According to rough estimates released Monday by federal health officials, cuts could jump to $4 billion in 2020,

Hospitals around the country that treat a large number of uninsured residents rely on federal funds to offset costs.But the Affordable Care Act assumes more residents will have health insurance and that hospitals will treat a smaller number of uninsured patients.

Texas hospitals could lose more than $56 million next year, those in Pennsylvania could lose nearly $34 million and Missouri's could lose about $26 million.

In recent years, various research teams have uncovered evidence that several kinds of biological and geological events occur in regular cycles of similar lengths.

For example, a prior study ofdiscovered the diversity of all these species over the past 540 million years apparently grew and shrank in cycles, one of which was about 62 million years and the other 140 million years long. Other research has uncovered signs of a 140-million-year cycle in long-term fluctuations in global climate, a 59-million-year cycle in sea-level changes and a 56-million-year cycle in how much sediment gets deposited in North America.

" seems to have a pulse," said Michael Rampino, a geologist at New York University who studied prior research to try to find a connection among these cycles.

Mantle plume cycles

If the 60-million- and 140-million-year biodiversity cycles are real, that makes them much longer than the well-known cycles of fluctuations in Earth's orbit and tilt, which are on the order of millennia. So instead of turning to space for the drivers behind the biodiversity cycles, Rampino and his colleagues looked within the planet itself. One phenomenon they're investigating is jets of magma that rise from Earth's depths to penetrate overlying material like a blowtorch. []

Past research suggests mantle plumes are powerful enough to cause the changes seen in these cycles. For instance, the plumes may play a role in the formation of island chains, such as the Hawaiian Islands. There are signs they also triggered episodes of even more massive volcanic activity, such as one that (1.5 million square kilometers) at the Deccan Plateau region (now part of modern-day India) about 65 million years ago, coinciding with the .

Now, Rampino and his team suggest mantle plumes might generate these areas of massive volcanic eruptions known as large igneous provinces in regular patterns and, in turn, drive biological and geological cycles.

"Most people thought or think that mantle plumes would be sort of random in time," Rampino told OurAmazingPlanet. "This work suggests these plumes are coming up on a regular schedule."

Cycle causes

Other scientists at Carleton University in Ottawa analyzed eruptions from large igneous provinces over the past 250 million years. They found evidence of eruption cycles around the globe with lengths of 62 million and 140 million years, as well as one 35 million years long, especially in the last 135 million years. []

"I was quite surprised to find this very clear indication of these regular changes in geological data," Rampino said. "These regular pulsations are probably due to mantle plumes."

As to why these plumes might recur in a cyclical manner, the mantle-plume researchers suspect these jets arise from instabilities in the layer of rock just above the boundary between the Earth's core and mantle layer. These instabilities may reach critical thresholds and cause plumes every 50 million to 100 million years, depending on how long it takes buoyant rock to amass in the lower mantle and become unstable enough to rise.

The cycles might also be caused by the way thecan dive or subduct under one another. This leads to cold matter accumulating underground, potentially triggering regular avalanches of material from the upper mantle into the lower mantle which might, in turn, cause matter from the hot, deep mantle to flow upward and set off volcanic eruptions.

Another possibility is that these cycles are rooted in supercontinents such as Pangaea, in which all of Earth's continents were joined as one landmass. A number of different research teams have suggested that supercontinents can act like blankets over the mantle, causing heat to build up, thus leading to hotspots and massive eruptions to occur. This would suggest that supercontinents carry the seeds of their own destruction.

Future research needs to determine whether these volcanic cycles are, indeed, real or at least not find evidence to disprove them as well as model how mantle plumes are generated. "Scientists who model what's going on inside the Earth using computer models should see if they can produce the same pulsations we see in the geological record," Rampino said.

Rampino added that although sea level is currently rising and climate is getting warmer, "this has nothing to do with the Earth's internal cycles, which are on a much, much longer time scale."

Rampino and his colleague Andreas Prokoph, ofCarleton University in Ottawa, Canada, detailed their findings in the March 19 issue of the journal Eos.

Follow OurAmazingPlanet, and . Original article at LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

The Japanese electronics and entertainment company also dragged itself back to profit for the fiscal year ended March 31, following four straight years of red ink.

