Froome and the other main contenders were more than seven minutes back when Trentin crossed the finish line in Lyon to become the first Italian to win a stage on this year's Tour.

"I survived all the climbs and made a good sprint," Trentin said. "I knew that if I started from 200 meters I could win."

As they contested the sprint outside Stade Gerland, home to seven-time French league champion Lyon, Trentin was near the back but surged forward to beat Swiss rider Michael Albasini by half a wheel. American Andrew Talansky was third.

It was the second straight stage win and third from the last four for the Omega Pharma QuickStep team after Mark Cavendish won on Friday and Tony Martin clinched Wednesday's time trial.

"To be part of this team is incredible," Trentin said. "When I won the stage all my teammates came to say 'Congratulations.' It's super nice."

The first three were followed 7 minutes, 17 seconds later by the mass of riders in the peloton, with Froome's Sky and Alberto Contador's Saxo-Tinkoff teams forming a shield around their star riders.

"My teammates controlled the stage and did a great job," Froome said. "Just keeping an eye on things."

Froome, the Tour favorite, lost more than a minute to Contador, the two-time former champion, and Dutchman Bauke Mollema in Friday's incident-packed sprint stage.

This time, he stayed well out of trouble over the 191-kilometer (119-mile) leg from the winemaking town of Saint-Pourcain-sur-Sioule in central France to the east-central city of Lyon, one of the gourmet capitals of France.

Froome remains 2:28 ahead of Mollema, considered an outsider, and 2:45 clear of Contador, the 2007 and '09 champion who was stripped of his 2010 title for doping.

An 18-man breakaway set off early, with Jens Voigt, Jan Bakelants and British rider David Millar driving it hard to get Garmin-Sharp teammate Talansky the group's highest-placed rider in the general classification in a good position.

Voigt's first Tour was in 1998 and Saturday's was his 303rd day of racing in the showcase race in his 16th Tour.

The yellow jersey group was about five minutes behind when the front-runners had all completed the second category 3 climb. Those two were the biggest ones of the day but only moderate ascents compared to what awaits the riders on Sunday's enormous 21-kilometer climb up Mont Ventoux.

"I'm concentrating on the GC (overall classification) but of course it would be great to win tomorrow. In cycling terms it would be like a dream come true," Froome said. "A lot of people have reason to attack now. A lot of people spent energy in the last couple of days, so it will be an interesting one."

He saved his legs for Sunday, which is Bastille Day. Judging by the thousands of people who turned out on the roadside to cheer on Saturday, the atmosphere up Ventoux promises to be electric.

Froome's Sky teammates have clearly struggled in two stages so far the second one in the Pyrenees in stage 9 and Friday's flat stage and he needs them to be at their best to repel any attacks from Contador on Ventoux.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actresses Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy are mounting a challenge to this summer's male-dominated comedies with their buddy cop comedy "The Heat" opening at movie theaters on Friday.

The R-rated comedic offerings at the summer box office have so far included three guys heading to Las Vegas to hunt down a gangster in "The Hangover 3," two middle-aged men interning at Google in "The Internship" and a group of male celebrities preparing for the apocalypse in "This is the End."

"The Heat," by "Bridesmaids" director Paul Feig brings together an unlikely duo, pairing an uptight FBI agent (Bullock) with a loud and aggressive Boston cop (McCarthy) to bring down a drug lord.

Amid shenanigans that include stake-outs, family drama, a drunken night and explosions, the pair learns how to work together and a friendship develops.

Buddy cop comedies have long been a Hollywood staple, from franchise films like "Beverly Hills Cop," "Lethal Weapon," "Bad Boys" and "Rush Hour" to more recent films like "The Other Guys" and last year's "21 Jump Street" remake. But they have featured male leads.

Starring two women in such a film required some changes, Feig told Reuters.

The 50-year-old director, who has helped usher in a new wave of female-led R-rated comedies, said he wanted the characters to deal with issues that professional women would face on the job, while also showing women who enjoy being in the work force.

