NEW YORK (Reuters) - With no consensus sure-fire star as an obvious target, Thursday's NBA Draft has a sense of suspense about it with numerous candidates for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who own the number one pick.

"This draft is really unpredictable," 7-foot-1 Ukrainian center Alex Len out of the University of Maryland, one of the top prospects in the draft, told reporters on Wednesday.

"You don't have any LeBron Jamses, so it's going to be interesting."

Picking behind the Cavaliers will be the Orlando Magic, followed by the Washington Wizards, Charlotte Bobcats, Phoenix Suns and New Orleans Pelicans in the two-round draft conducted by the 30 teams in the National Basketball Association.

That is, if teams maintain the pecking order rather than wheel and deal their picks in draft night swapping at the Barclays Center.

The Cavs, who finished with a 24-58 record, have many needs beyond their premiere point guard Kyrie Irving.

Besides Len or shot blocking big man Nerlens Noel of Kentucky, they could use a shooting guard to team up with Irving, raising the possibility of Ben McLemore of Kansas or Indiana's Victor Oladipo.

Small forward Otto Porto of Georgetown or Canadian Anthony Bennett of Las Vegas could also offer some scoring firepower for the young Cavaliers.

Noel, a 6-11 defensive specialist, entered last season as the top-rated collegian but his freshman year at Kentucky was curtailed by a knee injury leading to some uncertainty.

Dick Weiss, a long time former college basketball analyst for the New York Daily News now of Blue Star Media (bluestarmedia.org), predicted the draft would produce many solid NBA players, but might not yield a superstar.

"There isn't a franchise number one pick in this draft," Weiss told Reuters.

"Cleveland are probably deciding between Alex Len, Nerlens Noel and Anthony Bennett, who is a very mobile, small forward who played for Las Vegas in an uptempo situation who is a freak athlete."

Oladipo, who is also an outstanding defensive player, said he was curious about who would be number one.

"There's so many different players in the draft," said Oladipo. "I know people are saying there's nobody that really stands out. We just wait and see. I'm anxious, anxious to see who it's going to be."

Besides Len and Bennett, another international player who could be taken in the first round is 6-11 center Steven Adams of New Zealand out of the University of Pittsburgh.

Len, like many of the most fancied potential first-rounders at a round-table media opportunity on Wednesday, said it did not matter where he went in the draft though he acknowledged a touch of competitiveness about the process.

"Somewhere inside you want to be number one. You want to be the best," said Len, who added that he would be proud to become just the seventh player from Ukraine in the NBA.

"On your competitive side, yeah. You want to be number one."

(Editing by Peter Rutherford)

TURKEY

Turkey's Islamic-rooted government, which had formed an alliance with the ousted Islamist leader and has criticized his overthrow, was quick to condemn the killings. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu tweeted: "I strongly condemn the massacre that took place at morning prayers in the name of basic human values."

He added: "A political normalization process that respects the will of the Egyptian people must begin"

BRITAIN

Britain called for movement toward free and fair elections and agreement on a democratic constitution, and called on Egyptian authorities to carry out an investigation into the events that led to the deaths. "There is an urgent need for calm and restraint," said Foreign Secretary William Hague.

PALESTINIANS

The Hamas militant group condemned the killings and expressed "extreme pain and grief for the falling of these victims," but stopped short of taking sides in the unfolding crisis in its neighbor. While identifying ideologically with Morsi, Hamas also maintains ties with Egyptian security forces that patrol the border with Gaza.

QATAR

The wealthy Gulf nation, a main backer of Morsi's government, expressed "great concern" over the deadly clashes and urged authorities to guarantee the "rights and protections" for all groups to express their views. The official Qatar News Agency, quoting an unnamed official, urged for political dialogue in Egypt, but made no mention of appeals by Morsi's backers for his return to power.

Qatar also has not made any public statements on the status of its pledges to the Morsi government, which included up to $21 billion in investment and economic aid over the next five years.

