When Islamic fighters drove into a town in northeast Nigeria on Tuesday, they used anti-aircraft guns, mounted on the backs of trucks, to destroy nearly every landmark of the nation's federal government. Fighters also rode in on at least one bus, the military said, while in other assaults insurgents have fired rocket-propelled grenades.

The militarization of Islamic radicals in the north comes after witnesses saw Nigerian fighters mingle with the extremists who took over northern Mali in the weeks following a coup there. It also comes after fighters seized massive troves of Nigerian military equipment and have received access to arms smuggled out of the lawlessness of Libya.

Those new arms, and the willingness of extremists to use them, highlight the increasing instability in Nigeria's north and ever-growing dangers facing the nation's weak central government.

"Each year, they grow in prominence and sophistication," said David Zounmenou, an analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, South Africa. "That's what's making the fighting that much more difficult for the Nigerian security forces."

Tuesday, the sophistication of the fighters, likely from the extremist network known as Boko Haram, could be seen in their assault on Bama, a town some 65 kilometers (40 miles) southeast of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. The military said some 200 fighters in buses and pickup trucks lay siege to the town. In their arsenal were truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns, weapons seen during the civil war in Libya and the recent fighting in northern Mali.

That attack in Bama killed at least 42 people, as well as 13 others that authorities described as Boko Haram fighters. But the insurgents' heavy weapons helped them overrun the barracks of the Nigerian Army's 202nd Battalion, as well as a police station, a police barracks, a magistrate's court, local government offices and a federal prison. The extremist fighters freed 105 prisoners during their assault, Lt. Col. Sagir Musa said.

The use of the weapons marks a transformation of Nigeria's Islamic extremist insurgency, which grew out of a 2009 riot led by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri that ended in a military and police crackdown that killed some 700 people. The group's leader died in police custody in an apparent execution, fueling dissent that broke into the open in 2010 with the targeted killings of government officials, security agents and religious leaders who spoke out against Boko Haram.

Since then, Islamic extremists have engaged in hit-and-run shootings and suicide bombings, attacks that have killed at least 1,618 people during that time, according to an Associated Press count. That number doesn't include the killings of at least 187 people in the fishing village of Baga during fighting between extremists and security forces, as witnesses and human rights activists say Nigeria's military killed civilians and burned thousands of homes and businesses.

Extremist attack casualties are expected to rise as fighters now have access to sophisticated weaponry. While Nigeria's military has fought in the past decade with heavily armed militants and criminal gangs operating in the creeks of its oil-rich southern delta, analysts and security official say those groups never had access to anti-aircraft weapons. Nor did these groups launch attacks overrunning military barracks or leveling towns.

Where extremists gathered these sophisticated weapons also remains unclear, though they have several means available to them. A propaganda video released in March by Boko Haram, featuring its leader Abubakar Shekau, showed fighters gathered around weapons they said they stole from an attack on an army barracks. Those weapons included what appeared to be heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and possibly anti-aircraft weapons, as well as ammunition and brand-new bulletproof vests.

Another source of tactics and weapons may come from northern Mali, where Nigerian extremists fought along others.

"Boko Haram will also likely recruit militants who fought and obtained new skills from warfare in Mali," wrote analyst Jacob Zenn in a recent publication by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Army's West Point. "The Boko Haram attack on an army barracks in Monguno ... , in which the militants mounted weapons on four-wheel-drive vehicles, and the discovery of improvised fighting vehicles in a raid on a Boko Haram hideout in Maiduguri ... suggest that Boko Haram has already learned new methods of fighting from the Islamist militants in Mali."

Meanwhile, arms are likely to continue to come out of Libya from heavily armed militias there, said analyst Zounmenou. Those arms can spread quickly through the Sahara Desert and into West Africa's Sahel to Nigeria, a major shipment stop for illegal weapons, he said.

While Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has spoken before about the need to control arms shipments throughout West Africa, the trade continues largely unstopped. And as more of those weapons end up in the hands of Islamic extremists in Nigeria's north, more violence can be expected, said Zounmenou: "They are now really going to war."

