A new analysis from the World Meteorological Organization says average land and ocean surface temperatures from 2001 to 2010 rose above the previous decade, and were almost a half-degree Celsius above the 1961-1990 global average.

The decade ending in 2010 was an unprecedented era of climate extremes, the agency said, evidenced by heat waves in Europe and Russia, droughts in the Amazon Basin, Australia and East Africa, and huge storms like Tropical Cyclone Nargis and Hurricane Katrina.

Data from 139 nations show that droughts like those in Australia, East Africa and the Amazon Basin affected the most people worldwide. But it was the hugely destructive and deadly floods such as those in Pakistan, Australia, Africa, India and Eastern Europe that were the most frequent extreme weather events.

Experts say a decade is about the minimum length of time to study when it comes to spotting climate change.

From 1971 to 2010, global temperatures rose by an average rate of 0.17 degrees Celsius per decade. But going back to 1880, the average increase was .062 percent degrees Celsius per decade.

The pace also picked up in recent decades. Average temperatures were 0.21 degrees Celsius warmer this past decade than from 1991 to 2000, which were in turn 0.14 degrees Celsius warmer than from 1981 to 1990.

Natural cycles between atmosphere and oceans make some years cooler than others, but during the past decade there was no major event associated with El Nino, the phenomenon characterized by unusually warm temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Much of the decade was affected by the cooling La Nina, which comes from unusually cool temperatures there, or neutral conditions.

Given those circumstances, WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud says the data doesn't support the notion among some in the scientific community of a slowdown, or lull, in the pace of planetary warming in recent years.

"The last decade was the warmest, by a significant margin," he said. "If anything we should not talk about the plateau, we should talk about the acceleration."

Jarraud says the data show warming accelerated between 1971 and 2010, with the past two decades increasing at rates never seen before amid rising concentrations of industrial gases that trap heat in the atmosphere like a greenhouse.

By the end of 2010, the report shows, atmospheric concentrations of some of the chief warming gases from fossil fuel burning and other human actions were far higher than at the start of the industrial era in 1750. Carbon dioxide concentrations measured in the air around the world rose 39 percent since then; methane rose 158 percent; and nitrous oxide was up 20 percent.

The massive snake weighing in at 17 kilograms (37 pounds) was captured a day after a suspected burglary was reported at a charity store in Queensland in northeastern Australia.

"Its head was the size of a small dog," Police Sgt. Don Auld said Wednesday.

Before they found the python, investigators' working theory was that a human burglar with an appetite for destruction and a serious illness had gone on a rampage inside the St. Vincent de Paul store in the small town of Ingham.

"We thought a person had fallen through the ceiling because the roof panel was cut in half," Auld said. "When they've hit the floor, they've vomited and then staggered and fallen over. That's what we thought anyway."

Police now suspect the python entered the store through the roof, which was damaged in a cyclone two years ago.

The animal then plummeted through the ceiling, knocking over dishes, clothes and other items, before relieving itself on the floor. It somehow managed to hide from officials until staff spotted it lying alongside a wall the next day.

A local snake catcher was called in to capture the reptile, which has been relocated to nearby wetlands.

Terms of the deal were not announced, but local media reported that Cruz signed a five-year extension worth $43 million with more than $15 million guaranteed.

"I knew we were in it for the long haul," Cruz, one of quarterback Eli Manning's favorite targets, told reporters in a conference. "We feel good."

"That's the business side. But I'm excited to get it done. I miss my team mates and I'm dying to get back out there."

The modestly-sized, ultra quick Cruz did not participate in New York's off season conditioning and was not with the Giants during organized team activities this spring or last month's mini-camp as he tried to work out a new contract.

Emerging as an elusive slot receiver capable of turning a short reception into a big gain, Cruz established himself as one of the NFL's top pass catchers in 2011 and 2012.

In those two seasons, he caught 168 passes for 2,628 yards (15.6-yard average) and 19 touchdowns, which he celebrated with his trademark salsa dance in the end zone.

Cruz, 26, also scored a touchdown in the Giants' Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots in 2012.

"We are pleased to have this behind us," general manager Jerry Reese said. "Now Victor can focus on football."

Cruz, who grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, signed as a free agent from the University of Massachusetts and did not catch a pass while playing in just three games as a rookie in 2010 before proving himself the next season.