GERMANY

The German Foreign Ministry said it was "dismayed" over reports of violence and called for a "speedy clarification" by an independent body into the events surrounding the latest killings. The ministry also advised that travel to Egypt except for the Red Sea and Sinai beaches was strongly discouraged.

The "Happy Endings" star, 30, wed Toronto Maple Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf, 28, on Saturday in Summerfield on Prince Edward Island.

According to Canada's , the couple tied the knot at St. James Catholic Church.

The bride was photographed wearing a traditional white bridal gown with lace long sleeves and her blond hair down in loose waves.

Elisha was also snapped triumphantly holding up her bouquet and waving to well-wishers as she and her hockey star husband exited the church.

Toronto Star reporter Rosie DiManno live-Tweeted from inside the wedding and

"Inside of church decorated with half dozen maple leaf saplings, as popularized by William and Kate at royal wedding 2 years ago," she wrote. "Traditional Catholic service, Dion and Elisha did not write their own vows."

The newlyweds began dating in 2008 and got engaged in September 2012.

Copyright 2013 by . All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - A former Warner Music Group intern who's suing the music company has filed a second suit, this time against a New York City recording studio.

In a class-action complaint filed in U.S. District Court in New York on Wednesday, Justin Henry says that he worked for Chung King studios from October 2008 until August 2010. During that time, Henry says, he wasn't paid minimum wage and didn't receive overtime compensation. The class-action suit claims that he wasn't the only one to endure such alleged treatment.

The suit claims that Henry and other members of the class worked "in various positions related to the maintenance and operations of the music studio." Henry claims to have "typically worked from Thursday through Sunday, consistently from 10 p.m. until 10 a.m." From October 2008 to December 2009, the suit alleges, Henry was given no compensation at all, and that from January 2009 to August 2010, he was paid a flat rate of $200 per week, "regardless of the amount of hours worked."

The suit contends that Henry and others in his situation are owed minimum wage plus overtime under federal and U.S. law.

Henry's suit against Warner Bros. Music Group, filed earlier this month, claims that WMG subsidiary Atlantic Music Group withheld wages from Henry and other employees beginning in or around June 2007. Henry's suit claims that he worked as an unpaid intern for the company, answering phones, making copies and performing other tasks, regularly working from 10 a.m. to 5 or 6 p.m.

A number of lawsuits from interns seeking compensation for their labor have been filed recently. Earlier this month, two interns who worked on the film "Black Swan" won a partial summary judgment from a judge who found that interns Alexander Footman and Eric Glatt are entitled to pay for their work on the film under the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York labor law.

A lawsuit was also recently filed against publisher Conde Nast by two former interns for the company.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

Clinton received a standing ovation the Lincoln Center ceremony before she presented the CFDA's highest honor, its Founder's Award, to Oscar de la Renta, whom she called "a dear friend." She recounted first meeting him as first lady in 1993 during a White House receiving line for a Kennedy Center event.

De la Renta came up to her and said, "that's one of my dresses," Clinton recalled. She added, "He looked me up and down." That had the audience giggling.

The designer joined her on stage and said, "She might not like me to say this, but I think she's going to be our next president."

That launched into enthusiastic applause.

There was a running joke between Clinton and the show's host, Andy Cohen, about the former secretary of state pitching a pilot to Bravo called "Project Pantsuit."

Cohen also riffed on the popular online parodies called "Texts from Hillary." One showed Vera Wang asking Clinton, "How do I change up my look?" Her response: "Same thing I told 'Chelle: bangs," referring to Michelle Obama's hairdo that caused much buzz earlier this year during President Barack Obama's inauguration.

A bit of a more serious political undertone came during CFDA president Diane von Furstenberg's speech as she pledged to pursue more manufacturing in the U.S.

The other honoree to get the country's top designers and their celebrity and model friends on their feet was Wang, who received the CFDA lifetime achievement award from her former boss Ralph Lauren.