"We wanted to say, 'If you love your job, that's what you should be doing and maybe you might need a friend in a similar situation to be your confidante,'" he said.

Feig's 2011 film "Bridesmaids," about a bride and her friends who suffer a series of unfortunate events ahead of the wedding, was nominated for two Oscars including best supporting actress for McCarthy and made $288 million worldwide.

'THE QUEST' FOR WOMEN IN COMEDY

McCarthy, 42, saw her star rise after the success of "Bridesmaids." She followed the film up with February's "The Identity Thief," which grossed $174 million largely on the strength of her persona, and a supporting role in "The Hangover 3," where she held her own opposite the film's male-led cast.

Bullock, 48, had been mostly absent from film since winning the Best Actress Oscar for 2009's "The Blind Side," focusing instead on being a single mother to her adopted son Louis.

"The Heat," produced by News Corp's 20th Century Fox studio, marks a return to comedy for her, drawing parallels to the quirky neurotic characters she has played in 2000's "Miss Congeniality" and 2009's "The Proposal."

Feig initially was drawn to the Kate Dippold-written script for "The Heat" in part because he felt comedy films in the last few decades have been mostly male-dominated, with women depicted as the ones who ruin the good time.

"The guys are having fun, or they're out saving the world and the woman is saying, 'You need to be home with the family,'" said Feig.

"Either they are killjoys or completely unaware of the importance of what their husbands are doing - neither one of which seems fair to the women."

Feig said he felt some of his favorite female comedians are not being given a chance to shine, citing Sarah Silverman's mean girlfriend character in 2003's "School of Rock" and Rachel Harris' shrewish girlfriend portrayal in 2009's "The Hangover."

"These are movies I love, but at the same time you go, 'Well that's a waste of a hilarious person," said Feig. "I just feel like, 'God, let's right the wrongs.'"

Going forward, Feig said his next project will be a female "James Bond" comedy in the vein of "The Heat," but he stressed he doesn't want to be the only go-to guy for women in film.

"The fact that 'The Heat' is the only studio film coming out this summer that has women in lead roles is almost a backslide," said Feig. "More people have to join me in the quest."

(Corrects Feig's age in the seventh paragraph. An earlier version of this story said that his age was 62.)

(Reporting By Zorianna Kit, Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Cynthia Osterman)

The 400-acre area known as Castle Rocks has been closed off and on to climbers since 2003, and may close permanently sometime this summer. Agency officials say they hope make a decision this month, depending how much feedback they receive from the public.

Mike Courtney, BLM field manager in Burley, said both the Shoshone-Bannock and Shoshone-Paiute tribes consider the land sacred and are worried cultural resources could be destroyed if climbing continues. BLM surveys have determined the region contains important archaeological resources and artifacts, including spearheads dating back thousands of years.

Courtney said the agency spent time combing the trail routes and climbing walls with the intention of finding middle ground with sport climbing enthusiasts. But unfortunately, Courtney said, environmental impact studies showed all the climbing areas posed at least some risk to resources the agency aims to protect.

"We kept running into resource issues with the locations of the trails and the potential climbing routes," Courtney said Friday. "We inventoried the entire area, and a lot of the areas at risk are the most desirable (climbing) areas."

Citing those and other reasons, a report from the BLM dated April 12 proposed closing the Cassia County area to climbers for good, although hikers and hunters would still have access to existing trails. Courtney said the plan targets climbing because soil erosion and vegetation destruction are most severe around staging areas, the spot near rock walls where climbers prepare for their assent.

But the BLM's plan has left regional climbers upset. They argue they've offered less prohibitive proposals that still protect the area's abundant cultural heritage and environment.

"They reversed course really quickly and went from considering the climbing management plan to coming to a decision that banned climbing right away," said R.D. Pascoe, a policy director with the climber advocacy group Access Fund.

Pascoe argues rock climbers are willing to avoid historical or archeologically significant sites, and his organization and local climbers came up with a plan that offered guidelines for when the BLM can close certain routes.

The BLM's most recent proposal, he said, unnecessarily eliminates all climbing access.

