The ministry said the four deaths were among previously registered cases. The new infections were in Eastern Province, in the capital Riyadh and in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.

Saudi Arabia has been the country most affected by the respiratory-system virus, with 49 confirmed cases, of whom 32 have died, according to data from the ministry.

In a statement confirming the four additional deaths and three additional cases in Saudi Arabia, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the worldwide toll now stood at 38 deaths from a total of 64 laboratory-confirmed cases.

The virus, which can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia, has spread from the Gulf to France, Germany, Italy, Tunisia and Britain. The WHO has called it the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

It is a relative of the virus that caused Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which emerged in China in 2002 and killed about a tenth of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.

The origin of the MERS virus is still unclear. So far, it appears to spread between people only when there is close, prolonged contact.

The WHO is advising healthcare providers around the world to be vigilant, especially with recent travellers returning from the Middle East who develop respiratory infections.

(Reporting by Mahmoud Habboush and by Kate Kelland in London; Editing by Angus McDowall and Robin Pomeroy)

And that's just this year.

Jason Day's too young to get saddled with that dreaded Best Player Never To Win a Major label, so he might as well go ahead and win one.

"As long as I keep knocking on the door," he said Sunday, "I think I'll win a major here soon."

It sure looks inevitable after watching him this week at Merion Golf Club. Rounds of 70, 74, 68 and 71 can be worn liked a badge of honor at a championship in which the winning score was Justin Rose's 1-over 281. Day finished two shots back, tied with Phil Mickelson.

"At the start of the week everyone thought we were going to rip it up," Day said. "But I just knew that somewhere around even par was going to win it, and I just had to stick in there. So I was very patient with myself and happy with how I handled myself, and now I just got to keep giving myself shots at majors."

The 25-year-old Day has played in five majors. He's finished out of the top 10 only once.

The Australian debuted with a tie for 60th at the 2010 British Open. Since then, his record is the envy of many of his colleagues: tied for 10th at the 2010 PGA Championship, tied for second behind champion Charl Schwartzel at the 2011 Masters, outright second behind Rory McIlroy at Congressional in 2011.

This year, he's the only player to finish in the top 10 in both majors.

Day spent Sunday hovering near the top, unable to break through because he kept canceling himself out. Birdie at No. 4, bogey at No. 5. Birdie at No. 10, bogey at No. 11. He was one off the lead when he got to 18, but he put his approach in the bunker and missed a 5-footer for par.

No shame there. No one birdied the finishing hole over the final two rounds. It was the shortest major championship course in nine years, but the scores were typical U.S. Open.

"I think that every club in the bag got a workout this week," he said. "So I think that it would be sad for it not to come back (here) to a U.S. Open."

His best shot came right after his worst one. He went from rough to creek at No. 11, then nearly put his next shot into the creek as well. But he holed out from the nasty rough for bogey.

From there, he had near misses, when he wasn't scrambling: "Nearly made the birdie on 13. ... Nearly holed a good putt on 15. ... Had two good saves on 16 and 17."

Too many near misses to win. He probably knew it when he tossed his club after the miss at 13. Or when he put both hands over his head after the miss at 15.

All of which means he's still 14 victories behind Tiger Woods when it comes to majors. Day ended his remarks by referencing the world's No. 1 player.

"You got to understand that, late Sunday of a U.S. Open and U.S. Open courses are very hard you can't do anything but kind of grind (it) out," Day said. "Like Tiger said at the start of the week, you just got to keep grinding those 10 footers and just grind away. So I was happy with how I played."

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Follow Joseph White on Twitter: http://twitter.com/JGWhiteAP

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Tom Hanks is reteaming with his "Cloud Atlas" director Tom Tykwer on a feature adaptation of Dave Eggers' novel "A Hologram For the King," TheWrap has learned.

Tykwer adapted the book and will direct the indie movie, for which CAA is in the process of securing financing. "A Hologram For the King" was a finalist for the National Book Award when it was published by McSweeney's last year.

Hanks will play a struggling businessman who heads to Saudi Arabia in a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure and do something memorable with his life.

Hanks and his Playtone partner Gary Goetzman will produce with Stefan Arndt, Uwe Schott and Tykwer of X Filme Creative Pool.

Hanks, who can currently be seen on Broadway in Nora Ephron's play "Funny Guy," will soon be seen in Sony's "Captain Phillips" and Disney's "Saving Mr. Banks," in which he plays Walt Disney. He's represented by CAA.

The news was first reported by Deadline.