"To all the women and men I have dressed, thank you for your trust," she said.

The annual award show draws a mix of Seventh Avenue and Hollywood: Jessica Chastain presented the international award to Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy; a Thakoon-clad Rose Byrne handed Lim his trophy; "Downton Abbey's" Dan Steven's called out Browne's name; and Kerry Washington gave the prize to Proenza's Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez. (Washington pulled off a diplomatic move, wearing a yellow, square-neck gown by Jason Wu, who wasn't nominated this year in the womenswear category, since she didn't know which designer name would be inside her envelope.)

Hailee Steinfeld, wearing a two-piece, crystal-covered Suno ensemble, and Douglas Booth, stars of the upcoming film "Romeo & Juliet," announced the winners of the Swarovski emerging talent awards, including Erin Beatty and Max Osterweis of Suno, Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne of Public School, and Pamela Love.

It has become a tradition for many designers to bring as their dates actresses and models who wear their clothes like the paparazzi pros they are. This year, Calvin Klein's Francisco Costa brought Rooney Mara, who wore a black, laser-cut dress; Michael Kors came with Karolina Kurkova, who wore a sparkly silver shorts set; and Alexander Wang walked in with Erin Wasson, who wore a geometric white gown with sheer panels.

Sofia Vergara attended with jeweler Lorraine Schwartz. Vergara had on a chunky emerald and diamond necklace that complemented her green Herve L. Leroux gown.

Linda Evangelista, however, made her own grand entrance. She chose a black strapless gown by de la Renta.

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Online: http://cfda.com/cfda-fashion-awards

___

Follow Samantha Critchell at http://www.twitter.com/ap_fashion and http://www.twitter.com/sam_critchell

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After more than 15 years of failures by scientists around the world and one outright fraud, biologists have finally created human stem cells by the same technique that produced Dolly the cloned sheep in 1996: They transplanted genetic material from an adult cell into an egg whose own DNA had been removed.

The result is a harvest of human embryonic stem cells, the seemingly magic cells capable of morphing into any of the 200-plus kinds that make up a person.

The feat, reported on Wednesday in the journal Cell, could re-ignite the field of stem-cell medicine, which has been hobbled by technical challenges as well as ethical issues.

Until now, the most natural sources of human stem cells have been human embryos, whose use in research poses ethical quandaries. The technique announced on Wednesday, by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University and the Oregon National Primate Research Center, uses unfertilized human eggs.

Eliminating the need for human embryos could boost attempts to use stem cells and their progeny to replace cells damaged or destroyed in heart disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries and other devastating conditions.

But the achievement could also revive fears of reproductive cloning, or producing genetic copies of living (or dead) individuals.

Even before the study was published, a British watchdog group called Human Genetics Alert protested the research.

"Scientists have finally delivered the baby that would-be human cloners have been waiting for: a method for reliably creating cloned human embryos," said Dr. David King, the group's director. "This makes it imperative that we create an international legal ban on human cloning before any more research like this takes place. It is irresponsible in the extreme to have published this research."

Among scientists, however, the accomplishment is being hailed as "a tour de force," as stem cell biologist George Daley of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute put it. "This represents an unparalleled achievement. They succeeded where many other groups failed, including mine."

The highest-profile failure was that of biologist Hwang Woo-suk of Seoul National University in South Korea. In 2005 he and his team made headlines across the globe when they claimed, in the journal Science, that they had created human embryonic stem cells via nuclear transfer, the same technique the Oregon scientists used. Hwang's claim turned out to be a lie, making it one of the most infamous cases of scientific fraud in the last decade.

DOLLY THE SHEEP

If the Oregon achievement holds up and can be replicated by scientists in other labs, it would offer a third, and potentially superior, way of producing embryonic stem cells.

The field of stem cells took off in 1998, when scientists led by Jamie Thomson at the University of Wisconsin announced that they had harvested the cells from days-old human embryos, called blastocysts, obtained from fertility clinics.