It reported Thursday annual earnings of 43 billion yen ($434 million), a reversal from a loss of 457 billion yen ($5.7 billion) the previous year the worst in the company's nearly seven-decade history.

Tokyo-based Sony expects the recovery to continue, and projected a 50 billion yen ($505 million) profit for the fiscal year through March 2014, up 16 percent.

A weak yen helps Japanese exporters, and the dollar has gained 20 percent against the yen in recent months.

The favorable exchange rate is expected to continue in the coming months because of the policies of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office last year.

Sony had sunk to a 255.2 billion yen loss for the January-March period in 2012, slammed by its money-losing TV business and competition from rivals Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.

Sales for the January-March period rose 8 percent to 1.7 trillion yen ($17 billion), mainly from a favorable currency rate.

Sony's annual earnings were better than its own forecast for a 40 billion yen ($404 million) profit, and that of analysts surveyed by FactSet at about 33 billion yen ($333 million).

In an effort to achieve a turnaround, Sony has been shedding jobs and selling assets and parts of businesses in recent years.

The brand has lost much of its glamour as the maker of the Walkman portable music player, a pioneering product, as well as the PlayStation video-game console, once a must-have for holiday shopping.

Chief Financial Officer Masaru Kato said that despite the return to profitability, the company's electronics sector, including camcorders and digital cameras, was struggling compared to its entertainment projects.

"We must answer to the challenge of making our electronics business profitable, no matter what," he said.

The recent weaker yen, which will make Sony products cheaper abroad, was almost certain to work as a big plus, and Kato welcomed it.

Sony gained 182 billion yen ($1.8 billion) in its sales and operating revenue for the January-March quarter due to favorable exchange rates. The company reiterated that it will turn its TV business profitable by the fiscal year ending March 2014. That business has bled money for nine straight years.

Sony said it is beefing up its TV lineup, including models with 4K liquid crystal displays, which deliver even better image quality than current LCD TVs.

Sony said games sales will be boosted significantly with the planned introduction of the PlayStation 4 this fiscal year.

Sony is also doing better in its mobile-phone business with its Xperia Z, which went on sale earlier this year. Sony had fallen far behind rivals like Samsung and Apple in smartphones.

Sony sold its U.S. headquarters building on New York's Madison Avenue in January, as well as other buildings in Tokyo. It sold stocks in Japanese game maker DeNA.

It also ended its liquid-crystal display venture with rival Samsung, while inking a new capital alliance with Japanese electronics and camera maker Olympus Corp. to strengthen its medical equipment business.

Still, some analysts say catching up and selling assets isn't enough, and Sony needs to come up with a more unique product.

For the fiscal year just ended, Sony has continued to lag in its device, digital camera and game sectors. But it scored better sales and income in Sony Pictures Entertainment, with the success of "Skyfall" and "The Amazing Spider-Man."

Sales and income were flat in its music business. Best-selling titles included One Direction's "Take Me Home" and Justin Timberlake's "The 20/20 Experience."

___

Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at www.twitter.com/yurikageyama

Designers at the Milan fashion week presented bold creations on the second day of the 2013-14 autumn/winter shows, in a reaction to economic and political uncertainty in Italy.

The Florentine designer, whose animal prints and skinny leather-fringed jeans have been worn by actress Jennifer Lopez and model Cindy Crawford, said he personally oversaw the collection he is relaunching with Diesel founder Renzo Rosso.

"I wanted to show to all my fans all over the world that Roberto Cavalli is back," the designer told Reuters television on the stage of his packed show at the Arch of Peace, a landmark monument in central Milan he is contributing to restore.

Wearing a dark blue jacket and a sweater in matching color over a pair of jeans, Cavalli said he found inspiration from a woman he saw walking in Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan.

"I speak to all the girls from 15 to 100 years old, a girl that loves the femininity as her personality," the designer said while keeping his inseparable German shepherd dog Lupo at leash.

Cavalli proposed large sweaters in jacquard animal prints and jackets with fur-lined hoods, with a mix of elegance and sporty styles to give models a contemporary look.