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

The idea of superintelligent machines may sound like the plot of "The Terminator" or "The Matrix," but many experts say the idea isn't far-fetched. Some even think the point at which artificial intelligence can match, and then overtake, human smarts might happen in just 16 years.

But nearly every computer scientist will have a different prediction for when and how the singularity will happen.

Some believe in a utopian future, in which humans can transcend their physical limitations with the aid of machines. But others think humans will eventually relinquish most of their abilities and gradually become absorbed into(AI)-based organisms, much like the energy making machinery in our own cells. []

Singularity near?

In his book "The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology" (Viking, 2005), futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted that computers will be as smart as humans by 2029, and that by 2045, "computers will be billions of times more powerful than unaided human intelligence," Kurzweil wrote in an email to LiveScience.

"My estimates have not changed, but the consensus view of AI scientists has been changing to be much closer to my view," Kurzweil wrote.

Bill Hibbard, a computer scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, doesn't make quite as bold a prediction, but he's nevertheless confident AI will havesome time in the 21st century.

"Even if my most pessimistic guess is true, it means it's going to happen during the lifetime of people who are already born," Hibbard said.

But other AI researchers are skeptical.

"I don't see any sign that we're close to a singularity," said Ernest Davis, a computer scientist at New York University.

While AI can trounce the best chess or Jeopardy player and do other specialized tasks, it's still light-years behind the average 7-year-old in terms of common sense, vision, language and intuition about how the physical world works, Davis said.

For instance, because of that physical intuition, humans can watch a person overturn a cup of coffee and just know that the end result will be a puddle on the floor. A computer program, on the other hand, would have to do a laborious simulation and know the exact size of the cup, the height of the cup from the surface and various other parameters to understand the outcome, Davis said. []

Infinite abilities

Once the singularity occurs, people won't necessarily die (they can simply upgrade with cybernetic parts), and they could do just about anything they wanted to provided it were physically possible and didn't require , Hibbard said.

The past two singularities the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions led to a doubling in economic productivity every 1,000 and 15 years, respectively, said Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University in Washington, D.C., who is writing a book about the future singularity. But once machines become as smart as men, the economy will double every week or month.

This rapid pace of productivity would be possible because the main "actors" in the economy, namely people, could simply be replicated for whatever it costs to copy an intelligent-machine software into another computer.

Earth's destruction?

That productivity spike may not be a good thing. For one, robots could probably survivethat would wipe out humans.

"A society or economy made primarily of robots will not fear destroying nature in the same way that we should fear destroying nature," Hanson said.

And others worry that we're barreling toward a future that doesn't take people into account. For instance, self-driving cars could improve safety, but also put millions of truck drivers out of work, Hibbard said. So far, no one is planning for those possibilities.

"There are such strong financial incentives in using technology in ways that aren't necessarily in everyone's interest," Hibbard said. "That's going to be a very difficult problem, possibly an unsolvable problem."

Human devolution?

Some scientists think we are already in the midst of the singularity.

Humans have already relinquished many intelligent tasks, such as the ability to write, navigate, memorize facts or do calculations, Joan Slonczewski, a microbiologist at Kenyon college and the author of a science-fiction book called "The Highest Frontier," (Tor Books, 2011). Since Gutenberg invented the printing press, humans have continuously redefined intelligence and transferred those tasks to machines. Now, even tasks considered at the core of humanity, such as caring for the elderly or the sick, are being outsourced to , she said.

"The question is, could we evolve ourselves out of existence, being gradually replaced by the machines?" Slonczewski said. "I think that's an open question."

In fact, the future of humanity may be similar to that of mitochondria, the energy powerhouses of cells. Mitochondria were once independent organisms, but at some point, an ancestral cell engulfed those , and over evolutionary history, mitochondria let cells gradually take over all the functions they used to perform, until they only produced energy.

"We're becoming like the mitochondria. We provide the energy we turn on the machines," Slonczewski told LiveScience. "But increasingly, they do everything else."

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter .FollowLiveScience , & . Original article on.