The fact that the blastocysts are destroyed when their stem cells are removed ignited a furor from groups that believe life begins at conception. In 2001, President George W. Bush banned federal funding for research that would create more blastocysts, but stem cells already produced from them were fair game.

Those cell lines turned out to be fewer and of poorer quality than scientists had hoped. The next breakthrough came in 2007, when Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University produced human embryonic stem cells in a way that did not require eggs or embryos. He added four genes to adult cells, and the result was like turning back the calendar: The adult cells, which he called induced pluripotent (iPS) cells, showed all the properties of embryonic stem cells, an achievement for which Yamanaka shared last year's Nobel prize in medicine.

"The whole scientific community jumped on the iPS bandwagon," said Dr. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology.

That turned attention away from a third technique for producing embryonic stem cells: the method that created Dolly the sheep in 1996. Scientists in Scotland had started with a sheep oocyte (egg), removed its DNA and replaced it with DNA from a sheep mammary gland cell. They zapped the egg with electricity to make it grow and divide like a fertilized embryo. No sperm were necessary.

This technique is called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). If the embryo is implanted inside a surrogate mother, as the Dolly team did, the result is reproductive cloning, which has also been done for mice, cows and other animals. But if embryonic development is halted after five days or so, the result is stem cells genetically identical to the donor's - and thus custom-made for therapies to treat degenerative diseases without fear of rejection by the patient's immune system.

The Oregon scientists, led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, used a variation of the Dolly technique. They carefully inserted an adult skin cell into a donated human egg whose DNA had been removed. The unfertilized eggs, stimulated by electric pulses to start dividing, developed to about the 150-cell stage.

The cells were all true embryonic stem cells; they have the "ability to convert just like normal embryonic stem cells, into several different cell types, including nerve cells, liver cells and heart cells," said Mitalipov. "While there is much work to be done in developing safe and effective stem cell treatments, we believe this is a significant step forward in developing the cells that could be used in regenerative medicine."

ODD EGGS

In succeeding with humans, the Oregon team toppled the dogma that there is something odd about human eggs or embryos, said stem cell expert Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "Published data said there was a difference in principle between humans and the mice and other animals that had been cloned, a difference that presented an insurmountable barrier to human cloning" for either reproduction or stem cells.

The Oregon team figured out how to get the egg to act as if it had been fertilized. The secret was to keep the eggs in the phase of their growth cycle called "metaphase," which is when DNA aligns in the middle of the cell before the cell divides. The scientists got the best results when they grew the eggs in a little of a substance that tends to be abundant in labs: caffeine.

When conducting the same experiment with monkeys, the Oregon scientists stopped at the production of stem cells and never implanted the ball of cells into a surrogate mother. Mitalipov said reproductive cloning is "not our focus, nor do we believe our findings might be used by others" to do it with humans.

"Reproductive cloning hasn't been advanced by this new paper," agreed MIT's Jaenisch. "If you implanted these embryos, which would be illegal, I think you would get the same results as in mice: Most of them die at birth, and the others encounter big troubles as they age."

STEM CELL FACE-OFF

Now the question is whether embryonic stem cells produced with the Dolly method would be superior to those created with the turn-back-the-calendar iPS method.

Scientists have already found that iPS cells tend to age prematurely and die. They are also created with cancer-causing genes, which could make them dangerous to use therapeutically.

Another possible advantage of the embryonic stem cells produced by the Dolly method: It takes just days, compared with weeks for iPS cells.

"If you have a patient who needs, that can be an important difference," said Natalie DeWitt of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

On the other hand, the human eggs needed for the Dolly technique are in short supply and hard to obtain, notes MIT's Jaenisch. (The Oregon team paid the women who donated eggs for their time and "discomfort.") Although the Oregon team coaxed stem cells out of every egg they collected from one of the women, other labs might not be so efficient.

