CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - An asteroid the size of a small truck zoomed past Earth four times closer than the moon on Saturday, the latest in a parade of visiting celestial objects that has raised awareness of potentially hazardous impacts on the planet.

NASA said Asteroid 2013 LR6 was discovered about a day before its closest approach to Earth, which occurred at 12:42 a.m. EDT (0442 GMT on Saturday) about 65,000 miles over the Southern Ocean, south of Tasmania, Australia.

The 30-foot-wide (10-metre-wide) asteroid posed no threat.

A week ago, the comparatively huge 1.7-mile-wide (2.7-km-wide) asteroid QE2, complete with its own moon in tow, passed 3.6 million miles (5.8 million km) from Earth.

While on February 15, a small asteroid exploded in the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia, leaving more than 1,500 people injured by flying glass and debris. That same day, an unrelated asteroid passed just 17,200 miles from Earth, closer than the networks of communication satellites that ring the planet.

"There is theoretically a collision possible between asteroids and planet Earth," astronomer Gianluca Masi, with the Virtual Telescope project, said during a Google+ webcast that showed live images of the approaching asteroid.

NASA says it has found about 95 percent of the large asteroids, those with diameters 0.65 miles or larger, with orbits that take them relatively close to Earth.

An object of that size hit the planet about 65 million years ago in what is now Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, triggering a global climate change that is believed to be responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs and many other forms of life on Earth.

The U.S. space agency and other research organizations, as well as private companies, are working on tracking smaller objects that fly near Earth.

(Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Erdogan, who has said the protests must end immediately, was to meet with top officials from his Justice and Development Party in Istanbul.

The protests began as a sit-in at a park in Taksim Square to prevent a redevelopment project that would replace the park with replica Ottoman barracks and a shopping mall. The mall idea seems to have fallen by the wayside, with Erdogan recently saying an opera house, theater and possibly a museum would be built instead.

But violent intervention by police to eject the protesters on May 31 outraged many, and the protests spread to dozens of cities across Turkey.

Over the past nine days of demonstrations and frequent violent confrontations with police, three people have been killed two protesters and a policeman and thousands have been injured.

The protests have attracted a broad array of people angered by what they say are Erdogan's increasingly autocratic ways and his intervention in private lives. They point to attempts to curtail the selling and promotion of alcohol, his comments on how women should dress and statements that each woman should have at least three children.

A devout Muslim who says he is committed to upholding Turkey's secular tradition, Erdogan vehemently rejects charges of autocracy and points out that he enjoyed 50 percent support in the last elections in 2011.

Over the past week, protesters mainly young, secular and middle-class, but also including some religious Muslims who were formerly Erdogan supporters have set up camp in Taksim Square and its Gezi Park. They have vowed to remain there until the development project for the area is canceled something Erdogan has shown no signs of being willing to do.

While Taksim Square has been generally quiet for the past few days, clashes have broken out in other parts of the city. Riot police used water cannon and tear gas against protesters who set up street barricades in the Sultangazi neighborhood on the outskirts of Istanbul overnight.

Witnesses said at least one person was injured, hit in the face by a tear gas canister. Early Saturday, bloodstains could be seen on the ground amid debris from burned garbage bins and damaged shops.

The legislation has been decades in the making, and is currently being considered by the House of Representatives, where it will likely face some opposition.

Nonetheless, many states are hoping it will pass, saying an Internet sales tax will allow them to bring in much-needed revenue.

The total estimates of how much money states can make by taxing purchases from outside their borders remains to be seen, and S&P said it "believes revenues would be unlikely to boost tax revenues significantly in the near term compared with the size of total state budgets."

S&P also said there will be no near-term credit implications.

But if the bill is delayed for several years and states do not pursue other revenue sources, there is a possibility state revenues will erode. That, in turn, would hurt their credit, the agency said.

(Reporting by Caryn Trokie, additional reporting by Lisa Lambert in Washington)

The officials said the deadliest attacks took place late at night when a suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden car into the headquarters of a police commando unit in the Taji area, killing seven policemen and wounding 12 others.