The remarks signaled trouble for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's new push for Mideast peace and risked reinforcing Benjamin Netanyahu's image as a hard-liner unwilling to make the tough concessions required for peace.

Netanyahu has not commented directly on the Arab League's latest initiative, but his words questioned its central tenet the exchange of captured land for peace and appeared to counter a modified peace proposal from the Arab world that Washington and Netanyahu's own chief negotiator have welcomed.

The original 2002 Arab initiative offered a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Muslim world in exchange for a withdrawal from all territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Sweetening the offer this week, the Arab sponsor said final borders could be drawn through mutually agreed land swaps.

Netanyahu questioned the premise that borders are the key.

"The root of the conflict isn't territorial. It began way before 1967," he told Israeli diplomats. "The Palestinians' failure to accept the state of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people is the root of the conflict. If we reach a peace agreement, I want to know that the conflict won't continue that the Palestinians won't come later with more demands."

The Palestinians have rejected Netanyahu's demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, saying that would undermine the rights of Israel's Arab minority as well as millions of refugees whose families lost properties during the war surrounding Israel's establishment in 1948. The fate of the refugees is a core issue that would need to be resolved in a final peace deal.

After meeting U.S. congressmen Wednesday, Netanyahu said he appreciated the efforts of President Barack Obama and Kerry to restart negotiations but said that for talks to succeed, the Palestinians must also guarantee solid security arrangements. "We're prepared to discuss many things, but I will never compromise on Israel's security," he said.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani tried to allay some of the Israeli concerns as he presented the offer on Monday.

Speaking on behalf of an Arab League delegation, he reiterated the need to base an agreement between Israel and a future Palestine on the 1967 lines, but for the first time, he cited the possibility of "comparable," mutually agreed and "minor" land swaps between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The sides were reportedly close to an agreement based on these guidelines during the last serious round of talks in 2008 but the talks failed. Swaps of territory were also a basis for a failed summit in the U.S. in 2000.

Negotiations have largely been frozen since 2008, and the new U.S. administration has been trying to get the peace talks back on track.

As part of his effort, Kerry has been pushing Arab leaders to embrace a modified version of the Arab peace plan. The changes are meant to win Israeli support by allowing it to keep parts of the West Bank and east Jerusalem as part of an agreement.

Though Netanyahu's office has remained silent on the modified Arab proposal, his chief peace negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, has welcomed it, as have Israel's president and the main opposition parties. However, Netanyahu's own political base and one of his main government coalition partners are either opposed to giving up land or suspicious of the Arabs' motivations.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a rival of Netanyahu, said the initiative disproves the belief held by many in Israel that "there is no one to speak to."

"We cannot, under any circumstances, again be the ones that express doubts about a process that can lead to negotiations," Olmert told Israel's Channel 10 TV, urging Netanyahu to capitalize on "a historic opportunity."

Opposition Israeli lawmakers also urged Netanyahu to embrace the new Arab outreach.

"It was bad enough that we ignored it once. Ignoring it now ... after everything that is happening in the Arab world, I think it would be a very, very big mistake," said Merav Michaeli, a lawmaker from the centrist Labor Party. She said if Netanyahu does not respond, it would show that he does not want a peace accord.

Kerry called the new peace plan a "very big step forward," though Palestinian officials have been cool to the concept, insisting that negotiations still need start with the 1967 lines.

The original 2002 Arab peace initiative offered Israel peace with the entire Muslim world in exchange for a "complete withdrawal" from territories captured in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians claim the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, all seized by Israel in 1967, for their future state. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Though the latest proposal appears aimed at the Palestinians, the original formula refers to other territories as well. Israel also captured the Sinai from Egypt and Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war, withdrawing from Sinai in 1982. Peace talks between Israel and Syria over the fate of the Golan failed more than a decade ago.

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Associated Press writer Daniel Estrin contributed.

Hundreds attended the traditional Muslim funeral and many more looked on from the roofs of nearby buildings as the bodies, rotting in the spring heat, were brought to the graveyard on the back of flatbed trucks.