"It feels good," Cruz said about getting the deal done. "More importantly just being able to take care of my family, my mom and my daughter. "Now I'm able to repay my mom and repay my family.

"Words can't even describe the energy that's flowing through my body right now. It's a beautiful, great feeling." (Reporting by Larry Fine in New York; Editing by Steve Keating)

"I'm going to take a sabbatical, and then we'll see," the French soprano said in an interview. "The truth is my repertoire is shrinking. I'm not a young woman anymore, so I don't feel adequate for roles where I'm the girl in love for the first time. I don't want to eternally redo Lucia or Ophelie or even Manon. I want some new challenges."

So after the curtain falls on her last performance in "Hoffmann" at the San Francisco Opera on July 6, Dessay will vanish for a time from American opera stages. Her last scheduled operatic performances anywhere are in Massenet's "Manon" this fall in Toulouse, France.

After that, no opera, at least through 2015. But that hardly means Dessay is giving up singing. She has several concert tours planned with pianist Philippe Cassard, who will accompany her in songs by, among others, Clara Schumann, Brahms, Debussy and Duparc. She also will tour with Michel Legrand, using a microphone while singing works by a composer known for his popular songs and jazz.

"So I won't be doing opera but I will be doing things to earn money," Dessay said.

And she'd like to fulfill a lifelong dream by breaking into theater. In fact, she started out as a drama student. Singing came about almost by accident because she had to do some for a role in a student play, and "people said, 'Oh, you have a nice voice.'"

That nice voice agile and bell-like up to the soprano stratosphere catapulted her to international stardom in the early 1990s in such comic roles as Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos" and the mechanical doll Olympia in "Tales of Hoffmann."

More serious dramatic parts followed the title role in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor," Ophelie in Thomas' "Hamlet" and Violetta in Verdi's "La Traviata."

But now, at age 48, she no longer can manage the highest notes, and her voice never grew big enough for heavier lyric roles like Mimi in Puccini's "La Boheme."

"For example, I'd like to be able to do Blanche (the heroine of Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites"), but that's not for my voice," she said. "It would be possible in a small hall, but in a big house it's not a good idea. I've done Melisande (in Debussy's "Pelleas and Melisande") in a small house, but I couldn't do it at the Metropolitan Opera."

Still, based on her performance as Antonia on Thursday night, Dessay seems an unlikely candidate for early retirement from the opera stage. Vocally she sounded in fine shape, her delicate soprano perhaps a bit small for the role but fitting perfectly with her character's fragile state. And dramatically she was as compelling as ever.

One casualty of her planned time away from opera is the role of the emotionally unstable Elvira in Bellini's "I Puritani." She had agreed to do it in Paris and at the Met, but ended up canceling both engagements.

"The music is wonderful, but I just don't see myself playing her," she said. "She becomes crazy in exactly 30 seconds, then she's not crazy anymore, then she's crazy again.

"I mean, the libretto is really too stupid," she said, wrinkling her nose.

A new part she is considering after her sabbatical is the wily maid Despina in Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte." It might seem a surprising choice, since it's by no means the lead role in the opera.

"The Met offered it to me, and I think it's a good idea," she said. "It's maybe not that interesting to sing, but it would be wonderful to play."

The role she most regrets never performing is the title character in Berg's atonal masterpiece "Lulu."

"I couldn't learn it," she said. "It's just horribly long. Musically, I'm not a good reader. And I don't have perfect pitch. It would have taken me two years."

Even though she'll be doing concert tours, Dessay is looking forward to spending more time at home in France with her family husband bass-baritone Laurent Nouri and their two teenage children. As of June, she had been on the road non-stop since February.

"I think they are very happy, because they will see me more," she said, adding with a smile, "of course, they may regret that after a few months."

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - When the western television series "The Lone Ranger" first rode into U.S. homes in the 1949, the masked man was the dashing, charming hero and the Native American Tonto his loyal sidekick.

When the movie opens in U.S. theaters on Wednesday, it will be Tonto who takes center stage. Played by Johnny Depp with the same offbeat charm as his Captain Jack Sparrow in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, Tonto is the brains of the operation.

In an opening sequence - a breakneck fight scene on a runaway train - Tonto directs an escape from outlaws while a mask-less Lone Ranger, played by Armie Hammer, is the naive one, unsure at the outset that he was even in danger.