Young-focused lines, that the fashion industry used to call "second" lines to distinguish them from top lines, are playing a more important role in the fashion business as they cater to young consumers who spend less but demand something exclusive.

GLAMOUR TOUCH

Similarly to Prada's MiuMiu, Versace's Versus or Giorgio Armani's Emporio Armani, fashion houses are reinventing these brands by opening dedicated stores and hosting glitzy shows.

Georgia May Jagger, the blonde daughter of Rolling Stone rocker Mick Jagger, is testimonial for Just Cavalli.

"I love sometimes to be the director of this orchestra but today I directed but also played the instruments, which means I did nearly all the collection by myself," Cavalli said.

Just Cavalli's sales will return to growth in 2013 after being hit hard by financial troubles at previous licensed manufacturer IT Holding, the group's chief executive said.

"We know that Just Cavalli started very well this year," CEO Giuseppe Brozzetti told Reuters on the sidelines of the show, where models wore fitting pants with coats in matching prints.

The group will open a Just Cavalli flagship store in New York in May, followed by a launch event during the New York fashion week in September, Brozzeti said.

In 2012, the group reported a 4 percent increase in sales to 185 million euros.

Sales at directly-operated stores in the first months of this year were growing in line with last year, when they rose 23.4 percent, Brozzetti said.

Excluding the impact from new stores, sales last year rose 18 percent, helped by foreign markets, where Cavalli exports most of its production.

At another show on Thursday, designer Anna Molinari presented a British-inspired collection for her Blugirl line, which also targets young customers.

(Additional reporting by Rollo Ross; Editing by Roger Atwood)

Pegatron currently employs 100,000 workers.

Suppliers have told Reuters that Apple is developing a cheaper model of the phone, broadening its sales base to lower-income buyers in growth markets such as China and India.

A supplier source in Japan said small-scale production of the display panel for the model would begin in May, ramping up to mass production in June.

Apple is widely expected to launch the cheaper version of the iPhone in the third quarter.

Pegatron's Chief Financial Officer Charles Lin told Reuters on Thursday that 60 percent of the company's 2013 revenue would come from the second half.

He declined to comment whether the cheaper iPhone was among the new products to be made in the second half. He said there would be new computer models after Intel launches its new Haswell processor.

Pegatron President and Chief Executive Officer Jason Cheng told an investor conference on Wednesday that revenue from communication products would contribute up to 40 percent to total in the six months from June, compared to 24 percent in the three months in the beginning of the year, local media reported.

Pegatron posted a 81 percent surge in net profit in the first quarter from a year earlier to T$2.31 billion ($78.59 million), while its operating margin improved to 0.8 percent from 0.3 percent in the previous quarter.

"Making the cheaper iPhone will further help Pegatron's operating margin because its plastic casing is easier to make than iPhone 5's metal casing; this should ensure a good yield rate," said Fubon Securities analyst Arthur Liao.

Liao added a higher yield rate would also be bring an edge to Pegatron's profitability over Hon Hai Precision Industry, the major supplier to Apple.

($1 = 29.3935 Taiwan dollars)

(Reporting by Clare Jim; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

BELGRADE, May 8 (Reuters) - Back for his second spell in charge of CSKA Moscow, coach Ettore Messina aims to lift the weight of last season's Euroleague defeat by Olympiakos Piraeus from his players' shoulders when the two teams meet in the 2013 Final Four in London on Friday.

The semi-final contest will be a repeat of the 2012 final in Istanbul, when six-time winners CSKA blew a 19-point lead in the second half and saw Olympiakos forward Georgios Printezis sink the game-winning shot on the buzzer.

Messina, who had joined the Los Angeles Lakers as an assistant coach after steering CSKA to a pair of Euroleague titles during his first spell in charge from 2005-2009, then replaced Lithuanian Jonas Kazlauskas in a bid to restore the Russian club's domination in Europe.

"I can only say that I am new and fresh and didn't go through the difficult night that some of my players did in that game," the Italian told the competition's official website (www.euroleague.net).

"I don't think those memories can be erased. It's part of life and they can live with it and deal with the bad memories if they are surrounded by support, but no one can really know what shadow will be on the minds of the players from last year.