The simple, but elegant garment created by Hollywood costume designer Helen Rose for the then 18-year-old Taylor is an oyster shell-colored, floor-length satin gown with a fine silk gauze off-the-shoulder illusion neckline.

The dress, which was a gift from MGM film studios, has a top estimate of 50,000 pounds ($75,300). Rose also designed Grace Kelly's wedding dress for her marriage to the Prince of Monaco.

By the time Taylor married Hilton she was already a veteran actress and was just a year away from her Oscar-nominated performance in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's "A Place in the Sun".

The A-list of old Hollywood - Greer Garson, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Esther Williams, and Van Johnson - were among the many stars who came to congratulate the bride.

The star of "Cleopatra" surpassed Michael Jackson as the highest-earning deceased celebrity in a survey released by Forbes in October 2012, with her estate pulling in $210 million, much of it from a 2011 auction of jewels, costumes and art work.

The auction of Taylor's jewels took in $116 million, more than double the record for a single collection, and set new marks for pearls, colorless diamonds and Indian jewels.

Taylor, who died in 2011 at the age of 79, was married eight times, twice to actor Richard Burton, and had a career spanning seven decades.

She first gained fame in 1944's "National Velvet" at age 12, and was nominated for five Oscars, winning best actress for "Butterfield 8" (1960) and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), which also starred Burton.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; Editing by Michael Roddy)

In another escalation, a Syrian government helicopter on Wednesday fired three missiles on a border town in Lebanon, lightly wounding one person. At least one of the missiles struck the center of Arsal, according to Lebanese security officials and residents.

The Arsal attack is the latest incident of Lebanon being pulled into the war next door. Scores of rebels and civilians who fled from the Syrian western town of Qusair last week in the last days of a government military offensive there have taken refuge in Arsal.

The town is predominantly Sunni Muslim, and support for the Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad runs high.

Milhem Hojeiri, a resident, said shrapnel from one of the missiles lightly wounded a schoolteacher in Arsal. He said the town's population has almost doubled in the past two years because of refugees and rebels from Syria who have taken shelter there.

"There is a lot of fear here, the town is fast becoming a casualty of the war in Syria," he said.

The Lebanese officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, did not provide more details on the Arsal attack.

Meanwhile, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 60 people, mostly Shiite fighters but also ordinary villagers, were killed on Tuesday in the Syrian village of Hatla in the oil-rich province of Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq.

It was the latest high casualty incident in Syria's conflict, which has killed more than 80,000 people so far, according to the U.N.

Thousands of rebels took part in the attack and at least 10 of them were killed in the fighting, said the Observatory.

In Damascus, a government official said the rebels "carried out a massacre against villagers in which older people and children were killed." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The fighting in Deir el-Zour came a week after Syrian troops, backed by Lebanon's militant Shiite Hezbollah group, captured the strategic town of Qusair near the Lebanese border after nearly three weeks of fierce battles that killed dozens of troops, rebels and Hezbollah members.

Hezbollah's involvement in the Qusair battle underlined the group's commitment in support of Assad's regime and edged the civil war in Syria closer to a regional sectarian conflict pitting the Middle East's Iranian-backed Shiite axis against Sunnis.

Most of the armed rebels in Syria are from the country's Sunni majority, while Assad has retained core support among the minorities, including his own Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, along with Christians and Shiites.

An activist based in Deir el-Zour said the rebel attack was in retaliation for an attack Monday by Shiites from Hatla that killed four rebels.

Thaer al-Deiry, who identified himself only by his nickname for fear of government retaliation, said via Skype that rebels gathered and launched a counter attack Tuesday. He said some 150 Shiites from the village fled across the Euphrates River to the government-held village of Jafra.

"The situation in the village is quiet and the Free Syrian Army is in full control," al-Deiry said, referring to the rebels. He added that the village has been under opposition control for more than a year but some of its Shiite residents recently started collecting arms apparently to fight along government troops.

Also Wednesday, the Observatory reported heavy clashes in the central city of Homs, mostly in the neighborhood of Wadi Sayeh. The fighting appeared to be an attempt by government forces to separate two main rebel-held areas in the city, Khaldiyeh and the center of Homs.

Building on its victory in Qusair, the Syrian military has shifted its attention to try to clear rebel-held areas in Homs, a linchpin area linking Damascus with regime strongholds on the Mediterranean coast, and the northern city of Aleppo.

___

Associated Press writer Albert Aji contributed to this report from Damascus, Syria.

Still, the matchup is semi-terrific.