If the Dolly technique becomes a reliable source of embryonic stem cells, it might accelerate clinical trials of the cells, which have been slow to get going and disappointing.

In 2011, for instance, biotechnology firm Geron halted a clinical trial that used embryonic stem cells to repair spinal cord injuries and said it was leaving the field.

The most promising human study is ACT's. It is two years into clinical trials using stem cells derived from human embryos to treat two forms of blindness, including macular degeneration, with encouraging results. One patient's vision went from 20/400 to 20/40, said Lanza.

(Reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Douglas Royalty)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Canadian Anthony Bennett, a power forward who played one year at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, leaped over a pair of touted centers to emerge as number one pick by the Cleveland Cavaliers at Thursday's NBA Draft.

While many draft analysts predicted Nerlens Noel of Kentucky or Ukrainian Alex Len of Maryland would go No. 1, the versatile, 6-foot-8 Bennett was the surprise top choice of a Cavs team that finished last season with a 24-58 record.

"I'm just as surprised as everybody else," Bennett, who averaged 16.1 points and 8.1 rebounds as a freshman at Las Vegas last season, told reporters at Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets.

"I heard everything was up for grabs. But I'm just real happy, glad that I have this opportunity, and I just got to thank God for everything."

Injuries to Noel (knee) and Len (foot) may have cooled the Cavs to those young big men, but Toronto native Bennett himself required shoulder surgery at the end of his college season and that did not deter the Cavaliers.

"It's just crazy. Made history," said an excited Bennett. "It's just like a long-time dream that I had since I first started playing basketball.

"It's just crazy."

Bennett may be a touch smaller than classic the NBA power forward size, but he is strong, has a wide wingspan and good finishing moves around the rim, along with an accurate jumper that allows him to work from the outside as well.

"I can contribute at the four, at the three," said the 20-year-old. "There's things I still need to work on, but I feel like I'm a great team mate, unselfish. I think I can fit in right away."

Bennett said he had no clue he was going number one overall.

"When they said my name, that's when I knew," he said. "I had no idea before."

Bennett will be joining compatriot Tristan Thompson on the Cavs, who took the Canadian forward with the fourth overall pick in the 2011 draft. Thompson averaged 11.7 points and 9.4 rebounds a game last season for Cleveland.

"He's just a great guy,' said Bennett. "He seems real cool. Both from the same area. I'm going to be seeing him a lot."

Bennett was the first UNLV player to be voted Mountain West Freshman of the Year in 13 seasons and earned first-team All-Mountain West honors after leading the Rebels in scoring, rebounding and three-point percentage.

The Canadian scored in double figures in his first 17 games as a collegian, racking up 12 double-doubles, and scored 20 or more points 13 times.

Bennett's coach, Dave Rice, gave a sterling recommendation of his young forward before the draft.

"There's not much that he can't do on a court," said Rice.

"He can score from the perimeter. He can score in the post. He's a fabulous rebounder. The only thing that he lacked coming in was just experience."

Bennett predicted Canadians could go back-to-back atop the NBA Draft with Andrew Wiggins looming as a dominant player at Kansas.

"Next year with Wiggins, hopefully he does well at Kansas," said Bennett. "I'm rooting for him. I'm pretty sure he'll get that No. 1 spot."

(Editing by Peter Rutherford)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Fertility centers are mandated to report the number of in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles they perform, but a new study suggests those data may give some practices misleadingly high success rates.

Researchers looked at a database maintained by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies (SART) and found the proportion of cycles that were begun but had no reported final outcome - successful or unsuccessful - increased from 2005 to 2010.

What's more, 13 U.S. fertility centers out of 341 accounted for half of those excluded cycles, and they reported significantly better overall pregnancy rates than the average clinic.

Researchers said some cycles may disappear from the data when clinics take frozen embryos from multiple rounds of fertility treatments and only implant the one that looks best - either as a treatment strategy, or to make their success rate look better.