Onlookers covered their noses. One woman rushed through the crowd to the back of a truck wailing that one of the bodies was her sister's. She begged to take it as family members held on to her to keep her from collapsing.

Local men and boys recited a traditional Muslim prayer for the dead. Then, 34 bodies were unloaded and placed in the graves.

Workers at the cemetery have dug several long rows of graves as authorities expect to bury scores more unidentified bodies in the coming days.

"I would not have to take part in this if the government acted more responsibly," said Rasel Islam, a 32-year-old man who attended the burial.

Five garment factories were housed in the illegally constructed Rana Plaza building that collapsed April 24, five months after a fire killed 112 people at another clothing factory. The tragedies exposed the unsafe conditions plaguing Bangladesh's $20 billion-a-year garment industry, which supplies many European and American retailers.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis said he was shocked by a headline about the building collapse that said some of the workers were living on 38 euros ($50) a month.

"This was the payment of these people who have died ... and this is called 'slave labor,'" he said. Vatican Radio said the pope made the remarks during a private Mass at the Vatican.

"Not paying a just (wage), not providing work, focusing exclusively on the balance books, on financial statements, only looking at making personal profit. That goes against God!," Francis was quoted as saying.

He added: "People are less important than the things that give profit to those who have political, social, economic power. What point have we come to? To the point that we are not aware of this dignity of the person; this dignity of labor."

EU officials said they are considering action including changes to Bangladesh's duty-free and quota-free access to the giant EU market to "incentivize" responsible management of the nation's garment industry. Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign affairs chief, and its trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht, called in a statement for Bangladesh authorities to act immediately to ensure factories comply with international labor standards.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said businesses operating in the Rana Plaza appeared to have links to numerous companies in the U.S. and Europe. "We'll continue to engage with U.S. companies to discuss what role they can play in improving conditions," he told reporters. He did not give details on the companies.

Pressure built inside Bangladesh as well, as a raucous May Day procession of workers on foot, pickup trucks and motorcycles wound its way through central Dhaka demanding safe working conditions and capital punishment for the building's owner. They waved the national flag and banners, beat drums and chanted "Direct action!" and "Death penalty!"

From a loudspeaker on the back of a truck, a participant spoke for the group: "My brother has died. My sister has died. Their blood will not be valueless."

The death toll from the collapse passed 400 Wednesday, with a total of 410 people confirmed dead so far, police said.

Rescue workers expect the death toll to rise, because they believe many bodies are still buried on the ground level of the building.

There is confusion over how many people remain missing.

Zillur Rahman Chowdhury, a Dhaka district administrator, said so far 149 people have been listed missing. A police official, Aminur Rahman, said police have recorded up to 1,300 names as missing, but he cautioned that many may be duplicates. "We will now have to screen the names by computer to find the actual number," he said.

The owner of the building, Mohammed Sohel Rana, is under arrest and expected to be charged with negligence, illegal construction and forcing workers to join work, which is punishable by a maximum of seven years in jail. Authorities have not said if more serious crimes will be added.

Protesters Wednesday demanded capital punishment for Rana, 38, a small-time political operative with the ruling Awami League party.

"I want the death penalty for the owner of the building. We want regular salaries, raises and absolutely we want better safety in our factories," said Mongidul Islam Rana, 18, who works in a different garment factory.

The Bangladesh High Court has ordered the government to confiscate Rana's property and freeze the assets of the owners of the factories in Rana Plaza so the money can be used to pay the salaries of their workers.

Rana had permission to build five stories but added three more illegally. When huge cracks appeared in the building a day before its collapse, police ordered an evacuation, but Rana told tenants it was safe. The next day, a bank and some shops refused to open but factory managers told their workers to go back in. Hours later the building came down in a heap of concrete.

Rescuers estimate the building turned into 600 tons of rubble, of which 350 tons have been removed.

Anxious relatives were still looking for their missing loved ones. Kulsum, who uses one name, was searching for her husband, holding his photograph among several hundred people at a nearby schoolyard.