"It's a story we've all heard, but we've never heard it from the guy who was there," the film's director Gore Verbinski, 49, told Reuters.

For the new incarnation, Verbinski wanted to update the story by making Tonto more relevant than just a sidekick. Once the idea was hatched to make him the narrator, "it opened a lot of doors" in terms of storytelling, he said.

Through Tonto's eyes, audiences get an origin tale of how former lawman John Reid, the Lone Ranger, came to fight injustice in the Old West.

"This is not history told from your radio station, your movie studio or your network," Verbinski said. "It's told from Tonto and his memory - and his memory may be questionable."

To make Tonto's point of view authentic, a Native American consultant was used on the set, Verbinski said, adding that they also spoke with various tribes to get certain details correct.

No one embraced the Tonto-centric viewpoint more than Depp, who was told from an early age that he was part Native American.

Since production on the Disney film has wrapped, the actor has gone on to strengthen his ties to the community. Last year, Depp was named honorary member of the Comanche Nation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and he also served as grand marshal at the Comanche Nation Fair in Oklahoma.

CORE ELEMENTS UNTOUCHED

At Depp's request, proceeds from the film's $1,000-per-ticket gala premiere last week at Southern California's Disneyland resort last week supported the American Indian College Fund.

Fans of the "The Lone Ranger" series, which first appeared on radio in 1933, can be assured that its core elements remain. Audiences will see a man in a white hat and mask who believes in justice, a horse named Silver and the trademark silver bullets.

Its famous theme, Rossini's "William Tell" overture, makes its way in to the film and Tonto continues to affectionately refer to the Lone Ranger as "kemo sabe."

The remake boasts the same team, including Depp, Verbinski, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who brought Disney the mega-blockbuster "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise.

The four "Pirates" films have earned some $3.7 billion in total at the global box office, according to Boxofficemojo.com.

Although there are hopes "The Lone Ranger" team can repeat past box office success, there was nothing cheap about its costs, which a person familiar with the production said was budgeted at $225 million. Other reports have pegged it closer to $250 million.

An entire Old West town was built in which to shoot the film, along with a 200-foot long train tunnel, two 250-ton trains and miles of track.

Building such ambitious sets was necessary to achieve the right "feel" for the film's biggest action scenes, Verbinski said, adding that he did not want to use cheaper computer-generated imagery or miniatures for such sequences.

"The movie is an epic tale and I didn't want it to feel overly lush and too pretty," he said. "We all know what trains and horses look like, so I wanted to shoot trains and horses and do it the old-fashioned way."

(Editing by Ron Grover, Eric Kelsey and Bill Trott)

The 40-year-old All-Star right wing was captain of the Senators and his decision not to re-sign with the team was a surprise.

Alfredsson will join a Red Wings roster featuring fellow Swedes Henrik Zetterberg, Johan Franzen, Gustav Nyquist, Niklas Kronwall and Jonathan Ericsson.

Media reports said Alfredsson had signed a one-year $5.5 million deal.

There were 20 signings in the first hour of free agency, including forward Nathan Horton going to the Columbus Blue Jackets for a seven-year contract.

Horton had spent the past three seasons with the Boston Bruins and is facing time off for shoulder surgery in the off-season.

Ottawa brought in left wing Clarke MacArthur on a two-year deal after he scored eight goals and 20 points for the Toronto Maple Leafs last season.

The Edmonton Oilers snapped up defenseman Andrew Ference on a four-year deal, reported to be worth $13 million.

The 34-year-old Ference, born in Edmonton, entered free agency after playing with Boston for seven seasons.

The Bruins, defeated by the Chicago Blackhawks in this season's Stanley Cup finals, were busy making deals of their own with a 'blockbuster' trade with the Dallas Stars.

The Bruins signed forwards Loui Eriksson, Reilly Smith and Matt Fraser and defenseman Joe Morrow from Dallas for centers Tyler Seguin and Rich Peverley and defenseman Ryan Button, the teams announced on Thursday.

The New York Islanders re-signed Kazakh goaltender Evgeni Nabokov and the Philadelphia Flyers added goaltender Ray Emery from Chicago. Both were one-year deals.

