Adam Sandler returns as Lenny, a Hollywood player who since the first film has moved his family to his rural hometown, where the kids can bike to school and Dad gets plenty of Guy Time with pals Eric (Kevin James), Kurt (Chris Rock), and Marcus (David Spade). Happily, this film's conception of male friendship is less reliant on insults and abuse than its predecessor, and doesn't need to paint the men's wives as shrews in order to give the motley bunch something in common.

Which is not at all to say that the humor has matured. The opening scene, in which a deer wanders into Lenny's house, offers two separate occasions in which the beast rears back on hind legs to urinate on someone; the second goes on long enough to suggest someone has a fetish to indulge. Throughout, gags are cartoonishly broad and afforded so little time for setup and delivery we seem to be watching less a story than a catalog of tossed-out material.

Set on the last day of school, the script follows as Lenny commandeers his kids' bus (the driver, played by Nick Swardson, is high on pills) and, after dropping them and their schoolmates off, makes a day of it with his hooky-playing pals. Together they pioneer new bodily functions (Eric's "Burp-snarting," which may sound more amusing than it is) and fantasize about those they don't get enough of: Attending their daughters' dance rehearsal, they can't stop gawking at an instructor the credits helpfully dub "Hot Dance Teacher."

Soon the fellows are trying to make old bodies do what young ones never did. Visiting a favorite swimming hole so Eric can dive off the cliff he always feared, they cross paths with a band of frat boys (led by Taylor Lautner), whose collective loutishness makes Sandler & Co. look like knights of the Round Table. A rivalry is born, though the adults don't know they're being targeted for destruction. Instead, they spontaneously decide to throw an 80s-themed yard party, and in a couple of hours half the town arrives in costumes that would have taken a week to assemble.

Like the first film, this one is built upon the seriously misguided idea that five or ten minutes of sentimental family-values talk can coexist with an hour and a half of burp-snarting and the like. Here, Lenny must contend with the news that his wife (Salma Hayek) wants to have a fourth child; Eric, inexplicably, must keep his wife (Maria Bello) in the dark about how much time he spends keeping his elderly mother company; Marcus must make peace with the thuggish son he never knew he sired; and Kurt... well, Chris Rock gets to ad-lib one or two funny lines and spend the rest of the film waiting for something better to come along.

Sandler, whose best work tends to be his least rewarded at the box office, has never before made a sequel. That he would make an exception for "Grown Ups" says nothing good about his trajectory as an artist.

He and Rock, more than their costars, may yet have good movies in them about embracing adult responsibilities after years of playing the fool. But "Grown Ups" and a dozen other half-hearted productions suggest they won't succeed with such statements while they're trying to succeed commercially.

"Grown Ups 2," a Sony/Columbia release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America "for crude and suggestive content, language and some male rear nudity." Running time: 100 minutes.

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MPAA rating definition for PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

President Jacob Zuma visited the anti-apartheid leader Wednesday evening.

"We are encouraged that Madiba is responding to treatment and urge the public to continue providing support and showering him with love which gives him and the family strength," Zuma said in a statement that referred to Mandela by his clan name.

Mandela was hospitalized June 8 for what the government said was a recurring lung infection, and his condition has been critical for over two weeks.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate's 95th birthday is on July 18 and his foundation's Twitter feed is asking people to join in the volunteer-day initiative.

The goal of Mandela Day is to inspire individuals to "take action to help change the world for the better." The movement asks people to donate 67 minutes of their time in reflection of what the foundation says is the more than 67 years Mandela spent serving his community, his country and the world.

The foundation's Twitter feed often shares quotes from the man who became South Africa's first democratically elected president after spending 27 years in prison for his fight against racist white rule.

One Mandela quote shared this week said: "Abject poverty is demeaning, is an assault on the dignity of those that suffer it. In the end it demeans us all."

South Africa has made great strides since its official policy of apartheid, a government policy that favored white South Africans. But great inequalities remain, fueling racial tension in the country.

"I would say what we're struggling with today is the gross inequalities that we've inherited that will take generations to overcome, and people are understandably resentful," Denis Goldberg, Mandela's friend who was jailed for two decades for fighting against apartheid said at an anniversary event this week.

South Africa President Zuma said last month that black South Africans continue to have less education and fewer skills than whites because of the apartheid era. As part of promoting national reconciliation, the implementation of black economic empowerment policies will continue, he said.