Several other routes at the nearby City of Rocks Natural Reserve will remain open for climbers. But Doug Colwell, founder of the Boise Climbers Alliance, said Castle Rocks is considered a national or even international destination by many of the sport's enthusiasts.

"When you go down there on Memorial Day weekend you will see people from other countries because it's a very well-known intermediate rock climbing area," Colwell said. "We believe there are areas we could compromise on."

TORONTO (Reuters) - Daniel DiManno sold his Toronto house for less than he had hoped and wanted to see if prices would cool before he bought a new one. But Canadian mortgage rates are rising again and that's spurring DiManno and others to jump back into the market, cutting short an already brief housing downturn.

"I saw that they are going to increase rates, so I called my bank last Friday and locked in 2.5 percent for 120 days," said the 31-year-old accountant, starting the clock on a four-month search for a new home before borrowing gets more expensive.

After nearly a year of cooling sales and plenty of concern that Canada could head for a U.S.-style housing crash, demand has roared back in key markets. What's still unclear, however, is whether the recent surge is a reinflation of a real estate bubble, a final rush of buyers before rising rates choke off demand, or just a sign of market resilience.

The rise in mortgage rates comes after North American bond yields jumped on fears that an improving U.S. economy will cause the Federal Reserve wind down its monetary stimulus program, known as quantitative easing, more quickly than expected.

After a long cold spring that dampened house hunting, May sales of existing homes rose 3.6 percent, the biggest monthly gain in almost 2-1/2 years, returning the market almost to where it was before Canada's Conservative government tightened lending rules in mid-2012 to stave off a housing bubble.

Housing starts also jumped much more than expected in the month, adding to evidence that late-spring buyers have breathed life back into a market that some had forecast was heading over a cliff.

Toronto real estate agent Steven Fudge said he was starting to believe the market was back in balance after a cool-down. But the specter of higher rates has brought buyers back, marking either a new phase of a bubble or the last kick of a dying mule, he doesn't know which.

"In the last couple of weeks, there's been a real strong murmur ... anticipating a bump in rates," said Fudge, a sales representative at Bosley Real Estate Brokerage, which operates the Toronto property website urbaneer.com. "It's like fuel on the market. There's now a whole bunch of buyers locking in 60- to 90-day mortgage pre-approval."

One of his clients lost a 17-player bidding war this week for a downtown Toronto house. The home, listed at C$499,000 ($476,500), sold for more than 25 percent over asking.

"I've been counseling buyers to be cautious," he said. "It really feels like almost anything can happen."

IS IT A BUBBLE?

The question of whether the late-spring surge marks a reinflation of a real estate bubble is hanging over the industry.

The federal housing agency, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp, this week revised up its outlook for sales, construction, and price increases in 2013 and 2014, effectively declaring the downturn over.

"The market was moderating in the second half of 2012. Then we've had an inflection point, and went into a moderate positive trend since the beginning of 2013," said Mathieu Laberge, deputy chief economist at CMHC. "We should see this type of trend for housing starts going forward."

The agency, which insures the majority of mortgages Canadian banks issue, expects average national prices to rise 1.6 percent in 2013 and 2.1 percent in 2014, which would be the "soft-landing" policymakers want and a long way from dire predictions of a 10 percent to 25 percent price crash.

"I'd say we feel good. I mean, we're not out of the woods yet, but we feel good," said Brian Hurley, chief executive of Genworth Canada, a unit of Genworth MI Canada Inc and the largest private residential mortgage insurer in Canada.

Hurley acknowledges he was feeling afraid last year when sales dropped and analysts worried that tighter mortgage rules had squeezed too many buyers out of the market.

Prices fell in Vancouver, which had been Canada's hottest market, but national prices gains never slowed below an annual 2 percent.

To be sure, some say it is too soon to celebrate the end of the mild downturn, and a spring bounce is not a measure of strength. If buyers want to get into the market before rates rise, won't that just steal demand from the future?

Mortgage rates have begun to inch higher as global bond yields climb. Canadian mortgage rates are typically priced off the government's five-year bond, which now yields 1.80 percent, up from a 60-year low of 1.076 percent in June last year.

