appreciated it. The older brother (Ben) was still emotional, so I gave them to him."

Cruz had written "Jack Pinto, My Hero" and "R.I.P. Jack Pinto" on his cleats before the Giants' loss to the Falcons Sunday in Atlanta.

The 26-year-old player best known for his salsa dances after touchdowns, signed autographs for the children before heading inside.

"I didn't want to go in there and make a speech," Cruz said. "I just wanted to go and spend some time with them and be someone they could talk to, and be someone they can vent to, talk about how much of a fans they are of the team, or different times they watched the Super Bowl."

Cruz spent that part of the visit sitting in the chair where Jack's father, Dean, sat when he watched the Giants' Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots in February.

It was a day Jack got to see his favorite team win a championship.

"It was just an emotional time," Cruz said. "I spent a little bit of time with them. We got to smile a little bit, which was good for them. It was a time where I just wanted to be a positive voice, a positive light in the tunnel where it can really be negative, so it was a good time. They are a great family and they're really united at this time and it was good to see."

Cruz said it was strange thinking about a child being buried in his jersey. He did not know how to react. Should he thank the family?

"It leaves you kind of blank," Cruz said. "I am definitely honored by it. I am definitely humbled by it, and it's definitely an unfortunate but humbling experience for me."

The visit also gave Cruz time to reflect, especially looking at his daughter.

"Ever since it happened I've kind of been spending more time with her, just cherishing the little moments, the little time you get with her because you never know when that can be taken from you," he said.

Giants coach Tom Coughlin said he was incredibly proud of Cruz for visiting with the Pinto family.

"Hopefully some of their grief might at least temporarily be suspended in being able to embrace Victor Cruz," Coughlin said, adding what he did speaking volumes of what he has inside.

Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice said what Cruz did took heart.

"You've got to be able to put yourself in that family's situation to understand at least what they're going through," Rice said in a conference call with the New York media about Sunday's game against the Giants. "That's what it's about. That's something that you don't just say, 'I'm going to do it.' You do it from the heart, from within and what he did was amazing."

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