"My husband was inside the building on the fifth floor," Kulsum said. "I haven't found him. Neither alive nor dead."

The November fire brought widespread pledges to improve worker safety in Bangladesh, but very little has changed.

"I think it is a wakeup call for the nation, a wakeup call for the industry and for the trade unions," said Shirin Akter, founding president of Karmojibi Nari, a Dhaka-based group that lobbies for the rights of women in the workplace.

Among the garment makers in the building were Phantom Apparels, Phantom Tac, Ether Tex, New Wave Style and New Wave Bottoms. Altogether, they produced several million shirts, pants and other garments a year.

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Hossain contributed from Dhaka.

Now she'll give it a try against Serena Williams.

Sharapova, a four-time runner-up, earned another berth in the final by beating Jelena Jankovic 6-2, 6-1 Thursday at the Sony Open. Eight hours later, five-time champion Williams advanced when she beat defending champion Agnieszka Radwanska 6-0, 6-3.

Sharapova has lost the Key Biscayne final to four different players Kim Clijsters in 2005, Svetlana Kuznetsova in '06, Victoria Azarenka in '11 and Radwanska last year. The No. 1-ranked Williams might be the toughest matchup for her yet.

Sharapova is 2-11 against Williams, with both of the wins way back in 2004. Williams has won their past 10 meetings and their past 13 sets.

"They have been pretty quick matches," Sharapova said. "She's a tremendous athlete, has so much power, and a confident player as well. So if you have a few games where you're not stepping in and not playing the way you should be, she takes really good advantage of it."

With a victory Saturday, the No. 3-seeded Sharapova would plug one of the few holes in her resume. She completed a career Grand Slam by winning the French Open last year but has never won the tournament near downtown Miami.

"It would mean so much to me," the Russian said. "I absolutely love this city. It's the first city I landed in when I came to the United States as a little girl."

Palm Beach Gardens resident Williams considers Key Biscayne her home tournament, and she was at her best before a near-capacity crowd for the night's final match.

"I'm excited because I'm in the final again. Yay!" she told the crowd. "So many of my friends are here. My family is here. I have to do well here. I can't let my friends down."

Williams broke the tournament record for victories by a woman. She's 60-7; Steffi Graf went 59-6.

Andy Murray, the 2009 champion and runner-up last year, advanced to the semifinals by beating No. 9 Marin Cilic 6-4, 6-3. Murray has yet to drop a set, and his path is made easier because Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer skipped the tournament, and Novak Djokovic lost in the fourth round.

"Obviously, if they aren't there, then you don't have to play against two or three of the best players that have played the game," Murray said. "So it's not as challenging. I always enjoy playing against them because it's good for me. It's a good test of my game."

Murray's opponent Friday night will be No. 8-seeded Richard Gasquet, who beat No. 4 Tomas Berdych 6-3, 6-3. The other semifinal will match No. 3 David Ferrer against 34-year-old Tommy Haas, who upset Djokovic.

Williams had struggled in her previous two matches but played almost error-free tennis in the semifinal, using her superior power to keep Radwanska pinned deep and on the run. They played for 37 minutes and 55 points before Radwanska won a game, prompting a big roar from the crowd.

That made it 1-all in the second set, but there would be no comeback. Williams hit 12 aces, including four in one game, and enjoyed a 40-6 advantage in winners.

Radwanska, who also lost to Williams in last year's Wimbledon final, fell to 1-11 against No. 1 players.

The earlier semifinal was just as lopsided. On a sunny, mild afternoon, Sharapova won the first 10 points against the No. 22-seeded Jankovic, then hardly let up from there.

Sharapova swept seven consecutive games during one stretch, and committed only 10 unforced errors from the baseline in 88 points while breaking serve six times.

Sharapova took the Indian Wells title two weeks ago and has won 22 consecutive sets, a career best, while winning 11 matches in a row.

Williams said her final against Sharapova should be a crowd-pleaser.

"She's playing so well," Williams said. "I'll do the best I can. It'll be a good match. We love playing against each other. I love playing her and we always have a great match."

