WWF Indonesia said killings of Sumatran elephants are on the rise, with 29 either shot or poisoned last year, including 14 in Aceh province. The group said Tuesday that no one has been convicted or jailed in the deaths that were counted in Riau province since 2004.

The report came three days after two dead Sumatran elephants were found near a paper plantation in Riau, allegedly poisoned by poachers. Another elephant was killed last month near Tesso Nilo national park and its tusks were hacked off. An autopsy found a plastic detergent wrapper in its belly filled with poison.

The group said 59 percent of the dead elephants were definitely poisoned, 13 percent were suspected to have been poisoned, and 5 percent were killed by gunshots. Others died from illness or other causes, or the reason for their death was unknown.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature listed the animals as "critically endangered" after their numbers dropped to between 2,400 and 2,800 from an estimated 5,000 in 1985. Environmentalists say the elephants could be extinct within three decades unless they are protected.

The decline is largely due to destruction of their habitat. Forests across Sumatra are being logged for timber, palm oil, and pulp and paper.

Sumatra has some of the most significant populations of Asian elephants outside of India and Sri Lanka and is also home to tigers, orangutans and rhinos.

"Effective action on the ground should be taken immediately to protect Sumatran elephants from extinction, especially in Riau," the report said. There are about 300 elephants left in Riau, which is part of Sumatra island.

Achmad Saeroji, head of the government conservation agency in Riau, denied the allegation of lax law enforcement, saying at least eight cases have been handled by authorities recently.

"We always investigate every case of elephants found dead," he said. "But it is hard to capture the perpetrators, either because of late reports or the fear of people to report the poachers, who work in a network."

Indonesia's elephants sometimes venture into populated areas searching for food. They destroy crops or attack humans, making them unpopular with villagers. Some are shot or poisoned with cyanide-laced fruit, while others are killed by poachers for their ivory.

Headline earnings for the year to end-February came in at 339 cents per share versus 278 cents a year earlier.

Famous Brands holds the franchise rights to some of South Africa's best known fast-food outlets and despite the subdued macro-economic climate has grown its business to 1,764 restaurants and plans to expand in the UK and India.

A total of 140 new restaurants were opened in the year, with 110 of these in South Africa.

Chief Executive Kevin Hedderwick said it is launching its Steers brand in the UK and opening a Debonairs Pizza restaurant in Mumbai in July.

A final dividend of 142 cents was declared, bringing the total dividend to 250 cents a share, an increase of 25 percent on the previous year.

Shares of Famous Brands closed at 94 rand on Friday, a year high for the stock that has traded as low as 69.50 rand this year.

Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average on the 30-year home loan increased to 3.95 percent from 3.91 percent. Last week's rate was the lowest average on records dating to the 1950s.

The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage rose to 3.24 percent. That's up from 3.21 percent, also a record low.

Rates have been below 5 percent for all but two weeks in 2011. Even so, this year is shaping up to be one of the worst ever for home sales.

Previously occupied homes are selling just slightly ahead of last year's dismal pace. And new-home sales appear headed for their worst year on records going back half a century.

Next year could be better. More than 5 percent of households said this month they plan to purchase a home within the next six months, according to the Conference Board.

Builders are also hopeful that the low rates could boost sales next year. Low mortgage rates were cited as a key reason the National Association of Home Builders survey of builder sentiment rose in December to its highest level in more than a year.

But so far, rates are having no major impact. Mortgage applications have fallen slightly in recent weeks, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

High unemployment and scant wage gains have made it harder for many people to qualify for loans. Many Americans don't want to sink money into a home that they fear could lose value over the next few years.

To calculate the average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country Monday through Wednesday of each week. The average rates don't include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.

The average fee for the 30-year loan was unchanged at 0.7; the average on the 15-year fixed mortgage was unchanged at 0.8.

For the five-year adjustable loan, the average rate rose to 2.88 percent from 2.85 percent. The average on the one-year adjustable loan ticked up to 2.78 percent from 2.77 percent.

The average fees on the five- and one-year adjustable-rate loans were unchanged at 0.6.

Yanira Maldonado, 42, walked out of the prison on the outskirts of Nogales, Mexico and into her husband's arms late Thursday night.

She spoke briefly, thanking U.S. state department officials, her husband, her lawyers and prison workers who made her stay comfortable.

"Many thanks to everyone, especially my God who let me go free, my family, my children, who with their help, I was able to survive this test," she said.

The family's lawyer in Nogales, Jose Francisco Benitez Paz, said a judge determined Thursday that she was no longer a suspect and all allegations against her were dropped. The couple planned to immediately return to Arizona, he said.

"She lived through a nightmare," he said after her release.

Maldonado's release came hours after court officials reviewed security footage that showed the couple boarding a commercial bus traveling from Mexico to Phoenix with only blankets, bottles of water and her purse in hand.

U.S. politicians portrayed her as a victim of a corrupt judicial system and demanded her release.

The judge had until late Friday to decide whether to free her or send her to another prison in Mexico while state officials continued to build their case. Prosecutors could appeal the ruling.

Maldonado was arrested by the Mexican military last week after they found nearly 12 pounds (5.4 kilograms) of pot under her seat during a security checkpoint.

Benitez noted that it was a fairly sophisticated smuggling effort that included packets of drugs attached to the seat bottoms with metal hooks a task that would have been impossible for a passenger. He said witness testimony and the surveillance video showed Yanira Maldonado was innocent.

"There is justice in this country," he said.

Gary Maldonado said he was originally arrested after the pot was found under his wife's bus seat, but after Yanira Maldonado begged the soldiers to allow her to come along to serve as a translator, the military officials decided to release him and arrest her instead. He said authorities originally demanded $5,000 for his wife's release, but the bribe fell through.