But others believe the spring surge may reflect demand that was held back by the tighter rules, and the housing market's failure to really cool means a bubble is starting to inflate again. Official Canadian interest rates are not expected to rise until late 2014, so mortgage rates won't rise fast or furiously.

"A lot of forecasters like myself are expecting a relatively flat market, but there's a significant upside risk that if rates remain at current levels indefinitely, you're going to start to heat the housing market back up," said Craig Alexander, chief economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canada's second-largest lender.

($1=$1.05 Canadian)

(Reporting by Andrea Hopkins; Editing by Peter Galloway)

In 1893,inherited a camera studio and launched his new company with the motto, The Hitherto Impossible in Photography is Our Specialty."

Lawrence was particularly interested in aerial photography, according to the Library of Congress, and in 1901 he began using a series of creative approaches that eventually led to capturing images from thousands of feet above Earth.

Lawrence first turned to wooden ladders, but he wanted to go higher, so he started using balloons to get his unique photographs. Airplanes were not an option, because it was still more than two years before themaiden flight in 1903.

The high-flying innovator would travel the skies above communities across the United States to capture images of developing cities.

A 1909 photograph showing Atlantic City from 800 feet in the air (Library of Congress)

A near-death experience inspired Lawrence to move away from balloons. During one flight, the cage Lawrence was riding in tore free from the balloon, sending him falling to the ground hundreds of feet below. His life was saved when the cages fall was broken by telephone lines. Amazingly, Lawrence walked away from the incident unharmed.

That incident also pushed Lawrence's photography to new heights. He began experimenting with using kites, even stringing 17 of them together to lift a 50-pound camera an estimated 2,000 feet into the air.

In 1906, Lawrenceto capture a panoramic view .

View the full collection of Lawrences aerial photographs at the .

A 1905 photo showing three-fourths of a still-developing Washington, D.C. (Library of Congress)

[Via ]

A news release from the singer's publicist says the 54-year-old Travis was admitted to the hospital Sunday in Dallas and was in critical condition Monday evening.

Publicist Kirt Webster said Travis is suffering from viral cardiomyopathy ((kahr-dee-oh-my-OP-uh-thee), a heart condition caused by a virus. The Mayo Clinic website says the disease weakens and enlarges the heart muscle, making it harder for the heart to pump blood and carry it to the rest of the body. It can lead to heart failure.

Long a popular figure in country music, the North Carolina-born singer had been putting his life back together after a series of embarrassing public incidents involving alcohol.

You know it's lights out when a politician starts quoting from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Amid much speculation about his political future, Rick Perry, the longest-serving Texas governor, announced on Monday that he would not seek a fifth term as the state's chief executive.

"Today I am announcing I will not seek re-election as governor of Texas," Perry told supporters at a campaign-style rally in San Antonio.

Perry, who has served as Texas' governor since former President George W. Bush left the job for the White House in 2000, quoted the Bible and a country music song before saying the "time has come" for him to step aside.

"In the book of Ecclesiastes, it teaches us, for everything there is a season. A time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. I think it's the book of Darrell Royal that teaches us to 'dance with the one that brung ya,'" Perry said. "I remain excited about the future and the challenges ahead."

Perry said that he will serve out the rest of his term until January 2015, but his work in the state is far from over.

Earlier this month, Perry called the Texas legislature for a special session after State Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis successfully filibustered a bill that would impose new regulations on abortion providers in the state. Perry said in an interview on Sunday that he anticipates that the Texas legislature will pass the bill within ten days.

In his remarks on Monday, Perry, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, did not rule out a second run for the White House in 2016, saying he would "pray and reflect and work to determine" his "own future path." Perry said that he will make announcements about his future plans "in due time."

Although he did not refer to another presidential run specifically, Perry hinted that he has ambitious for another White House run, Texas-based Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak told Yahoo News.