Like Williams, Sharapova survived a sloppy quarterfinal, winning despite 57 unforced errors, including 13 double-faults. She double-faulted only three times against Jankovic and won 23 of 25 points on her first serve.

"I just really thought I needed to step it up from my last match and play a little better," she said. "I was really happy with the way I focused."

Jankovic, playing for the second time in less than 18 hours, was repeatedly a step late trying to reach Sharapova's shots.

"I wasn't moving," she said. "I felt heavy on the court. I felt really tired and exhausted."

Jankovic questioned scheduling that forced her to play in consecutive sessions while Williams and Radwanska had a day off before the semifinals.

"Kind of crazy," she said. "I had a couple of hours of sleep, and then I had to be back on the court."

Sharapova looked fresh even though she has played a lot of tennis lately. She's bidding to become the third woman to win Indian Wells and Key Biscayne in the same year.

Steffi Graf did it in 1994 and 1996, and Kim Clijsters won both in 2005.

"Winning a title on its own, whether it's here or Indian Wells, is a great achievement," Sharapova said. "To be able to come back from that and recover in just a few days and come back to the final here, it's great. Physically, many years ago I wouldn't be able to do that, so I'm very proud of the way I have recovered."

The video is made up of photos captured by NASA's(SDO) two images a day for three years. The eye-catching images offer an unprecedented glimpse of the daily commotion waxing and waning on the surface of the sun.

SDO's Atmospheric Imaging Assembly records an image of the sun every 12 seconds in 10 different wavelengths, according to NASA officials. The images seen in the video are in the extreme ultraviolet range.

"In this wavelength it is easy to see the sun's 25-day rotation as well as howhas increased over three years," agency officials said in a statement.

In the video, the size of the sun appears to subtly fluctuate. These changes are caused by the variation over time in the distance between SDO and the sun. Despite these tiny variations, the shots are fairly stable and consistent.

With SDO maintaining this steady and unbroken gaze, heliophysicists regularly observe the sun's active regions, and have been able to watch solar storms as they occur. By closely monitoring changes in the sun's activity, researchers can catch solar flares and other majorin the act.

"SDO's glimpses into the violent dance on the sun help scientists understand what causes these giant explosions with the hopes of some day improving our ability to predict this space weather," NASA officials said.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory was launched in February 2010 and is equipped with a suite of instruments to stare at the sun for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This type of uninterrupted coverage allowed scientists to monitor the star as it ramps up toward a period of solar maximum this year in its regular 11-year cycle of activity.

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter. Follow us,or. Originally published on .

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fans of "Nurse Jackie," "Weeds," and "The Big C" will recognize the quirky lead of "The English Teacher" as she steps out of her straight-laced life to encounter unexpected consequences, the movie's director said in an interview.

In "The English Teacher," which has its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on Friday, lead character Linda Sinclair, played by Julianne Moore, tries to mount a high school production of a play written by a former student (Michael Angarano) who has returned to his small hometown in Pennsylvania.

With the help of Nathan Lane as the high school's drama teacher and Greg Kinnear as the playwright's father, putting on the production leads almost everyone involved into trouble.

Directing the tale is Craig Zisk, who has dozens of well-regarded television series under his belt as producer or director, including "Parks and Recreation," "The Big C," "Nip/Tuck," "Weeds" and "Scrubs."

"Most of the shows that I either produced or directed feature very strong female leads," Zisk said in an interview with Reuters, ticking off the names of Mary-Louise Parker in "Weeds," Laura Linney in "The Big C," Toni Collette in "United States of Tara" and Edie Falco in "Nurse Jackie."

"With these incredibly talented strong women, I was really attracted to that when I read the script," he said.

"They are all very flawed characters," he added. "In the case of Linda, she's actually someone trying to do the right thing ... even though every time she tries to do something nice for somebody, it backfires and blows up in her face."

"The English Teacher" is Zisk's first feature film, an undertaking he said he weighed for five years before finding the right movie to make. Zisk is a four-time primetime Emmy nominee.