The Carolina Hurricanes brought in defenseman Mike Komisarek on a one-year deal after Toronto allowed him to enter free agency. (Reporting By Simon Evans in Miami, editing by Gene Cherry)

(Reuters) - It hardly sounds like a dream honeymoon: a week charging around a battleground reverberating with the clamor of 135 cannons, the reek of gunpowder smoke and the cacophony of 12,000 soldiers and 400 horses.

Yet for Polish newlyweds Madeline and Lukas Kus, the noise and violence are the main attraction. The couple, both 30-year-olds from Warsaw, are among scores of non-Americans - some from as far afield as Australia - who have come to Pennsylvania to take part in two reenactments commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in the first week of July.

The Kuses are two of six Poles here to remember the Polish Brigade, originally formed by Polish-American Walery Sulakowski in August 1861. Almost two years later, the brigade, part of the 14th Louisiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, was deployed to Gettysburg to take part in the largest battle of the American Civil War. Casualties (killed, missing in action, wounded or captured) for Union and Confederate troops totaled 50,000.

Madeline Kus, who is portraying a Confederate drummer boy in the June 27-30 reenactment organized by the Blue Gray Alliance, has been taking part in Civil War re-creations for more than two years.

A second reenactment, sponsored by the Gettysburg Anniversary Committee, will take place at a farm near Gettysburg on July 4-7. That version is expected to include about 300 foreign-born reenactors from a range of countries including Canada, Austria, France, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark and Britain.

All the simulated encounters take place on private farmland. "Officers" assign roles in famously well-known and researched engagements within the battle of Gettysburg, like Pickett's Charge or the battle of Devil's Den, and participants arrive already knowledgeable and prepared to feign death.

Military historian Professor Peter Stanley of the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society at the University of New South Wales, Canberra, will be among the group in the second event.

"I'll be wearing the undress' uniform of a major of the 101st Royal Bengal Fusiliers," said Stanley, author of 25 books, most of them on military history. That means a dark blue patrol jacket, lavender-blue trousers and a cap.

"I'll be representing one of the British officers who spent time with both sides observing the war in America. Some British officers came especially; many came down from their stations in Canada. My major is stopping off on the way home from India on leave. I'll be armed' with a walking stick, since I'm just observing," he said.

Stanley said he got hooked on his academic specialty after reading Robert Alter's "Heroes in Blue and Gray" at the age of 11.

For 72-year-old Frederick "Derek" Philips, of Scotland, who portrays Captain William Wilcox of the 95th New York, the occasion affords the chance to relive history. Philips, a member of the American Civil War Society in the UK, said he participates in about five such events a year in the British Isles.

Philips, a history teacher who has visited Gettysburg several times in the past, said he met members of the Confederation of Union Generals 10 years ago at the commemoration. "I was invited to join as an (aide-de-camp) to Major General John F. Reynolds. Wilcox was with General Reynolds when he was killed at Gettysburg on the first day of the battle."

Gettysburg officials are expecting 250,000 visitors to visit the small south-central Pennsylvania borough of about 7,700 residents for the anniversary. To accommodate them, officials have hired law enforcement and emergency service personnel to provide security and related services.

As a result of the Boston Marathon bombing earlier this year, authorities have put additional security measures in place, banning large backpacks from grandstands and deploying additional police and emergency service personnel.

(Editing by Arlene Getz and Prudence Crowther)

The judge decided there was still a need to keep Monsignor Nunzio Scarano in prison due to concerns that he could tamper with evidence or try to escape if released, the sources said.

Scarano, who had close connections to the Vatican bank, was arrested last week along with Giovanni Zito, a secret services agent, and financial broker Giovanni Carenzio.

They have been accused of plotting to bring 20 million euros ($26 million) in cash into Italy from Switzerland for Scarano's rich shipping industry friends in the southern city of Salerno. Scarano is under a separate investigation there on suspicion of money laundering.

Scarano's lawyer said he would appeal against the judge's decision. His defense team had asked that he be transferred to house arrest in a parish or another religious institution such as a convent so that he could say Mass.

(Reporting by Paolo Biondi; Writing by Catherine Hornby; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Shawn Custis, 42, entered not guilty pleas to attempted murder, robbery, burglary and child endangerment in Essex County Superior Court. He was ordered held on $750,000 bail following his arrest Friday in Manhattan.