Seven-time champion Nadal vs. No. 1-ranked Djokovic carries the heft of a final, even if both players need two more victories to claim the championship. Nadal bids to become the first man to win eight titles at the same Grand Slam event, while Djokovic seeks the only major title he has yet to win for a career Grand Slam.

One of them will go away disappointed Friday, when they meet for the 35th time. Both are mindful of the match as only the means to an end.

"If you win, you didn't win anything yet," Nadal said. "It's not the final; it's the semifinals. You are not playing a match for a title. You are just playing a match to be in the final. So it's a big difference."

For partisan Parisians, Nadal-Djokovic might not even qualify as the main attraction. Popular Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is trying to become the first Frenchman in 30 years to win the Roland Garros title, and he'll play Spaniard David Ferrer in the other semifinal.

All four semifinalists advanced in straight sets, the first time that has happened at the French Open since 1948. Nadal swept Stanislas Wawrinka 6-2, 6-3, 6-1, and less than 10 minutes later, Djokovic closed out his victory over 35-year-old Tommy Haas, 6-3, 7-6 (5), 7-5.

Defending champion Maria Sharapova was scheduled to face two-time Australian Open champ Victoria Azarenka in the women's semifinals Thursday, followed by No. 1 Serena Williams against 2012 runner-up Sara Errani.

Sharapova needed a comeback unlike any other in her career to reach the final four, rallying past Jelena Jankovic, 0-6, 6-4, 6-3. It was Sharapova's first win after losing an opening set 6-0.

Azarenka reached her first Roland Garros semifinal by beating Maria Kirilenko 7-6 (3), 6-2.

Nadal's ranking slipped during a seven-month layoff because of a knee injury, and as a result, he and Djokovic wound up in the same half of the draw. That's why they'll meet before the final at a major event for the first time since 2008.

Nadal leads Djokovic 19-15 but lost their most recent meeting in the Monte Carlo final on clay in April. Nadal has a 6-3 advantage in Grand Slam meetings, including 4-0 at the French Open, and he won when they met in last year's final at Roland Garros.

He wasn't hankering for a rematch.

"I would prefer an easier opponent," Nadal said. "But it's Novak, and I have to accept that it's going to be a very tough match."

Only moments after beating Haas, Djokovic was thinking and talking about Nadal.

"I'm ready to play five sets," he told the crowd.

Facing the king of clay, Djokovic finds himself in the rare role of underdog, while Nadal bristled at the suggestion he's the favorite.

"I don't care at all," he said through a translator. "Frankly, what words could I find to tell you? I mean, what else can I say? I don't give a damn about it.

"I try and play my best tennis, and the least of my concerns is to know if I'm favored or not. These are words that will be carried away by the wind."

Nadal's 57-1 at Roland Garros, but he hardly looked like the man to beat early in the tournament. He fell behind in each of his first three matches, and groused that he might soon be back in his native Mallorca fishing.

But he has won 12 consecutive sets, and dropped serve only once in his two most recent wins. After steamrolling Wawrinka, Nadal said he's much more optimistic about his chances than a week ago.

"I really am playing better here," he said. "I'm happy with the way that I played today especially. It was my best match on the tournament without any doubt. I said I needed to make a change. I was confident that I can do it, and I did."

Djokovic has cause for confidence, too. The six-time Grand Slam champion has reached the semifinals at 12 consecutive major tournaments, and he's 33-4 this year.

Plus he has beaten Nadal more than any other player.

"I have a good game for him because my style is to be aggressive, but I can also defend well and have that transition game," Djokovic said. "I'm going to be confident and step into the court with self-belief that I can win."

Djokovic earned his latest victory by wearing down Haas, the oldest French Open men's quarterfinalist since 1971. Djokovic kissed the line with a backhand winner on match point, and after the handshake ritual at the net, let out a scream and threw a roundhouse punch, ready for Rafa.

One top official stayed five nights in a room that regularly goes for $3,500 a night. Another official, Faris Fink, stayed four nights in a room that regularly goes for $1,499.

Fink was later promoted to head the IRS division that staged the 2010 conference in Anaheim, Calif., a position he still holds. He also has the distinction of playing Mr. Spock in a cheesy but slickly-produced "Star Trek" video that IRS employees filmed for the conference.

A total of 132 IRS officials received room upgrades at the conference, according to a report by J. Russell George, the Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration. The tax agency paid a flat daily fee of $135 per hotel room, the report said, but the upgrades were part of a package deal that added to the overall cost of the conference.

The report was made public on the same day leaders of six conservative groups testified at a congressional hearing, where they told lawmakers they had endured abuse from IRS agents as they spent years trying to qualify for tax-exempt status.