"I know how important the first feature is, especially for someone coming from television, because in the past there's kind of been a knock on television directors and people getting one shot," he said.

But apart from the obvious appeal of branching out, he said that making a film rather than a television show gave him the unprecedented luxury of time to prepare and an autonomy he enjoyed.

"The producers pretty much left me on my own, which was really great," Zisk said. "I feel like I made the movie I wanted to make."

Being distributed domestically by Cinedigm Entertainment Group and Tribeca Film, "The English Teacher" opens in theaters on May 17. It also can be found on-demand on television.

(Editing by Chris Michaud and Vicki Allen)

THE FACTORIES

Ether Tex was located on the fifth floor. Its website, now offline, says its 530 workers made up to 960,000 pieces of clothing a year. It claimed to have a passing grade for safety and other business standards from SOCAM, a group that audits garment factories on behalf of European fashion company C&A. The company said its customers included retail giant Wal-Mart.

New Wave is a group of three companies that says it makes shirts, pants and other garments for U.S., Canadian and European retailers. New Wave Bottoms was on the 2nd floor, and New Wave Style occupied the sixth and seventh floors. The New Wave website lists 27 retailers as its main customers. The list includes Spain's Mango, Dress Barn of the U.S., Canada's The Children's Place, and the Asian arm of Benetton based in Hong Kong.

Phantom Apparels operated a factory called Phantom-TAC in conjunction with Spain's Textile Audit Company on the fourth floor. The Phantom-TAC website says it is "committed to reaching a high standard of working conditions." It claimed to have a comprehensive auditing system that allowed it to "monitor and analyze daily the conditions in our factory." The 20,000-square-foot factory could make up to 3 million garments a year. It does not list its customers.

None of the factory owners have been contactable despite repeated attempts to reach them.

RETAILERS

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, said it had no authorized production at the factories. If the company finds there was unauthorized production as a result of subcontracting it said it would take action based on its zero tolerance policy for that.

Primark, a British retailer with more than 250 stores across Europe, says it was being supplied by a garment producer on the second floor.

The Children's Place used one of the garment factories in the building but said it wasn't being supplied by it at the time of the collapse.

Dress Barn said it hadn't used garment factories at the building since 2010.

Benetton said none of the factories were its suppliers.

Mango said it hadn't bought clothing from Rana Plaza factories but said it had been in talks with one factory to produce a test batch of clothing.

AT THE DISASTER

An Associated Press reporter found clothed labeled with the following brands in the rubble: Saddlebred, Easycare Oxford, Next, Tweeti.com, LcWaikiki.

LABOR GROUPS

Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, which has an office in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka, says his staff is investigating. "You can't trust many buildings in Bangladesh," Kernaghan said. "It's so corrupt that you can buy off anybody and there won't be any retribution."

The H7N9 virus has killed 21 people in China, according to the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO). Although it is not clear exactly how people are becoming infected, WHO experts say there is no evidence of the most worrying scenario - sustained transmission between people.

"Investigations into the possible sources of infection and reservoirs of the virus are ongoing," the WHO said in an update late on Monday. "Until the source of infection has been identified, it is expected that there will be further cases of human infection with the virus in China."

A 36-year-old man from the city of Zaozhuang in Shandong was being treated in hospital, while two more people were infected in eastern Zhejiang province, Xinhua said.

A total of nine people in close contact with the victim in Shandong were under observation but were showing no signs of infection, Xinhua said.

An international team of experts led by the WHO has carried out field investigations into the response to the virus in Shanghai, where many of the cases have occurred, said Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general for health, security and the environment.

"Right now we are in the middle of our work. We have not come up with any final conclusions, and I think it is too early to say," Fukuda told reporters.

Other bird flu strains, such as H5N1, have been circulating for many years and can be transmitted from bird to bird and bird to human, but do not generally pass from human to human.

But Ho Pak-leung, an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Hong Kong, noted in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that in the two months since it was first detected, the H7N9 flu has already resulted in almost twice as many confirmed infections in China as H5N1 caused there in a decade.