"Apart from that, we need to treat this as just another game. To be in the Final Four again means that we took the right decisions and that the players we chose showed they deserved the trust of the club," he said.

Having won four Euroleague titles and reached nine finals from as many attempts, the 53-year-old from Catania will bank on his record as much as on the quality of his talent-packed roster which includes four Serbia internationals and former Toronto Raptors guard Sonny Weems.

Olympiakos will again be the dark horses but their coach Georgios Bartzokas, who succeeded Serbian Dusan Ivkovic at the helm, was confident his team could repeat last year's feat against their stronger and wealthier rivals.

"We are the outsiders again but I will try to convince my players that the same can happen as last year," he said.

"There are a lot of differences, as both CSKA and Olympiakos have new coaches and some different tactics but once again CSKA will be under big pressure because they are perhaps the best team in Europe with the biggest budget and an experienced coach."

EL CLASICO

The second contest for a berth in Sunday's final features Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona, who will head into the O2 Arena in contrasting moods after taking different routes to reach the showpiece event.

Eight-times winners Real, who are seeking their first title in Europe's premier club basketball competition since 1995, enjoyed a 3-0 sweep of Maccabi Tel Aviv in their best-of-five quarter-final series, having also secured the top spot in the Spanish league ahead of the playoffs.

Barcelona, champions in 2003 and 2010, have had a topsy-turvy season and reached the Final Four only after a dramatic 3-2 defeat of Panathinaikos Athens, having fought back from a 2-1 deficit in their gruelling series marred by crowd trouble in the Greek capital.

Barca will sweat on the fitness of their towering Australia centre Nathan Jawai, who faces a race against time to recover from a foot injury, while influential American forward Pete Mickeal is out with long-term illness.

Coach Xavi Pasqual acknowledged that Barcelona's entire roster would have to carry extra weight to compensate for Mickeal's absence and will in all likelihood rely on the versatility of Croatia centre Ante Tomic, named in the Euroleague's 2012-13 first team.

"Pete is a unique player due to his own particular skills and a lot of the things we did were based on those skills, so we had to adapt and find another way to win games," said Pasqual.

"The series against Panathinaikos wore us down a lot and contrary to previous years there is less time to recover but I think we will arrive in London in good shape."

Pasqual's Real counterpart Pablo Laso, whose team warmed up for the Clasico with a 78-65 Spanish league win over Barcelona on April 28, said containing Barcelona playmaker and the Euroleague's all-time leading scorer Juan Carlos Navarro would be crucial.

"We know that Navarro is a special player, hard to guard and able to generate baskets on his own," he said.

"But if you try to cover Navarro you will be left uncovered somewhere else and players like Jawai, Tomic and (Brazil point guard Marcelinho) Huertas can damage you." (Editing by Clare Fallon)

That raises the question of who would stand to gain as President Bashar Assad's regime and the opposition trade blame for the alleged attacks, and proof remains elusive.

Analysts say the answer could lie in the past the regime has a pattern of gradually introducing a weapon to the conflict to test the international community's response.

The U.S. said last week that intelligence indicates the Syrian military has likely used sarin, a deadly nerve agent, on at least two occasions in the civil war, echoing similar assessments from Israel, France and Britain. Syria's rebels accuse the regime of firing chemical weapons on at least four occasions, while the government denies the charges and says opposition fighters have used chemical agents in a bid to frame it.

But using chemical weapons to try to force foreign intervention would be a huge gamble for the opposition, and one that could easily backfire. It would undoubtedly taint the rebellion in the eyes of the international community and seriously strain its credibility.

Mustafa Alani, an analyst at the Gulf Research Center in Geneva, said it would also be difficult for the rebels to successfully employ chemical agents.

"It's very difficult to weaponize chemical weapons," he said. "It needs a special warhead, for the artillery a special fuse."

In the chaos of Syria's civil war, pinning down definitive proof on the alleged use of weapons of mass destruction is a tricky task with high stakes. President Barack Obama has said any use of chemical arms or the transfer of stockpiles to terrorists would cross a "red line" and carry "enormous consequences."

Already, the White House's announcement that the Syrian regime appears to have used chemical arms has ratcheted up the pressure on Obama to move forcefully. He has sought to temper expectations of a quick U.S. response, saying too little is known about the alleged attacks to take action now.