In often-emotional testimony, the conservatives described IRS demands for details about employees' and group officials' political activities and backgrounds, for comments they'd posted on websites, for videos of meetings and information on whether speakers at such sessions voiced political views. Some said it took three years to get their tax-exempt status; others said they were still waiting.

"I'm a born-free American woman," Becky Gerritson, president of the Wetumpka Tea Party of Alabama, tearfully told the lawmakers. "I'm telling my government, 'You've forgotten your place.'"

Federal regulations say that tax-exempt social welfare organizations can engage in some political activity but the activity cannot be their primary mission. It is up to the IRS to make that determination of their level of political activity, and some Democrats at Tuesday's House Ways and Means Committee hearing noted that some liberal groups also have had a hard time winning tax-exempt status from the IRS.

However, revelations about IRS agents improperly targeting tea party and other groups have led to investigations by three congressional committees and the Justice Department. One top IRS official was forced to resign, another retired and a third was placed on paid administrative leave.

Tuesday's report by the inspector general suggests the agency has struggled with management issues beyond the division that handles tax-exempt applications. According to the report, expensive employee conferences were approved with few restraints or safeguards until new rules were imposed in 2011.

In all, the IRS held 225 employee conferences from 2010 through 2012, at a total cost of $49 million, the report said. The Anaheim conference was the most expensive, but others were costly, too.

In 2010, the agency held a conference in Philadelphia that cost $2.9 million, one in San Diego that cost $1.2 million and another in Atlanta that also cost $1.2 million.

All of these conferences would violate new rules imposed by the White House budget office in 2012 that cap expenses for a single conference at $500,000. In 2010 alone, the IRS had 13 conferences that cost more than that.

By comparison, the General Services Administration was widely criticized for a 2010 conference in Las Vegas that cost $823,000.

Spending on IRS conferences dropped substantially, from $37.6 million in the 2010 budget year to $6.2 million in 2011 and then to $4.9 million last year, according to the IRS.

Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel called the conferences "an unfortunate vestige from a prior era." Werfel took over the agency about two weeks ago, after President Barack Obama forced the previous acting commissioner to resign.

"Taxpayers should take comfort that a conference like this would not take place today," Werfel said in a statement.

The inspector general's report focused on the Anaheim conference, which was held for 2,609 managers in the agency's small business and self-employed division.

At the conference, the commissioner of the tax-exemption division, Christopher Wagner, stayed in a presidential suite that normally cost $3,500 a night. Wagner became chief of the IRS office of appeals in 2011 and retired this year.

His deputy, Fink, stayed in a room that normally cost $1,499 a night, the report said. Fink was promoted to commissioner of the small business and self-employed division in 2011.

Fink is among the witnesses scheduled to testify Thursday at a congressional hearing about the inspector general's report.

The IRS paid two event planners a total of $133,000 to organize the Anaheim conference. The planners were paid a percentage of the hotel room costs, which removed incentives for them to negotiate lower fees, the report said.

Fifteen outside speakers were paid a total of $135,350. One was paid $27,500 for two one-hour speeches; another was paid $17,000.

The IRS also spent more than $50,000 to produce three videos that were shown at the conference, the report said, including the "Star Trek" parody that featured Fink and other IRS employees.

The IRS said in a statement, "Many of the issues raised in the report, such as the use of event planners, the receipt of room upgrades and the welcome reception and breakfast provided by the hotel, were complimentary and did not entail the use of any additional government resources."

However, the report said the inspector general "believes that the costs for the conference could have been reduced if the IRS had not requested the numerous concessions from the Anaheim hotels and had instead negotiated for a lower room rate."

The IRS has been under heavy criticism since last month, when a previous inspector general's report showed that agents in a Cincinnati office had singled out tea party and other conservative groups for additional scrutiny when they sought tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns.

At Tuesday's hearing, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said such an IRS focus was creating a "culture of political intimidation and discrimination." He said the agency's targets were "Americans who did what we ask people to do every day add their voice to the dialogue that defines our country."

John Eastman of the National Organization for Marriage said that in 2012, confidential donor information that he said came from his group's tax returns was posted on the website of a political opponent, the Human Rights Campaign. Eastman's group, which is tax exempt, opposes same-sex marriage, which the Human Rights Campaign supports.

"You can imagine our shock and disgust over this," Eastman said.

Sue Martinek, president of the anti-abortion Coalition for Life of Iowa, said an IRS agent told her the group's application for tax-exempt status would be granted if it sent a letter promising not to stage protests outside the offices of Planned Parenthood.

