The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite indexunofficially closed up 58.35 points, or 0.47 percent, at 12,379.64.

(Reporting by John Tilak; Editing by James Dalgleish)

He's flying Solar Impulse, considered the world's most advanced sun-powered plane.

Piccard piloted the craft for 20 hours, first cruising along the California coast after taking off from Moffett Field in Mountain View near San Francisco just after dawn Friday. He passed over Edwards Air Force Base, where other aviation milestones have been made, and then touched down early Saturday morning at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.

He landed having used only three-quarters of the plane's battery power.

"It's a little bit like being in a dream," Piccard said as he stepped on the tarmac.

The plane's creators, Piccard and fellow pilot Andre Borschberg, said the trip is the first attempt by a solar airplane capable of flying day and night without fuel to fly across America.

But Piccard said Saturday afternoon that even more important than marking another aviation milestone is the hope that the journey will provide an exponential boost for interest in renewable energy and clean technologies.

"If an airplane can fly day or night with no fuel, just on the sun's power, of course it means that everybody in daily life can use this technology for his house, for heating and cooling systems, for lighting, for cars, for trucks. There's so much we can do now to have a cleaner future," Piccard said.

From Phoenix, the aircraft will travel to Dallas-Fort Worth airport in Texas, Lambert-St. Louis airport, Dulles airport in the Washington area and New York's John F. Kennedy airport. Each flight leg will take about 19 to 25 hours, with 10-day stops in each city.

Borschberg is hoping to pilot the last leg, which could afford him the chance to fly past the Statue of Liberty.

The plane, which has previously impressed audiences in Europe, is powered by about 12,000 photovoltaic cells that cover massive wings and charge its batteries.

The delicate, single-seat Solar Impulse flies around 40 mph and can't go through clouds. It weighs about as much as a car, making it vulnerable to bad weather.

Its average speed for the first leg of the trip was about 60 knots with a tail wind, Borschberg said. Ideally, the plane climbs up to about 27,000 feet or so during the day to collect solar and charge the batteries.

Borschberg and Piccard were ready for a series of tours over the next few days to show off the technology to Phoenix school children, university researchers and others.

"There are a lot of people who want to see this airplane," Piccard said.

So how hard is it to fly a solar plane?

Despite the aviation advancements made over the last century, Piccard said he and Borschberg have a lot in common with the early pioneers.

"One hundred years ago, the planes had to fly in good weather and there was only one person on board," Piccard said. "Now we have completely new technology, we fly with no fuel at all. But, of course, we need to fly in good weather and we carry only one pilot on board.

"We're starting a new cycle. It's really the beginning of something new."

___

Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, N.M. Associated Press writer Haven Daley in Mountain View, Calif., also contributed to this report.

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Online:

http://www.solarimpulse.com

The attack, the second in three days, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel's involvement in Syria's bloody civil war. Syrian state media reported that Israeli missiles struck a military and scientific research center near Damascus and caused casualties.

An intelligence official in the Middle East, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to disclose information about a secret military operation to the media, confirmed that Israel launched an airstrike in the Syrian capital early Sunday but did not give more precise details about the location. The target was Fateh-110 missiles, which have precision guidance systems with better aim than anything Hezbollah is known to have in its arsenal, the official told The Associated Press.

The airstrikes come as Washington considers how to respond to indications that the Syrian regime may have used chemical weapons in its civil war. President Barack Obama has described the use of such weapons as a "red line," and the administration is weighing its options including possible military action.

Iran, a close ally of the Assad regime, condemned the airstrikes but gave no other hints of a possible stronger response from Tehran.

Israel has said it wants to stay out of the Syrian war, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated the Jewish state would be prepared to take military action to prevent sophisticated weapons from flowing from Syria to Hezbollah or other extremist groups.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war in mid-2006 that ended in a stalemate.

Syria's state news agency SANA reported that explosions went off at the Jamraya military and scientific research center near Damascus and said "initial reports point to these explosions being a result of Israeli missiles." SANA said there were casualties but did not give a number.

Damascus-based activist Maath al-Shami said the strikes occurred around 3 a.m. "Damascus shook. The explosion was very, very strong," said al-Shami adding that one of the attacks occurred near the capital's Qasioun mountain that overlooks Damascus.

He said the raid near Qasioun targeted a military position for the elite Republican Guards that is in charge of protecting Damascus, President Bashar Assad's seat of power.