Analysts suggest that a limited introduction of the weapons, with little ostensible military gain, could be an attempt by the Syrian government to test the West's resolve while retaining the veil of plausible deniability. This approach would also allow foreign powers eager to avoid a costly intervention in Syria to remain on the sidelines, while at the same time opening the door for the regime to use the weapons down the road.

"If it's testing the water, and we're going to turn a blind eye, it could be used widely, repeatedly," Alani said. "If you are silent once, you will be silent twice."

The slow introduction of a weapon to gauge the West's response fits a pattern of behavior the Assad regime has demonstrated since the uprising began in March 2011, according to Joseph Holliday, a Syria analyst at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

When largely peaceful protesters initially took to the streets, the regime responded with small arms fire and a wave of arrests. As the government ramped up its violent crackdown, the opposition began to take up arms in late 2011, prompting yet another escalation in force by the regime.

In early 2012, government troops began using heavy weapons, first in a relatively restrained manner on military targets.

"Once they could confirm that there wasn't going to be a major reaction from the West, they were able to expand the use of artillery," Holliday said.

By the summer of 2012, government troops were pounding rebellious neighborhoods with tank fire, field cannons and mortars, but the rebellion was stronger than ever, prompting Assad to turn to his air force, and the regime's MiG fighter jets and helicopter gunships began to strike military targets in rural areas.

After the government was satisfied that the international community wasn't going to impose a no-fly zone like NATO did in Libya, Assad unleashed the full might of his air power, and warplanes have been indiscriminately bombing rebel-held areas since.

"It all fits the pattern of being able to do this incrementally," Holliday said.

"It's been important for the regime to introduce these capabilities as gradually as possible so that they don't trip the international community's red lines," he added. "I think this is basically a modus operandi that the Assad regime has established and tested with the United States, and confirmed that it works, and he's using it again with chemical weapons."

Syria has never confirmed it even has chemical weapons. But it is believed to possess substantial stockpiles of mustard gas and a range of nerve agents, including sarin, a highly toxic substance that can suffocate its victims by paralyzing muscles around their lungs.

Concern rose last summer when then-Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi told a news conference that Damascus would only use chemical or biological weapons in case of foreign attack, not against its own people. The ministry then tried to blur the issue, saying it had never acknowledged having such arms.

Weapons of mass destruction are generally viewed as a deterrent against foreign attack, and their use a sign of desperation. But Assad appears far from desperate at the moment, and in fact is operating from a position of relative strength.

While much of northern Syria has fallen to the rebels, the government's hold on Damascus is firm and its forces have been on the offensive in the capital's suburbs and in the countryside near the border with Lebanon. In the northwest, regime troops recently opened up a key supply road to soldiers fighting in the embattled city of Aleppo.

Two of the alleged attacks the Syrian opposition blames on the regime took place in and around Aleppo: one in Khan al-Assal west of the city on March 19, and another in the contested Shiekh Maqsoud neighborhood on April 13. The other alleged instances were in the central city of Homs on Dec. 23 and in the village of Otaybah outside Damascus on March 19.

It is not clear exactly how many people died in those attacks because of the scarcity of credible information. The Syrian government seals off areas it controls to journalists and outside observers, making details of the attacks sketchy. But reports from anti-Assad activists and the government provide a basic outline.

Opposition activists have posted videos and pictures online of alleged victims of the attacks foaming at the mouth or with blister burns symptoms consistent with chemical weapons attacks, but also other munitions. The Syrian state news agency, after one attack it blamed on rebels, published photos of casualties, including children. None showed signs of physical injuries.

Both sides in the civil war, which has already killed more than 70,000 people, have tried to use the issue to sway international opinion.

Rebels have been clamoring for more robust international action against the Assad regime. At a recent gathering in Turkey of the rebellion's international supporters, the opposition political leadership demanded drone strikes on regime targets and the imposition of a no-fly zone, and it reiterated calls for transfers of heavier weapons to its fighters.

The regime has seized on the opposition's demands for outside support to bolster its argument that rebels may have used chemical weapons to frame the government and precipitate foreign intervention.