Taji is 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Baghdad.

Violence has spiked in Iraq in recent weeks, raising fears of a return to widespread sectarian bloodshed.

According to the United Nations, at least 1,045 Iraqi civilians and security personnel were killed in May. The tally surpassed April's 712 killed, making May the deadliest month recorded since June 2008.

Earlier in the day, police officials said a car bomb exploded at a livestock market in the southeastern suburb of Nahrawan, killing four civilians and wounding 22. A second car bomb went off in the industrial area of the southwestern neighborhood of Bayaa, killing three people and wounding 11.

Three medical officials confirmed the causality figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.

The attacks came just a day after gunmen ambushed a group of travelers at a fake checkpoint at a desert site in western Iraq, killing at least 14 of them.

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Associated Press Writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.

The new version of the world's most popular free (and open-source) PC operating system,is now availablefrom Ubuntu.com. Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" largely contains under-the-hood improvements that most people won't notice, but does contain a few new user-facing features ... such as a more visible notice about how its Unity search feature logs your keystrokes and sends them to websites like Amazon.

What's in a name?

You have to dig to find the link buried in ubuntu.com's footer, but itspage explains that the Ubuntu name comes from "an ancient African word meaning "humanity to others." Ubuntu uses a large amount of volunteer labor, as people around the world work unpaid to improve what Canonical -- the startup founded by Ubuntu's "Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator For Life," billionaire Mark Shuttleworth -- provides .

Raring Ringtail continues a tradition of "alphabet animal" themed names, and 13.04 means that it is the April 2013 release. A new version of Ubuntu is released every six months.

Throwing away goodwill

Ubuntu 13.04 is remarkable for having been released at all. Earlier this year there was a contentious debate in which Canonical proposed abandoning the half-yearly release schedule altogether. It also announced that it had been spending the last few monthsfor a vital graphics software component, one on which volunteers had been working during that time without knowing that it'd be replaced.

Shuttleworth took to his blog to criticize theof volunteers expressing their hurt feelings on their own blogs. Several long-time members of the Ubuntu volunteer communitythat they were leaving it.

What about new features?

The search built into the Unity Dash -- basically equivalent to a Windows PC's Start menu search or a Mac's Spotlight search -- now searches more websites, including the BBC's. There is also now a notice in the search field that it searches websites and not just your computer, and a legal disclaimer that explains that Ubuntu allows Canonical and third-party companies to log your search keystrokes. These were not included when the feature debuted, at which time it alsofor underwear sales and pornography.

Joey Elijah-Sneddon of the popular OMG! Ubuntu! enthusiast blog has put together a video explaining

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Sunday's ruling said the upper house, or Shura Council, would be dissolved once the new parliament convenes. A date has yet to be set for the elections which President Mohamed Mursi said could begin in October.

The ruling seemed likely to heighten tension between the Muslim Brotherhood and the judiciary over judicial reforms which the Islamists see as necessary to removing Hosni Mubarak-era appointees but judges see as a bid to purge their ranks.

The court also ruled as illegal the body which drafted a constitution that was approved in a popular referendum in December. The implications of that ruling were not immediately clear. Some legal experts say that the constitution itself is above legal challenge because it was approved by a popular vote.

The case against the upper house of parliament, brought by an independent member of parliament, follows a similar challenge that led to the dissolution of the Brotherhood-led lower house last year.

It is one of the many lawsuits, filed mostly by Muslim Brotherhood opponents, that have complicated the transition from Hosni Mubarak's rule after he was swept from power by a 2011 uprising.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

TORONTO (Reuters) - Bank of Nova Scotiasaid on Tuesday that quarterly profit rose 9.6 percent due largely to an acquisition, but missed estimates due to weaker commodities-related revenue and higher loan-loss provisions.

At mid-morning, the bank's shares were down 0.8 percent at C$59.11 in Toronto, making it the weakest performer among Canada's six biggest lenders, which were otherwise higher.