Mohammed Saeed, another activist who lives in the Damascus suburb of Douma, said "the explosions were so strong that earth shook under us." He said the smell of the fire caused by the air raid near Qasioun could be felt miles away.

There has been no official statement from the Syrian military.

The strikes put the Assad regime in a tricky position. If it fails to respond, it looks weak and leaves itself open to such airstrikes becoming a common occurrence. But if it retaliates militarily against Israel, it risks dragging the Jewish state and its powerful military into a broader conflict.

After the airstrikes overnight, Israel's military on Saturday deployed two batteries of its Iron Dome rocket defense system to the country's north. It described the move as part of "ongoing situational assessments."

The Iron Dome protects against short-range rockets. Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets at Israel during the 2006 war, while Israeli warplanes destroyed large areas of south Lebanon.

Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israel's military intelligence, said the strike is a signal to Syria's ally, Tehran, that Israel is serious about the red lines it has set.

"Syria is a very important part in the front that Iran has built. Iran is testing Israel and the U.S. determination in the facing of red lines and what it sees is in clarifies to it that at least some of the players, when they define red lines and they are crossed, take it seriously," he told Army Radio.

In Tehran, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast condemned an Israeli airstrike against Syria and urged countries in the region to remain united against Israel, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency. The brief statement gave no details.

The Fateh-110, or Conqueror, is a short-range ballistic missile developed by Iran and first put into service in 2002. The Islamic Republic unveiled an upgraded version in 2012 that improved the weapon's accuracy and increased its range to 300 kilometers (185 miles).

Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said at the time that the solid-fueled missile could strike with pin-point precision, making it the most accurate weapon of its kind in Iran's arsenal.

An airstrike in January also targeted weapons apparently bound for Hezbollah, Israeli and U.S. officials have said. The White House had no immediate comment on Sunday's reported missile strikes.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, also reported large explosions in the area of Jamraya, a military and scientific research facility northwest of Damascus, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the Lebanese border.

Hezbollah's al-Manar TV said the research center in Jamraya was not hit. It added that an army supply center was targeted by the strike. It quoted unnamed Syrian security officials as saying that three sites including military barracks, arms depots and air defense center were targeted by the strike.

The station aired footage of what it said was a facility in Jamraya that was hit in the airstrike. It showed a heavily damaged building as well as what appeared to be a chicken farm with some chickens pecking around in debris scattered with dead birds.

The raid appeared to have taken place next to a major road that was filled with debris, and shell casings were strewn on the ground. A blue street sign on the side of the road referred to the direction of the Lebanon border and the Syrian town of Zabadani near the frontier.

Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen TV, that has several reporters around Syria, said one of the strikes targeted a military position in the village of Saboura, west of Damascus and about 10 kilometers (six miles) from the Lebanon border.

An amateur video said to be shot early Sunday in the Damascus area showed fire lighting up the night sky. The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting.

Uzi Rubin, a missile expert and former Defense Ministry official, told the AP that if the target were Fateh-110 missiles as reported then it is a game changer as they put almost all Israel in range and can accurately hit targets.

Rubin emphasized that he was speaking as a rocket expert and had no details on reported strikes.

"If fired from southern Lebanon they can reach Tel Aviv and even (the southern city of) Beersheba." He said the rockets are much five times more accurate than the scud missiles that Hezbollah has fired in the past. "It is a game changer because they are a threat to Israel's infrastructure and military installations," he said.

Israel's first airstrike in Syria, in January, also struck Jamraya.

At the time, a U.S. official said Israel targeted trucks next to the research center that carried SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles. The strikes hit both the trucks and the research facility, the official said. The Syrian military didn't confirm a hit on a weapons shipment at the time, saying only that Israeli warplanes bombed the research center.

Israeli lawmaker Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister and a former chief of staff, declined to confirm the airstrike but said Israel is concerned about weapons falling into the hands of the Islamic militant group amid the chaos of Syria's civil war.

"We must remember that the Syrian system is falling apart and Iran and Hezbollah are involved up to their necks in Syria helping Bashar Assad," he told Israel Radio. "There are dangers of weapons trickling to the Hezbollah and chemical weapons trickling to irresponsible groups like al-Qaida."

___

Deitch was reporting from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Brian Murphy contributed to this report from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The study had enrolled about 2,500 people, mostly gay men, in 19 cities. Half received an experimental vaccine developed by the National Institutes of Health, and half received dummy shots.