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On the Internet:

http://www.mandeladay.com

The body of Dax Rodriguez Ledezma was found along with his girlfriend and another person in the town of Huitzilac in Morelos state. All the bodies had been burned, Mexico City prosecutors said in a statement.

Officials said he was identified through DNA compared to his brother, Mario Rodriguez Ledezma, who has been arrested and charged in the kidnappings.

Authorities didn't say when the bodies were found or give any other details, but 10 days ago the attorney general's office in neighboring Morelos state reported police had found the burned bodies of two women and a man on a dirt road in Huitzilac with their heads covered in duct tape.

Dax Rodriguez Ledezma was a co-owner of Heaven, the after-hours bar from which the group was abducted May 26. Another partner, Ernesto Espinosa Lobo, was arrested Friday for questioning. A total of seven people have been detained in the case.

Witnesses told police Rodriguez Ledezma was at the bar the day of the kidnapping.

Surveillance tape shows men herding the young people, a few of them at a time, into compact cars. They haven't been heard from since.

Prosecutors say the abductions are linked to a dispute between two rival drug gangs in Mexico City's Tepito neighborhood, one of the city's most dangerous areas and home to most of the abducted.

The families of the disappeared, however, say they suspect a criminal group from outside their community is behind the kidnappings because they say they have never seen any of the suspects detained in the case.

"I don't know how important Dax is for police but for us the key person in the case is Espinosa Lobo," said Leticia Ponce, mother of Jerzy Ortiz, a 16-year-old who is among the missing.

No one apparently saw anything amiss Sunday morning when the abduction supposedly happened, even though nearby Reforma Avenue was full of people that day for a 5-kilometer foot race, the city's weekly urban bike ride, and an international culture fair that had just opened the day before.

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Adriana Gmez Licon is on Twitter http://twitter.com/agomezlicon

LONDON (Reuters) - The number of people dying from heart disease in Europe has dropped dramatically in recent decades, thanks largely to the success of cholesterol-lowering drugs and drives to persuade people to quit smoking, scientists said on Wednesday.

Cardiovascular disease death rates have more than halved in many countries in the European Union since the early 1980s, according to their study in the European Heart Journal.

Yet heart disease - which can lead to fatal heart attacks and strokes - remains a leading cause of death in the region and rising rates of obesity and diabetes could soon start to reverse progress made in the past 30 years.

"For the most part and for most countries this is good news - the death rates have come down quite substantially in the last 30 years," said Nick Townsend of Britain's Oxford University, who worked on the study.

"But what we don't want to say is that the job is done, because we know by looking at trends in other conditions that they could reverse the trends we've worked so hard to achieve in heart disease."

According to the World Health Organization, cardiovascular diseases kill around 17 million people globally each year.

Townsend's team looked at deaths from coronary heart disease between 1980 and 2009 in both sexes and four age groups: under 45, 45 to 54, 55 to 64, and 65 years and over.

They found that almost all EU countries had a large and significant decrease in death rates from heart disease over the last three decades in both men and women when all the age groups were considered together.

Britain, Denmark, Malta, The Netherlands and Sweden had the largest declines in death rates for both sexes, while among men in Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, the decreases were small and not statistically significant. In Romanian men, there was a small but statistically significant increase.

Although the study did not look specifically for causes, Townsend said the progress was probably mainly due to better drugs - such as statins to treat high cholesterol and anti-hypertensives to treat high blood pressure - as well as lower rates of smoking in the region overall.

He warned, however, that other risk factors, such as obesity and diabetes, were a real concern: "It could lead to a future time bomb, whereby these fantastic gains in terms of heart disease mortality could start to reverse with the impact of rises in obesity and diabetes."

Commenting on the study's findings, Simon Gillespie, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation charity, said while the picture of heart disease mortality is improving "we're an awful long way from back-patting and hand-clapping".

"More than 2 million people are battling coronary heart disease in the UK and while our work in science labs and (in) improving prevention and care has made a huge difference, that's 2 million people too many," he said in a statement.

(Editing by Alison Williams)

(Reuters) - Students at all Boston public high schools may soon be able to obtain free condoms at the front office - as long as they sit through a few minutes of counseling about safe sex - under a policy due to be voted on Wednesday by the school board.

Condoms are already available in 19 high schools with on-site health centers. The policy, up for a vote by the Boston School Committee, would expand distribution to all 32 high schools in the system.

Parents would have the right to exempt their children.