"Here, we are guilty until you are proven innocent," he said after the court hearing.

The Maldonados were traveling home to the Phoenix suburb of Goodyear after attending her aunt's funeral in the city of Los Mochis when they were arrested.

The bus passed through at least two checkpoints on the way to the border without incident. In the town of Querobabi in the border state of Sonora, all the passengers were ordered off the bus and a soldier searched the interior as they waited. The soldier exited and told his superiors that packets of drugs had been found under seat 39, Yanira Maldonado's, and another seat, number 42. Her husband was in seat 40.

Gary Maldonado said a man sitting behind them on the bus fled during the inspection. He said the man might have been the true owner of the drugs.

About 40 people were on the bus before the inspection, but Gary Maldonado said he was the only passenger who appeared American.

Mexican officials provided local media with photos that they said were of the packages Maldonado is accused of smuggling. Each was about 5 inches high and 20 inches wide, roughly the width of a bus seat. The marijuana was packed into plastic bags and wrapped in tan packing tape.

The couple had previously traveled on commercial buses through Mexico because they felt it was safer than driving a personal vehicle.

Yanira Maldonado is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Mexico, her family said. The couple celebrated their first wedding anniversary while she was jailed.

Drug traffickers have increasingly been using passenger buses to move U.S.-bound drugs through Mexico. Federal agents and soldiers have set up checkpoints along Mexico's main highways and have routinely seized cocaine, marijuana, heroin and more from buses.

Mexico's justice system is carried out largely in secret, with proceedings done almost entirely in writing.

Four years ago, Mexico decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin, but it still has stiff penalties for drug trafficking.

Mexican law doesn't specify a minimum or maximum sentence in drug crimes and leaves it up to the judge to decide how long the sentence should be, said Jose Luis Manjarrez, a spokesman for federal prosecutors in Mexico.

On Wednesday, an army lieutenant, a private and another sergeant were supposed to appear in court but they did not show up. The army did not explain why, the couple's lawyer said.

A search of court records in Arizona didn't turn up any drug-related charges against Yanira or Gary Maldonado.

The Maldonados said they will likely avoid future trips to Mexico.

"Maybe in time," she said.

___

Associated Press writers Michael Weissenstein in Mexico City and Luis Castillo in Nogales contributed to this report.

H1N1, often referred to as swine flu, was a flu strain that swept around in the world in a 2009/2010 pandemic.

"We're suffering a tail-end of the pandemic," a former Venezuelan health minister, Rafael Orihuela, told a local TV station, commenting on the widespread reports of 17 deaths in the South American nation of 29 million people.

Most of the cases were in border states near Colombia.

Venezuela's government has not confirmed the figures given by media and local health authorities. But officials said high-risk groups had largely been immunized, with 3 million vaccinations carried out so far this year.

The World Health Organization's (WHO) official data show 18,500 people were reported killed in the 2009/2010 H1N1 pandemic, but a study in The Lancet last year said the actual death toll may have been up to 15 times higher at more than 280,000.

(Reporting by Mario Naranjo; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Kate Kelland and Sandra Maler)

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Pfizer, the largest U.S. drugmaker, sold Zoetis shares in an initial public offering in February that raised $2.2 billion. Pfizer retained an 80 percent stake in Zoetis after the IPO and now plans to unwind that, starting with this offer.

The move comes as Pfizer continues to unload its non-pharmaceuticals businesses to focus on its core prescription drugs business, which has far higher profit margins.

The offer would allow Pfizer shareholders to exchange $100 worth of company stock for $107.52 worth of Zoetis stock. The premium is meant to encourage Pfizer shareholders to acquire Zoetis shares.

Pfizer owns 400,985,000 shares of Zoetis Class B common stock that it will convert to Class A shares for the exchange. Pfizer shareholders must request at least 160.4 million shares of Zoetis common stock for the exchange to take effect.

Pfizer said that selling the rest of Zoetis will boost earnings starting in 2014. If it does not sell all of its stake through the exchange offer, Pfizer said it could turn to additional exchange offers or a special dividend.

Pfizer shares rose 3 percent to $29.65 on Wednesday while Zoetis shares fell 1.5 percent to $32.53, moving closer to their relative values under the estimated exchange ratio.

Zoetis shares were priced at $26 in the February IPO and closed their first day of trading at $31.01.

In April 2012 Pfizer sold its infant nutrition business to Nestle SA for $11.9 billion. The drugmaker has said it plans to use cash from asset sales to aggressively buy back its shares.

Last month Pfizer said it had repurchased $6.3 billion of stock this year and was authorized to spend another $5.5 billion on buybacks.

Meanwhile, the company is considering whether to sell off its wide array of generic prescription drugs, which it calls "established products." In that event, the company would keep its branded patent-protected medicines.

Chief Executive Ian Read in April said Pfizer would need three years to evaluate whether to spin off the generic medicines.

JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs & Co and Morgan Stanley are managing the exchange offer. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom is advising Pfizer.

(Reporting by Caroline Humer and Ransdell Pierson; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and John Wallace)

At a congressional hearing, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said he was unaware in June 2011 about the targeting, and only found out the full scope and severity of the activity when a Treasury Department watchdog published its report.

"The full set of facts around these circumstances came out last week ... until that point I did not have a full set of facts," he said.

(Reporting By Kim Dixon; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He paused.

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

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

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

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

LaVallee is no stranger to horrific wipeouts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Among the stock activity stories for Tuesday, May 14, from AP Business News:

Shares of SolarCity Corp., which leases and installs solar energy systems for homes and businesses, fell after it posted a bigger-than-expected first-quarter loss.

Monster Beverage Corp. shares are gaining some traction less than a week after the energy drink maker reported disappointing first-quarter results and a slowdown in sales.