In December, after rebels captured a chlorine factory in Aleppo, the government warned the opposition could be planning a chemical attack to frame the regime. To back up its assertions, the state news agency pointed to internet videos that purported to show regime opponents experimenting with poisons on mice and rabbits.

In the video, a masked man mixes gases in a glass box containing two rabbits. About a minute later, the animals start to spasm and then collapse. A narrator then says, "This is what will happen to you, Assad supporters." The origin of the video was not known.

Alani dismissed the possibility of the rebels, including Islamic extremist groups among the most powerful opposition fighting factions, carrying out a chlorine attack.

He noted that al-Qaida militants used chlorine on at least two occasions in Iraq in the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, but abandoned the practice because "the impact of the chlorine was far less than conventional explosives."

___

Follow Ryan Lucas on Twitter at www.twitter.com/relucasz

The couple believes it's unlikely there ever will be a full answer explaining why a man gunned down 26 people inside the Newtown, Conn., school last year. But they feel more research into brain health and how a propensity for violence is manifested could help prevent future tragedies.

"When we started reaching out to scientists to talk about the underpinnings of violence and how this particular factor played a role in what happened to us, there is some, but no real, research going on this field," Hensel said.

On Monday, they announced a scientific advisory board for the Avielle Foundation, which was established with the goal of reducing violence. While some other victims' families have immersed themselves in the push for tighter gun restrictions, Avielle Richman's parents see the foundation named for their curly-haired daughter as their response to a tragedy that has launched advocacy work on many fronts, including school safety and mental illness.

The Dec. 14 massacre was carried out by 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who killed 20 first-graders and six educators inside the school with a military-style semi-automatic rifle before committing suicide. The isolated, socially awkward Lanza played first-person shooter video games in a weapon-filled house where he lived with his mother, according to search warrants released last month, but authorities have not described a possible motive or released details of any medical condition that might shed light on his actions.

Avielle, a girl who loved horses, Harry Potter and the color red, had moved to Connecticut with her family about two years before the shooting. Her father kept a blog called "Avielle's Adventures," telling friends about a trip to a Thanksgiving Day parade, her 6th birthday at a horse stable, a road trip to Iowa.

Jeremy Richman is a researcher at the pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim. Hensel, his wife, is a medical writer with her own company. The foundation is a way for them to harness their training and skills and to channel their grief.

"I think the best way to help from a tragedy such as this is by action where your strengths lie," Hensel said. "This is our motivation now. We will never stop being parents to Avielle."

The Avielle foundation, funded through donations and grants, aims to raise $5 million this year and begin reviewing its first grant applications later this year.

One member of the foundation's advisory board, Terrie E. Moffitt, said science on the origins of violence has been neglected by federal agencies that provide research grants.

"Families of individuals with autism, ADHD, learning problems or schizophrenia demand that funding agencies support research into these disorders," said Moffitt, a neuroscience professor at Duke University and at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. "Families of violent individuals don't."

The other members of the board announced Monday are R. John Krystal, chair of the psychiatry department at the Yale University School of Medicine, and James Blair, chief of the unit on affective cognitive neuroscience at the National Institute of Mental Health.

The Avielle Foundation says it hopes to remove stigmas for people seeking mental health aid, develop the concept of a "brain health check-up," and identify behavioral and biochemical diagnostics for detection of people at risk of violent behaviors.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - World stock markets rose and bond prices fell on Thursday as data indicated the U.S. labor market remains resilient despite recent signs of slower growth, while earnings that are beating lowered expectations helped buoy investor sentiment.

Wall Street opened higher, following gains in Europe, where markets were lifted on growing expectations that the European Central Bank will soon cut interest rates.

A report from the U.S. Labor Department said the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week by a surprisingly large 16,000.

The report appeared to counter several weeks of signs that U.S. economic activity softened in March and early April, a phenomenon that economists have dubbed the spring swoon because it has occurred the past two years.

Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes fell as much as 7/32 in price in reaction to the jobless claims figures. They last traded 2/32 lower to yield 1.7097 percent.

Recent weak global economic data, including record-high jobless figures from Spain on Thursday, has sparked expectations of more stimulus from central banks.