The June 21 attack in Millburn was captured on a so-called "nanny cam" hidden inside the home's living room.

The recording shows the woman sitting on a couch watching television with her child, then getting up to investigate a noise in the back of the house. She backs up toward the couch as a man comes into the room and starts savagely beating her

The recording then shows the man going upstairs where authorities said he rifled through the family's belongings. The video shows him coming downstairs multiple times, beating the woman and finally throwing her down a flight of stairs and eventually running out the front door.

The child cowers on the couch the entire time. Police said a 1-year-old was sleeping upstairs.

"We believe it was his intent to kill the mother," said Essex County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Fennelly, at a news conference. A public defender representing Custis did not comment after the hearing.

Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray said she does not know why the camera was taping while the mother, whose name is being withheld, was home with the children. But more and more people are employing this type of technology in their homes, she said.

"The video is very helpful and increasingly there is video evidence. People in the community who are inclined to do criminal acts should probably be aware that it's often a help for us," Murray said. "The video shows what violent crime looks like."

Prosecutors said the woman is out of the hospital.

"The family is intact, they're together," Fennelly said. "They're trying to move on."

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What's happening,  writes, is that "abortion opponents have basically tried to do what gun control advocates did after Newtown, and use a horror story to make the case for policies that have  but also face passionate opposition." But  opponents of these new laws can make the same case the NRA did after Newtown: Why don't we enforce the laws already on the books? And why don't the new laws actually address the crimes Gosnell committed?

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Gosnell performed abortions after Pennsylvania state law bans them — 24 weeks. Staffers wereto take ultrasounds so that the fetuses looked younger. And it appears Gosnellthe procedure he used for killing the fetuses. He did so in disgusting conditions. Feral cats were allowed to walk around and poop on the floor. Women were given blood-stained blankets. Bizarrely, fetal feet were stored in plastic jugs. Not even the grossest restaurants are allowed to stay open in conditions like that. But Gosnell found it highly lucrative. The clinic took in .

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Douthat hints that pro-abortion bias in the press might explain why Gosnell and abortion laws aren't being linked more explicitly. He says, "it seems like a genuinely fair-minded, ideologically disinterested press would at least tend to mention the link between the Gosnell case and the Texas bill ." But does linking Gosnell to these laws really strengthen the case?

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As have pointed out, what the Gosnell case is really about is not abortion, but poverty. No wealthy women would have been subjected to such treatment or horrific conditions. Gosnell was able to take advantage of the fact that few poor women would report his clinic, and those who did were ignored. Sherry Thomas told  she couldn't afford her fourth child, but by the time she saved up enough money for an abortion, she was in her fifth month of pregnancy. She woke up covered in her own blood while being put in an ambulance. Her uterus had been punctured. So Gosnell offered her a discount, the Times reports:

“When I woke up I thought, ‘I might die today,’ ” Ms. Thomas said. Dr. Gosnell offered her $500, she said, possibly in an effort to avert a lawsuit. She had paid $800 for the abortion.

The grand jury report found that despite many warning signs — Gosnell's clinic was open past midnight, women were seen stumbling out in a daze — Pennsylvania regulators did nothing. Proseutors say the case shows "." In fact, even though Gosnell had been sued for malpractice 15 times, what led his clinic to be raided was too many Oxycontin prescriptions.  

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The new anti-abortion bills make it harder for women to get abortions. Texas's bill — the new HB2 and SB9 areof the much debated SB5 — calls for "banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, requiring that the procedure be performed at ambulatory surgical centers, and mandating that doctors who perform abortions obtain admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles," the  reports. These architectural changes are expensive, and some clinics say they can't afford them, meaning there might be fewer abortion clinics. Likewise, in Ohio, the new budget  publicly-funded hospitals from entering emergency care transfer agreements with abortion clinics, meaning some clinics might close.

These measures don't address Gosnell's crimes. They do not strengthen the penalties for doctors who deliver substandard care, and they certainly don't increase the amount those doctors can be sued for malpractice. They do not create tougher penalties for inspectors who miss grotesque violations of regulations. Ohio doctors can now be criminally prosecuted for failing to show an ultrasound to a woman who wants an abortion. That means the new law punishes women by trying to make them feel guilty.