She said the IRS relented a week after her group retained an attorney who sent the agency a letter defending its efforts.

"As Christians, we knew we needed to pray for a better solution to unplanned pregnancy than abortion. Why not at the source?" Martinek told the committee.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said many of the conservative groups have taken positions on highly charged political issues.

"Let's stop this charade of pretending to be just social welfare organizations. Admit they are political and treat them as such," Blumenauer said.

That prompted an angry response from Eastman, who said that to say "defending traditional marriage doesn't qualify for defense of the public good is beyond preposterous."

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Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

When thelaunched on Nov. 26, 2011, it began a 350-million-mile (560 million kilometers) trip to the surface of the Red Planet. During its voyage, a group of researchers, including Southwest Research Institute scientist Cary Zeitlin, monitored exactly how much radiation a piece of science hardware on the was exposed to over the 253-day journey from Earth to Mars.

"In space, it's between a 100 and 1,000 times higher dose rate [of radiation] than on Earth," Zeitlin told SPACE.com. "It's highly uncertain what the health risk is from these exposures." []

Zeitlin, whose study is detailed in the journal Science this week, collected the data with his team by turning on the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) instrument while Curiosity was in flight. The instrument was active from 10 days after launch until about three weeks before landing.

Shielding from cosmic rays

By monitoring the variety and strength of each of the energetic particles entering the Mars Science Laboratory's hull, Zeitlin and his team were able to accurately track which particles of radiation got through and which were blocked by the ship's shielding.

If they were to travel to Mars, astronauts would be exposed to two forms of that don't pose a serious risk on Earth. One of those sources of radiation galactic cosmic rays are difficult to shield against and regularly fly through space-faring vessels. On the other hand, the second source of radiation solar energetic particles can be at least partially blocked by robust shielding used to protect spaceflyers.

PARIS (Reuters) - When Kevin Anderson takes to the court to face Milos Raonic in the third round of the French Open on Friday he will not just be representing his nation but a vast continent.

The 6ft 8in South African is the only man from Africa currently in the world's top 100 and there are only two from the continent in the top 200.

On the women's side only 61st-ranked Chanelle Scheepers, a first-round loser at Roland Garros, is the only African woman competing in the higher echelons of the sport.

There are obvious social and economic reasons why tennis has not established roots in Africa, yet Anderson hopes that he can start to raise the profile of the sport there.

"I hope by continuing to do well here people get to see that it's possible to make it from Africa," Anderson, ranked a career-high 25th in the world after an impressive year which started by reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open.

"Obviously South Africa has had more opportunities than some of the other countries in Africa which is unfortunate because there is a lot of interest in tennis in the continent.

"But it's not easy because the tennis scene is in Europe and with the exchange rates it's expensive.

"There's no easy way in."

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has set up training centres in Senegal and Burundi while Anderson was helped in his development by attending one in Pretoria.

He is keen to do what he can and while reaching his first ATP claycourt final in Casablanca, Morocco earlier this year took time to visit a new ITF high-performance centre which later this year will house 20 of Africa's elite junior players.

Frank Couraud, who works on the ITF's international development projects, said awareness of tennis was spreading.

"I was at our East Africa centre in Burundi," he told Reuters. "I asked a 12-year-old girl if Serena Williams was her favourite player. She replied that she preferred (Victoria) Azarenka.

"The point is they have a lot more access to media and have experience watching matches."

Morocco has provided several top players down the years including Younes El Aynaoui, who reached two grand slam quarter-finals, and Hicham Arazi, once a Roland Garros quarter-finalist.

However, few African-based players have come through since and Anderson said he was encouraged by new developments like the one he saw while in north Africa.

"It was great playing in Morocco this year and seeing that there is an ITF centre that they started there," he said.

"I played a lot at the ITF centre in Pretoria growing up so hopefully that will help them regain their strength.

"It was just good to support the kids and see them and meet them and it definitely makes it easier for them if they can see someone who they can follow in the top 100.

LONE WARRIOR

"Hopefully if I can inspire people to play tennis in Africa that would be great."

While Anderson is the lone warrior in the senior singles events here, several African juniors are hoping to make a mark.

South African Wayne Montgomery is 11th in the junior world rankings while 15-year-old Egyptian Sandra Samir is playing in the girls singles.

For now Anderson's priority is beating Raonic to reach the French Open last 16 for the first time.

Both are giants, have huge serves and powerful forehands.

"It will be a different type of tennis," said Anderson who did not drop serve in his four-set victory in the second round against Evgeny Donskoy.

"We are similar in that we both have big serves so it will be about taking what chances come along."

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