"If you really know Perry and you really looked between the linesthe Bible verse, a season for this, a season for that, the way he talked about his accomplishmentsall those things are setting a predicate for a national run," Mackowiak said. "I think over the next few months he'll start to kick the tires on the national side to see what support is there, travel to some early states and do some national media. The benefit is now, he has the time to do these things. ... He was sending a signal: Stay tuned for a future announcement."

When the No. 1-ranked Djokovic faces No. 2 Murray to determine Wimbledon's champion Sunday, it will be their fourth meeting in a major final and third in less than a year.

Djokovic beat Murray at the Australian Open in 2011. Murray beat Djokovic at the U.S. Open last September. Djokovic beat Murray at the Australian Open this January.

That's not yet quite up to the lofty standard set by Federer and Nadal, who played each other in eight Grand Slam title matches from 2006-11. Djokovic and Nadal have contested five major finals since 2010, including a stretch of four in a row.

While part of the appeal of the Federer-Nadal matchup lies in their vastly contrasting games all the way down to the most basic level, righty vs. lefty Djokovic-Murray features two guys who employ rather similar styles.

They are improving servers and fantastic returners who managed to silence big hitters in the semifinals Friday: Tough to decide whether it was more surprising that Djokovic had a 22-4 edge in aces during his 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (6), 6-3 victory over No. 8 Juan Martin del Potro, or that Murray had a 20-9 edge in aces during his 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 victory over No. 24 Jerzy Janowicz.

They also are cover-every-inch hustlers who can switch from defense to offense, quick as can be.

"There is some similarities there, in terms of if you look at stats and stuff. I mean, both of us return well. That's probably the strongest part of our games. Both play predominantly from the baseline," said Murray, who is aiming to become the first British man to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936.

"We both move well, but a different sort of movement," Murray continued. "He's extremely flexible and he slides into shots, even on the courts here. He slides more. He's quite a bit lighter than me. So I'd say I probably move with more power, and he's much more flexible than me."

In the women's final Saturday, 15th-seeded Marion Bartoli of France won her first Grand Slam title, beating 23rd-seeded Sabine Lisicki of Germany 6-1, 6-4.

Djokovic, the 2011 Wimbledon champion, is seeking his seventh Grand Slam title overall and will be playing in his 11th major final. Murray is 1-5 in major finals. He has reached the championship matches at each of the last four Grand Slam tournament's he entered; he skipped this year's French Open because of a bad back.

Murray didn't need to expend too much energy to get past Janowicz, but Djokovic's win against del Potro was physically and emotionally sapping. It lasted 4 hours, 43 minutes, a record for a Wimbledon semifinal, and was filled with intense points.

"I did play a very long match, but I had situations before where I had to recover even just in 24 hours for the match the next day," Djokovic said Saturday. "I kind of got used to it and I know my body. I have a great team of people around me that make sure that we respect everything that we usually do. I'm confident I'll be ready for tomorrow."

Del Potro's take about how much Djokovic will have left for Sunday: "He will be OK."

Djokovic and Murray have put up remarkably close numbers over this fortnight.

Djokovic has lost two sets, Murray three. Djokovic has dropped 80 games through six matches, Murray 82. Djokovic has won 95 of 101 service games, Murray 95 of 103. Djokovic has 76 aces and only seven double-faults; Murray has 80 aces and 11 double-faults.

Born a week apart in May 1987, Djokovic and Murray first met as junior players.

"We know each other since we were 11 years old. On and off the court, we have lots of respect for each other. Always very fair, very honest relationship," Djokovic said. "Now we are big rivals and it's difficult. ... So we don't get together and have dinners and parties, but we definitely always chat and remember the fun days we had as juniors."

The two men get along well enough that when both were at the semifinal stage of last year's U.S. Open, they sat in front of a computer together and watched online while Murray's Scotland and Djokovic's Serbia played to a 0-0 draw in a qualifying match for soccer's World Cup.

"We have a professional friendship, I think, now. When we were younger, it was more friendly," Murray said.

"We've spent a lot of time discussing various issues within tennis and doing what I think sometimes what was best for the sport. But I don't think it goes more than that right now. I would hope when we finish playing, it will be different," Murray added. "But it's just hard, because playing in big, big matches with a lot on the line, you can't be best of friends when that's happening."