The result, the third earnings report from a Canadian bank this quarter, was padded by last year's C$3.1 billion ($2.98 billion) acquisition of the Canadian online lender ING Direct.

That deal contributed to a 19 percent jump in profit at Scotiabank's Canadian banking unit, which earned C$547 million.

But gains were more muted in the bank's other businesses, particularly global banking and markets, which saw income slide 6.7 percent to C$361 million due to declines in the bank's commodities and precious metals business.

Provisions for bad loans also weighed on the overall result, rising 30 percent to C$343 million, with most of the gains coming from the bank's international banking division.

"That goes to their exposure geographically. It's hard to get a handle on credit exposure there. It's just higher risk," said Tom Lewandowski, an analyst at Edward Jones in St. Louis.

Toronto-based Scotiabank operates in more than 50 countries, with the heaviest weighting in Latin America and a growing presence in Asia.

The bank, Canada's third-largest lender, earned C$1.60 billion ($1.55 billion), or C$1.23 a share, in the second quarter. That was up from a year-before profit of C$1.46 billion, or C$1.15 a share.

Excluding an amortization charge, the bank earned C$1.24 a share, falling just short of analysts' expectations of C$1.26 a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

"Overall, it is a miss and so we expect some weakness relative to peers today," CIBC World Markets analyst Robert Sedran said in a note.

International lending profit climbed 5.1 percent to C$471 million, while wealth management income gained 12.4 percent to C$335 million.

The Canadian banking was strong even excluding the impact of the ING Direct acquisition, boasting residential mortgage growth of 7 percent despite signs that Canada's housing market is beginning to cool.

Weak mortgage growth led to disappointing second-quarter results at rival Toronto-Dominion Bank

Bank of Montrealwill report on Wednesday, while Royal Bank of Canadaand Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerceare expected to release results on Thursday.

($1 = $1.0387 Canadian)

(Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Matthew Lewis)

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note is near the highest it's been in 13 months. That's giving investors who want steady income an alternative to dividend-rich stocks like utilities.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 106 points to close 15,302 points Wednesday, giving back its gain from the day before. That's a decline of 0.7 percent.

The Standard & Poor's 500 fell 11 points to 1,648, or 0.7 percent. The Nasdaq composite lost 21 points to 3,467, or 0.6 percent.

Four stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was average at 3.5 billion shares.

The text of the bill presented to the Islamist-dominated Shura Council was not made public, but a top presidential aide said that Mohammed Morsi's legal team took into consideration concerns that had been raised by local and international groups.

NGOs allege past versions of the bill were an attempt to regulate the work of civil society by with murky, loosely defined oversight by security agencies of their work. One concern has been that security forces might be allowed to inspect the raw material gathered by human rights groups that collect sensitive testimony from witnesses.

Morsi said in a statement Monday that the bill is aimed at committing NGOs to the principles of transparency and striking a balance with "the openness of Egypt" after the uprising that toppled longtime President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Under Mubarak, local and foreign NGOs were not allowed to align themselves with political parties, involvement in politics was tightly restricted and elections widely rigged.

The United States criticized earlier versions as "a step backwards."

Presidential aides said that under the proposed bill, civil society groups receiving foreign funding will not be allowed to support Egyptian parties or candidates. On the other hand, broad voter awareness activities would be permitted.

It was not clear what other restrictions might be imposed on foreign funding for local groups and the work of international NGOs. Those groups have been regarded with suspicion by Egyptian leaders, who have regarded some of their work as foreign interference in domestic affairs.

Under military rule that followed Mubarak's ouster, the Egyptian government shut down several U.S.-funded NGOs and charged some of its activists, including 16 Americans, with criminal offenses, setting off a prolonged diplomatic crisis between the two countries. The Americans left the country and were later tried in absentia.