A safety review this week found that slightly more volunteers who had received the vaccine later became infected with HIV. It's not clear why.

The NIH said Thursday that it is stopping vaccinations, but will continue to study the volunteers' health.

Multiple attempts at creating an AIDS vaccine have failed over the years. But researchers continue to try, pointing to modest success in a 2009 study in Thailand.

LONDON, May 2 (Reuters) - Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Gareth Bale was named England's Footballer of the Year by the Football Writers' Association on Thursday.

The Wales international, 23, topped the poll of journalists with a narrow victory over Manchester United's Dutch international forward Robin van Persie, who won it last year when he was at Arsenal. Chelsea's Spanish midfielder Juan Mata came third.

Bale is the first Spurs player to win the world's oldest individual award since David Ginola in 1999 and the first Wales international to claim it since Everton goalkeeper Neville Southall in 1985.

"I've been very fortunate to play in such a fantastic team and I owe a lot to my team-mates and obviously the manager who has shown such faith in me," Bale told the FWA

FWA chairman Andy Dunn told Reuters: "In a contest for votes that took so many late twists and turns, Gareth's penchant for the spectacular captured the imagination.

"He is a player who is rising inexorably towards the rarefied levels of world stars such as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Lets hope he lights up the Premier League for many seasons to come."

Bale has scored 24 goals in all competitions for Spurs and five for Wales, many of them spectacular strikes from outside the penalty area.

His performances helped Tottenham reach the Europa League quarter-finals and have kept them in the race for a top-four finish in the Premier League and a possible return to the Champions League.

He will receive the prestigious FWA trophy at a gala dinner in London next Thursday.

The award completed a personal treble for Bale who on Sunday was also named Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year by his peers in the Professional Footballers' Association. He also won the Player of the Year Award in 2011.

The Footballer of the Year award is the oldest of its kind in world football and was first given to Stanley Matthews in 1948. (Editing by Ed Osmond)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A gifted scorer, Carmelo Anthony has always had the talent to put the ball in the basket but rarely has he been able to put his team deep into the playoffs.

The pressure is on the Knicks forward with the bruising inside moves and delicate outside touch to prove himself in the postseason and help erase more than a decade of playoff failures for New York.

"It seems like we're starting off with a clean plate right now," Anthony, hungry for a taste of playoff success, told reporters before the opening of second-seeded New York's first-round series against seventh seed Boston Celtics.

Anthony is off to a great start, scoring 36 points in the opener and 34 points in New York's 87-71 Game Two win that gave the Knicks a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

But that is just a start, and despite sporting a new Olympic gold medal and his first NBA scoring title (28.7 points average) on his resume, Anthony is challenged to show he can lift his team and alter a reputation as a high-scoring playoff bust.

Coming into this postseason, Anthony's playoff record with the Knicks was 1-8 after two postseason trips with New York, following a 16-30 postseason mark with the Denver Nuggets.

The Knicks, who have not won a title in 40 years, have not moved past the first round in 13 years. Anthony has advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs only once in nine tries.

"He's had this breakout year, but when the playoffs come, he's going to have to raise his level," Walt Frazier, point guard for New York's last NBA title team in 1973, told the Daily News.

"He'll have new expectations he's going to have to meet. Can he handle the pressure?"

OLYMPIC DIFFERENCE

Second-year guard Iman Shumpert said this is a new Anthony, and that a summer pursuing Olympic gold in London had changed him.

"He's definitely our leader," Shumpert told Reuters in the Knicks locker room before Game Two against Boston. "I think he's done a ton more talking this year ... in the locker room, on the court and especially on defense.

"I think he's just done a great job, an incredible job lifting us and make sure we play the same way all year.

"Definitely a difference between last year and this year," added Shumpert, saying Anthony seemed more confident.

"Any time we find ourselves about to get rattled he sort of just calms everybody down. I think a lot of that comes from him just putting the work in this summer and coming in after that gold medal on a roll already."

Following a rousing Olympics in which Anthony committed to playing tough defense alongside LeBron James against taller opponents on an undersized U.S. team, the Knicks forward came to the new NBA campaign in great shape and with a fierce attitude.

"Whatever we need him to do," Shumpert said. "This year he's been asked to guard a lot of five-men (centers) because sometimes we play small. He hasn't complained. Whatever he has to do he just goes and do it.

"He's watching a ton of film. He's been a flat-out leader. I think it's contagious," he added, pointing to J.R. Smith, who on Tuesday was presented the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year award.