"H7N9 is much more transmissible to humans, and it's much more difficult to track down," he told the BMJ, adding: "We don't understand why it's so difficult to find."

He said he did not believe the difficulties were related to sampling techniques or testing levels, but thought it could be that virus can only be detected in infected animals for a few days, meaning the timing of tests could be important.

"It (also) might be that they are not sampling enough animal species, and they may have to take a look at the less common species of birds being sold in Chinese markets," he said.

The WHO's China representative, Michael O'Leary, issued data on Friday showing that half of the patients analyzed had no known contact with poultry, the most obvious potential source, but he said it appeared human-to-human transmission was rare.

Some bird samples have tested positive and China has culled thousands of birds and shut down some live poultry markets.

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing, Kate Kelland in London and Adam Jourdan in Shanghai.; Editing by Nick Macfie and Andrew Heavens)

NEW YORK/CHICAGO (Reuters) - For years, Apple Inc was a stock investor's dream regardless of the market environment. But now concern about the iPhone maker's growth has made many investors wary about a big share swing after its earnings are released on Tuesday.

Options pricing on Friday suggested a post-earnings move of about 7.5 percent by April 26. That is far more than in the past and reflects the fact that Apple stock has become more volatile.

The company, once the world's largest by market value, saw its shares close below $400 on Thursday for the first time since December 2011. It has shed nearly $300 billion in market value since peaking at $705.07 a share in September.

"Being a bear on Apple used to be a lonely position. The tables have turned," said Enis Taner, global macro editor at options research firm RiskReversal.com in New York.

A 7.5 percent swing for Apple would be the fourth largest one-day post-earnings move in the last five years, according to research firm Birinyi Associates. That could take shares as high as $419.20 or as low as $360.80, based on the weekly $390 "straddle" expiring on April 26, which cost $29.20 on Friday.

Traders use prices on the straddle to estimate the market's view of the potential range of a stock going into an event such as earnings. A straddle combines the purchase of a call option and put option with the same strike price and expiration date.

A move of 7.5 percent would exceed the average move in Apple after its earnings, which in the last eight quarters has been 5.4 percent. Apple's biggest post-earnings swing was a 12.4 percent drop on January 23 of this year.

Apple is expected to report an 8 percent increase in quarterly revenue, among the weakest displays of quarterly growth in years, according to estimates. Earnings per share are expected to fall 18 percent as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and other rivals erode market share for phones and tablets and put downward pressure on margins.

Because the stock was such a stalwart, investors for years knew it was difficult to go against the crowd. Between July 2009 and November 2012, short interest - the percentage of shares borrowed by investors who "short," or bet against, the stock - on Apple never exceeded two percent of the company's shares outstanding. At the current 2.1 percent, Apple's short interest is still lower than 55 percent of U.S. companies, according to Thomson Reuters Starmine.

Expectations of how much the stock is likely to move in coming weeks have also increased. Apple options show implied volatility for the next 30 days was 43.5 percent on Friday, according to data from options analytics firm Livevol.

That implies about a 4 percent move in the stock in either direction in the next month, said Livevol managing director Ophir Gottlieb.

Historic volatility for Apple for the 30-day period over the past year was about 34 percent. It has been rising over the past several months.

Many analysts still expect the stock to rebound because of still-strong demand for Apple's products. But there are many institutions that own shares bought at higher prices and they might remain a source of selling pressure if buyers surface, said Phil Erlanger, president of institutional research firm Phil Erlanger Research in Acton, Massachusetts.

"The problem for Apple is that those that have hung onto their shares after September will represent significant supply, which tends to squash any short-term advance," Erlanger said.

Apple is currently trading at nine times trailing earnings and 45 of 58 analysts polled by Reuters give the stock a "strong buy" or "buy" rating. According to Thomson Reuters Starmine, Apple's intrinsic value - a price target based on expected growth rates over the next decade - was about $565 a share.

The stock closed 0.4 percent lower on Friday at $390.53.

(Reporting By Angela Moon and Doris Frankel; Editing by David Gaffen and Andre Grenon)