That may be done most often with older women or others who have a lower chance of conceiving.

"Among this group of outlier clinics were very well known clinics, many of which are considered leaders in the field of ART in the United States," said Dr. Vitaly Kushnir, who led the study at New York's Center for Human Reproduction.

"Clearly, their pregnancy rates are significantly better than those of other clinics in the whole country, and it seems that a large part of that is these clinics have been excluding poor prognosis patients from outcome reporting," he told Reuters Health.

"It's probably a combination of clinics that are doing this unconsciously and some that are doing it intentionally."

Fertility clinics are required to report data on completed IVF cycles to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and can choose to report initiated and completed cycles to SART, the researchers noted.

Because they were interested in comparing the number of started and finished cycles, Kushnir and his colleagues used SART data, which covered close to three-quarters of U.S. fertility centers in 2010 and 812,400 cycles during the whole study period.

They found the number of excluded cycles - those that had initiation but not final data - increased from about 3 percent in 2005 to more than 7 percent in 2010.

Among the 13 outlier centers, excluded cycles accounted for more than one-third of all those initiated.

Those clinics reported higher pregnancy rates than others - 59 percent for fresh embryo transfer in younger women, for example, compared to 48 percent in the rest of the SART database.

They also increased their market share during the study period, from 9 to 10 percent of all IVF cycles performed in the U.S., according to findings published in Fertility and Sterility.

Kushnir said he and his colleagues decided not to release the names of those fertility centers, but that their findings were based on publicly available data.

Dr. James Goldfarb, a member of SART's executive council, said the group is "well aware" there are flaws in the reporting process that could skew success rates, especially when it comes to freezing and selectively implanting embryos.

However, that doesn't mean clinics with lots of excluded cycles are trying to game the system, he said.

"People do feel that there are some reasons for doing it this way, and that they are trying to benefit the patients," Goldfarb, from University Hospitals Fertility Center in Beachwood, Ohio, told Reuters Health.

He and Kushnir agreed that the findings mean potential clients shouldn't rely solely on reported success rates when they're deciding where to have fertility treatment.

"These rates were never intended for comparison shopping, if you will," Kushnir said.

Each cycle of IVF runs for about $15,000, and may or may not be covered by insurance.

Kushnir said in the future, the CDC - for whom he works as a consultant - could improve its reporting data by requiring clinics to disclose every initiated cycle and its outcome.

"There needs to be better transparency and better accountability of what's going on," he said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/138PxHF Fertility and Sterility, online June 10, 2013.

--LISICKI ROLLS ON INTO UNPREDICTABLE WOMEN'S SEMIS AT WIMBLEDON

Germany's Sabine Lisicki keeps up the form that saw her beat Serena Williams and progressed to the women's semifinals at Wimbledon along with Agnieszka Radwanska, Marion Bartoli and Kirsten Flipkens.

http://apne.ws/14oJdbN

--AUSTRALIANS THE FOCUS AT TOUR DE FRANCE

While Simon Gerrans took over the leader's yellow jersey at the Tour de France, his Australian compatriot, former winner and title aspirant Cadel Evans lost ground on two of his main rivals.

http://apne.ws/11dJcJH

--CINCINNATI'S BAILEY THROWS A NO-HITTER

Cincinnati Reds pitcher Homer Bailey throws his second career no-hitter in the 3-0 win over the San Francisco Giants.

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268750/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=VxvXXDZT

--RUSSIAN SHOWDOWN FOR HEAVYWEIGHT CROWN

The venue and the date have been fixed for Wladmir Klitschko's heavyweight title defence against Russia's Alexander Povetkin Oct. 5 in Moscow.

http://apne.ws/16LNXbC

---OLDER AND WISER USAIN BOLT WANTS TO DOMINATE SPRINTING THROUGH 2016

Usain Bolt set aside questions about his motivation during a recent form dip, saying he wanted to be the planet's dominant sprinter through the 2016 Olympics.

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/50957345