"J.R. has been a bigger leader. The focus in the locker room from last year to this year has been night and day."

BEHIND CLASSMATES

For all his personal success, Anthony has languished behind illustrious fellow members of the top of the 2003 NBA Draft.

James, the No. 1 draft pick of 2003, was the man with the pressure turned up ultra high last season.

"King" James, believed to be overdue for an NBA title, got that monkey off his back with a run to the crown with fellow members of the class of 2003 Chris Bosh (No. 4) and Dwyane Wade (No. 5) joining him on the Miami Heat.

Anthony, selected No. 3 in 2003 after winning the U.S. college title as a freshman with Syracuse, is still chasing the NBA dream for New York after being swept by Boston in the first round in 2011 after joining the Knicks in a big trade with Denver, and losing in five to Miami last year.

"No, it don't, it don't," the Brooklyn-born Anthony, a six-time NBA All-Star, told reporters when asked whether the playoffs were putting added pressure on him.

No amount of denial, however, can fill the empty plate.

Only a playoff run to the Eastern Conference finals and a likely date with the Miami Heat will satisfy Madison Square Garden crowds that lavish Anthony with chants of "MVP, MVP, MVP."

(Editing by Peter Rutherford)

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences LLC said Thursday they reached a new licensing agreement to collaborate on biotech-engineered corn that is resistant to herbicide and insects.

Under the agreement, Monsanto will license Dow's new Enlist weed control technology, which allows corn to tolerate weed-killing chemicals. Dow will license the upcoming version of Monsanto's Corn Rootworm technology, which kills tiny insects that feed on corn roots. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The agreement builds on previous collaborations between the two agriculture giants, including the currently marketed SmartStax corn, which includes technology developed by both Monsanto and Dow.

Dow AgroSciences is a unit of Midland, Mich.-based Dow Chemical Company.

Last month Monsanto and rival DuPont reached a deal to dismiss pending patent lawsuits against one another over technology used in genetically modified soybean and corn seeds.

Shares of Monsanto rose $1.20 to $106.85 in afternoon trading.

An encouraging report on the labor market also brought buyers back to the market.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 26 points to 14,702 shortly after the opening bell Thursday, a gain of 0.2 percent.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose six points to 1,584, or 0.4 percent. The Nasdaq composite was up 20 points at 3,289,

On top of strong earnings from Harley-Davidson, Dow Chemical and Akamai Technologies, the government said that unemployment benefit applications fell to 339,000 last week, the second-lowest level in 5 years.

That was better than most economists had expected and allayed apprehensions about a sharp slowdown in hiring in March.

HarperCollins said the book, "Waiting to be Heard," will be published in the United States as planned on April 30. Knox will also do an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer that is due to air the same day.

"The publication is going along as scheduled. She is going ahead with all of the events," said a spokesman for HarperCollins.

Italy's highest court ordered a new trial in the death of roommate Meredith Kercher on Tuesday after overturning the 2011 acquittal by an appeal court of Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, who had served four years in prison.

The murder occurred while Knox, her boyfriend and Kercher were students at the University of Perugia in Italy.

Knox said in a statement after the court decision that it was painful to receive the news and that she would continue her legal battle, confident in the truth.

In the book Knox is expected to describe the events leading up to her arrest, her trial and her years behind bars.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Nearly 170 Japanese lawmakers paid homage at Yasukuni Shrine on Tuesday. A day earlier, visits by three Cabinet ministers, said by the government to be unofficial, drew protests from neighbors South Korea and China over actions they view as failures to acknowledge Japan's militaristic past.

China and South Korea Japan's No. 1 and No. 3 trading partners, respectively bore the brunt of Tokyo's pre-1945 militarist expansion in Asia and routinely criticize visits to the shrine. Almost seven decades after the war ended, it still overshadows relations.

Adding to the discord, Chinese surveillance vessels were patrolling Tuesday near a cluster of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that are controlled by Japan but claimed by both countries.

China's State Oceanic Administration said Tuesday that its maritime surveillance ships had chased away a group of Japanese ultra-nationalists who visited the area.

The Japanese government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, said the intrusion by a record eight Chinese vessels into Japan's territorial waters was "unacceptable" and that Tokyo had lodged formal protests with the Chinese government. The nationalist group that China accused of attempting to land on the islands could not be immediately reached.

Abe told parliament Tuesday that if Chinese citizens were to land on the islands, Japan would forcibly remove them.