Djokovic leads the head-to-head series 11-7, including winning their most recent three matches. While this is their first Wimbledon encounter, they did play on the All England Club's grass in the semifinals of last year's London Olympics, and Murray won 7-5, 7-5 on his way to a gold medal.

That's part of year-plus stretch in which Murray has won 17 consecutive matches on grass, and 23 of 24.

His victory over Federer in the Olympic final, four weeks after losing to the 17-time major title winner on the same court in the Wimbledon final, gave Murray a real boost of confidence.

There's a tremendous amount of pressure and expectations heaped on Murray every year at this time, because of the considerable wait for a British champion.

He knows that, of course.

So does Djokovic, who is aware there will not be many people pulling for him in the stands Sunday.

"It's normal to expect, in a way, that most of the crowd will be on his side. He's a local hero," Djokovic said.

Murray says he thrives with the backing of 15,000 or so flag-waving, top-of-their-lungs-yelling spectators every time he plays on Centre Court.

"There's that extra bit of pressure that probably Novak doesn't have," said Murray's older brother, Jamie, who won the 2007 mixed doubles title at the All England Club. "If (Andy) deals with that well, then I'm sure he can perform in the final. Whether he wins or not I don't know, but they're two evenly matched guys, and they've had a lot of great matches in the past. Hopefully Sunday will be another one."

Instead of another Federer vs. Nadal, No. 1 vs. No. 2, match on the last Sunday, this time it'll be Djokovic and Murray. In as unpredictable a Wimbledon as anyone can recall, Nadal lost in the first round, and Federer exited in the second, both against men ranked outside the top 100.

Murray was asked how his mindset might be different in his second Wimbledon final than it was in his first, 12 months ago.

"I'll be probably in a better place mentally. I would hope so, just because I've been there before. I won a Grand Slam. I would hope I would be a little bit calmer going into Sunday," Murray said. "But you don't know. You don't decide that. I might wake up on Sunday and be unbelievably nervous, more nervous than I ever have been before. But I wouldn't expect to be."

___

Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

The trademark application, submitted on June 3 and released on the Japan Patent Office website on June 27, would cover computers, computer peripherals and wristwatches, the official said. He said it was unknown how long the application process would require.

An Apple spokesman in Japan could not immediately be reached for comment.

Speculation has mounted that Apple is preparing to launch an iWatch and CEO Tim Cook told a gathering of tech and media executives a month ago that wearable products were ripe for exploration, but added he was skeptical, including about Google Inc's recently unveiled Glass which combines a mobile computer and eyeglasses.

"There's nothing that's going to convince a kid who has never worn glasses or a band or a watch to wear one, or at least I haven't seen it," Cook said.

Wearable devices are considered a potential area for hit products as smartphones such as the iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co's Galaxy series are losing their ability to impress consumers and investors.

Samsung, which has leapfrogged Apple as the world's leading smartphone maker, is also developing a wearable device similar to a wristwatch, a source with knowledge of the matter has said.

The New York Times reported in February that Apple was experimenting with the design of a device similar to a wristwatch that would operate on the same iOS platform as its iPhone and iPad and would be made with curved glass.

(Reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo; Writing by Edmund Klamann; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

These "planetary protection" requirements impose heavy financial burdens on missions, partially explaining why no robots have searched for life on the Red Planet's surface since NASA's twin Viking landers ceased operations three decades ago, researchers Alberto Fairen of Cornell University and Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University write in a commentary published online today (June 27) in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Further, such restrictions are unnecessary, because Earth life has doubtless made it to the neighboring Red Planet already inside chunks of rock blasted off our planet by asteroid strikes, the scientists say. []

"If Earth micro-organisms can thrive on Mars, they almost certainly already do; and if they cannot, the should be of no concern, as it would simply not survive," Fairen and Schulze-Makuch write in the commentary. "We cannot see how our current program of Mars exploration might pose any real threat to a possible Martian biosphere."