"Overall, investors see the potential for new measures and the distortion of global valuations as a reason to hold dogmatically onto their equities," said Guy Foster, head of portfolio strategy at Brewin Dolphin in London.

"Shares are seen as a yield asset class with risks skewed to the upside. Bonds have lost their appeal for the opposite reason."

U.S. stocks rose, boosted by gains in shares of materials companies, including iron ore producer Cliffs Natural Resources Inc ,

Cliffs jumped 15 percent to $20.95 after it posted earnings late on Wednesday that were much better than analysts had estimated. [ID:nL2N0DB2FF] The S&P 500 materials indexrose 1.04 percent.

The blended per-share growth estimate for earnings is now 3.6 percent, according to Thomson Reuters, up from 1.5 percent on April 1. The estimate is about half of recent quarters.

The Dow Jones industrial averageclosed up 24.50 points, or 0.17 percent, at 14,700.80. The Standard & Poor's 500 Indexrose 6.37 points, or 0.40 percent, to 1,585.16. The Nasdaq Composite Indexgained 20.33 points, or 0.62 percent, to 3,289.99.

"Investors coming into this earnings season were quite fearful, so even modestly positive news becomes great news, and that is what we've experienced for the last several days," said Lawrence Creatura, an equity portfolio manager at Federated Investors in Rochester, New York.

"It's probably a little early in the earnings season to talk about aggregate results, but it's important to recognize that earnings are growing and so higher prices are deserved," Creatura said.

Expectations of an ECB rate cut boosted shares and kept the euro near a three-week low to the dollar. Sources involved in the deliberations have told Reuters that momentum is building for monetary action to help the recession-hit euro zone.

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 indexindex of top European shares rose 0.74 percent to close at ,200.64, near its peak of 1,209.05 it hit in mid-March.

MSCI's all-country world equity indexgained 0.64 percent to 365.22.

The dollar rose against the euro as the U.S. labor market report allayed concerns about the pace of the economic recovery, with many analysts expecting the greenback to continue to gain.

The euro last traded at $1.3006, down 0.07 percent.

Against the yen, the dollar last traded at 99.37 yen, down 0.10 percent on the day.

Sterling jumped to a two-month high against the dollar and a three-month peak against the euro after data showed the UK economy comfortably avoided slipping back into recession in the first quarter.

UK gross domestic product rose 0.3 percent in the three months to March, well above forecasts of a 0.1 percent rise, as the economy bounced back after shrinking 0.3 percent at the end of 2012.

Brent crude oil prices rose above $103 a barrel, underpinned by a weaker dollar, while U.S. crude's discount to Brent fell below $10 for the first time since June 2012.

Brent crude rose $1.68 to settle at $103.41 a barrel.

U.S. crude gained $2.21 to settle at $93.64 a barrel.

(Additional reporting by Richard Hubbard in London, Editing by Dan Grebler and Jan Paschal)

The move is seen as part of international sanctions on the country over its disputed nuclear program. The West has imposed banking and insurance sanctions on Iran since it suspects Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

At a Tehran shopping mall, owners of mobile phones and tablets said Thursday that they had received the message via email from the company late the night before. Retailers said they had no power over the decision.

"We have heard about it, but we are only responsible for hardware here, not software and apps," shopkeeper Bijan Ashtiani said.

In the message, Samsung said that it cannot provide access to the store, known as Samsung Apps, in Iran because of "legal barriers." It apologized to customers in emailed statement seen by the Associated Press on Thursday.

Samsung's offices in Tehran could not be immediately reached for comment due to the weekend there, and its headquarters in South Korea did not immediately respond to a request.

The decision quickly provoked ire on social media.

"Samsung is to stop its apps in Iran, oh how we appreciate our officials," wrote Bahareh, a Twitter user blaming Tehran's policy. Another, named Armin, pointed at the technology giant itself, saying: "Now, Samsung's sanctions honor us as well!"

Samsung spokesman Chris Jung in Seoul said the company is still looking into the matter and could not confirm any details.

Unlike Apple, Microsoft and Adobe, Samsung has provided localized services to Iranians in their native Persian language. In 2012, Finnish communications giant Nokia stopped its services in the country.