"Naturally, we will forcibly expel (the Chinese) if they were to make a landing. I should make that clear," Abe said in response to a question from a fellow lawmaker on his commitment to defending the island.

But he also said Japan's relations with China are among the most important bilateral relations in the world, and their economies are inseparable.

"It is wrong for China to take provocative actions or totally cut ties just because there is a problem," he said. "Our door for dialogue is always open."

Over the weekend, Abe did not visit Yasukuni but instead donated ceremonial ornaments marked "Prime Minister" to the shrine, whose compound has a war museum glorifying Japan's wartime past.

If Abe was attempting to avoid pointed responses from Japan's neighbors by not visiting the shrine himself, he was unsuccessful.

"The way they recognize history and treat the issue of the Yasukuni Shrine is an important criterion, based on which their close neighbors in Asia and the global community will watch and learn what road Japan will take in the future," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young urged "deep soul-searching" by Japan to discover how such visits are seen in neighboring countries.

"Yasukuni Shrine is a place to ... glorify wars," he said.

Several vice ministers and top executives of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party joined Tuesday's group pilgrimage to the shrine. This is one of several times during the year when lawmakers customarily pay their respects.

Among the ministers who visited over the weekend was Taro Aso, a former prime minister now serving as finance minister. He said he usually visits Yasukuni two or three times a year.

"It's nothing new such that it should have an impact on foreign relations," Aso told reporters Tuesday.

Leaders of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan generally refrained from visiting the shrine when the party was in power, from 2009 until late last year.

The shift toward a more conservative agenda under Abe was bound to happen, sooner or later.

Though Abe has focused mostly on economic policy since taking office in December, he has campaigned for revising Japan's U.S.-inspired constitution, which renounced war after the country's defeat in World War II, and for recognizing the country's Self-Defense Forces as a national military. He also favors revising Japan's past apologies for atrocities committed by its Imperial Army before and during World War II. Those aims are outlined in the LDP's platform.

The party holds a strong majority in the lower house of parliament, but needs a robust showing in upper house elections in July to gain the mandate it wants for pushing ahead with other priorities, including constitutional revision. Even if it gains a strong upper house majority, it faces a tough decision by next fall on whether to go ahead with a commitment to raise the sales tax a move expected to anger voters and possibly throw the economy back into recession.

Abe enjoys approval ratings of more than 70 percent, but the liberal-leaning Asahi newspaper said Tuesday he was jeopardizing much of that support by turning away from the economy at a time when there are no clear signs of a strong recovery.

"Why spark a source of friction?" Asahi asked. "What on earth is the Abe administration doing when improved relations with neighboring countries are most needed?"

Koichi Nakano, a political scientist at Tokyo's Sophia University, said Abe's party has been "remarkably successful in staying on message, in staying focused on the economy."

"Some would still want to be cautious and try to focus on the economy, but the desire to talk about other nationalist policies may be too tempting. We have to see how much further they will go in this direction," Nakano said.

Abe last visited Yasukuni in October, when he was opposition leader. As prime minister in 2006-2007, before resigning for health reasons, he refrained from making any visits. As recently as February he said his decision not to visit the shrine during that time was his "greatest regret."

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday he would try to avoid adverse fallout from the latest Yasukuni visits.

"I will handle the situation so that this will not affect our bilateral relations," he said. "It is important to communicate on a political level, and our door for dialogue is always open."

Although government spokesman Suga earlier described the visits by members of Abe's Cabinet as "private," at least one Cabinet minister, National Public Safety Commission chief Keiji Furuya, told reporters that he prayed as a state minister during his visit Sunday.

The visits appeared to add to the chill between Beijing and Tokyo.

A group of Japanese parliamentarians belonging to a Japan-China parliamentarian friendship group scrapped plans for a May 1-3 visit to China after Beijing said they could not meet with President Xi Jinping and other top Chinese officials. LDP officials said the island dispute was to blame, not Yasukuni, because China's message came before the weekend visits.

Anger over the islands dispute last year provoked anti-Japanese riots in China that hammered exports to the country's biggest market. Beijing quashed those demonstrations a few weeks after they started, but the risk to business ties and even of outright conflict persists.

Nakano said Japan may have miscalculated how China and South Korea would respond to the shrine visits.

"Japanese politicians fail to realize (the visits) are seen as provocations. It's one thing after another. It's the rightward shift of Japanese politics that I think (Seoul and Beijing) are more worried about," Nakano said.