Presidential aide Khaled Al-Qazzaz said the new bill does not require that security officials be part of a "steering committee" that will decide much of the fate of NGOs. Al-Qazzaz was speaking to reporters along with two other presidential aides before Morsi submitted the bill to the Shura Council for debate.

Removed from the latest draft is wording that said NGO's would be banned from receiving foreign funds directly and instead would have to receive money through a government bank account, the aides said. A previous draft stated that no transfer of money would be allowed until a steering committee that included members of the Interior Ministry and National Security Agency approved it within 60 days or rejected it.

The new draft, according to the presidential aides, would not require NGOs to hold their money in public funds.

Rights groups regarded the previous drafts as similar to, if not worse than, the autocratic policies of Mubarak's regime, when NGOs faced retaliation from police for exposing human rights violations, abuse and torture.

In the new bill, Al-Qazzaz said the steering committee may receive reports from intelligence agencies about NGOs or groups applying to register as NGOs. He described it as "inter-agency" work.

Aides said the steering committee will be comprised of nine officials, four elected to the body from the NGO community and four to be appointed by the Minister of Social Solidarity. The minister himself would be the ninth.

The committee would be responsible for a number of tasks, including granting and rejecting NGO licenses as well as objecting to NGO activities that exceed or counter the group's registered mandate. The steering committee could refer an NGO to a court for a judge to rule on whether to revoke a group's license.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which has emerged as the country's most powerful political group, is among those affected by the new law. Under Mubarak, it was banned from politics and from registering as an NGO.

The president's Freedom and Justice Party and the Muslim Brotherhood from which the party emerged will now be allowed to work alongside one another in what Al-Qazzaz described as "gray area" between political activism and the work of local charitable groups involved in awareness programs.

"Politics is in everything," he said.

Critics said the dark mysteries, mind-bending codes and history-laced tourism in "Inferno" will thrill Brown devotees, but panned the U.S. author for passages they said were more suited to a Hollywood film script than a novel.

Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon returns in this latest sequel to the blockbuster book and film franchise to follow a trail of clues about 14th century Italian poet Dante Alighieri across Florence, Venice and Istanbul in a race to save the world from a deadly artificial plague.

New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin said the novel has a shaky opening that appears to put Brown's "brainiac franchise" in trouble, but recovers swiftly.

"To the great relief of anyone who enjoys him, Mr. Brown winds up not only laying a breadcrumb trail of clues about Dante (this is "Inferno," after all) but also playing games with time, gender, identity, famous tourist attractions and futuristic medicine," she wrote.

Sales of the book reached the highest level of customer pre-orders at retailer Waterstones since the release of Harry Potter author JK Rowling's adult fiction "The Casual Vacancy" last year.

The Independent newspaper's Boyd Tonkin called the novel "clunky but clever" in a review that asks whether Brown can make a go of one of the oldest plots in fiction - mad scientist threatens world with doom machine.

"Can Brown re-engineer these over-familiar devices of outbreak, pestilence and contagion into a viable organism? However clunkily, he can," Tonkin writes.

But Financial Times reviewer AN Wilson panned "Inferno" as a "nonsensical story" loaded with "scientific gobbledygook" and pointing out Brown's repetitive reliance on the fame of every historical site Langdon comes across.

"The prof and his doctor race past 'Florence's famed Cathedral', and Vasari's 'famed Studiolo', not forgetting the 'world-famous Uffizi Gallery'," Wilson wrote.

"Inferno reads less like a novel than a 'treatment' for a thriller film."

Back in America, USA Today's Brian Truitt offers Brown's novel three and a half stars out of four in a review that calls the book "one hell of a good read".

"Brown has a definite formula in place for putting Langdon through his paces, but watching him go through hell is about as close as a book can come to a summertime cinematic blockbuster," Truitt wrote.

Brown's religion-themed mystery novel "The Da Vinci Code," was published in 2003 and was made into a hit film starring Tom Hanks. It spent more than a year at the top the New York Times bestseller list.

(Reporting by Li-mei Hoang; Writing by Paul Casciato; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)