Several U.S. urban districts, including New York and Los Angeles, make condoms widely available in high schools. So do many suburban school districts around Boston.

The proposed expansion in Boston would not cost the district anything since the condoms are donated by public health agencies, district spokesman Lee McGuire said.

So far, it has drawn little opposition.

The Archdiocese of Boston issued a statement calling condom distribution "misguided," but has not organized formal protests. No one testified against the policy at a public hearing this month, and McGuire said he expected little controversy at the Wednesday vote.

Bill Albert, chief program officer of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, said parents often fear easy access to contraception will encourage teens to have sex earlier or more frequently. Studies have shown that isn't the case, he said.

"That is one they can cross off their worry list," Albert said. "The science is absolutely clear."

It's less clear, Albert said, whether students consistently practice safer sex when they have access to free condoms.

The condom policy is part of a broader wellness initiative in Boston schools, including expanded sex education, better nutrition and more physical activity for students.

(Reporting by Stephanie Simon; Editing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Gary Hill)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Congressman Anthony Weiner, attempting a political comeback two years after resigning in disgrace from the legislature, has taken the lead over his Democratic rivals in the race for New York City mayor, a poll showed.

Weiner has the backing of 25 percent of registered Democrats, while City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the early front-runner and a close ally of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, trails with 20 percent, according to Tuesday's Wall Street Journal-NBC New York-Marist poll.

Former Comptroller Bill Thompson has 13 percent, followed by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio with 10 percent and city Comptroller John Liu with 8 percent.

Weiner has shaken up the race for City Hall since announcing his candidacy on May 22. His resignation in 2011 had marked a remarkable fall from grace for a politician who was seen as a leading liberal voice in the U.S. House of Representatives and had been widely expected to run in this year's race for mayor.

Once a popular six-term Congressman representing parts of Brooklyn and Queens, he resigned from Congress after admitting he had sent a lewd picture over Twitter and then lied about it repeatedly.

Since entering the race, Weiner has presented himself as a champion for working-class New Yorkers and a man who has learned from his mistakes.

As recently as February, most city-wide polls had Quinn, who would be the city's first female and lesbian mayor, leading with nearly 40 percent of Democratic support. But since then, Quinn's support has seen a slow and steady drop.

The survey of 689 Democrats was conducted last week and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

(Editing by Eric M. Johnson; Editing by John Stonestreet)

The session ran 9 1/2 hours on Thursday.

Miami school officials, former coaches and lawyers met with the Committee of Infractions to defend the Hurricanes against allegations that could bring severe sanctions because of improper benefits from ex- booster Nevin Shapiro.

The focus of the session Friday morning is expected to center on football. Former assistant coaches Aubrey Hill and Clint Hurtt were among the first to arrive for the hearing at a hotel in downtown Indianapolis.

The NCAA alleges improper benefits went to 72 players, three recruits and 12 "friends and family members." Shapiro is serving a 20-year sentence for his role in a $930 million Ponzi scheme. Most of his dealings involved the football team.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain launched a research program on Monday that should eventually allow all cancer patients to have access to the kind of genetic analysis that led Hollywood star Angelina Jolie to decide to undergo a double mastectomy.

The project, involving the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London, the U.S. gene sequencing firm Illumina, geneticists and cancer doctors, aims to find a way to allow more cancer genes be tested in more people.

Researchers announcing the 2.7 million pound ($4 million) project, funded by the Wellcome Trust medical charity, stressed this was not a response to reports last week of Jolie's decision to undergo surgery to reduce her breast cancer risk.

"What we're trying to do here is develop processes that will allow comprehensive and systematic use of genetic information in cancer medicine so that (more people) will be able to benefit from the types of information and situations we were hearing about last week (with the Jolie story)," said Nazneen Rahman, head of genetics at the ICR and a leader on the new project.

Mutations in some genes, known as cancer predisposition genes, greatly increase the risk that a person will get cancer.

Jolie tested positive for a high risk gene mutation that made her about five times more likely to develop breast cancer than women who do not carry this mutation, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

There are nearly 100 other known cancer predisposition genes, but in Britain - where most healthcare is part of the taxpayer-funded National Health Service - testing for them is currently very restricted.

Yet recent advances in reading the genetic code, known as gene sequencing, mean that looking for gene mutations is now faster and cheaper than ever - paving the way for gene testing eventually to become routine for all cancer patients.

"It is very important to know if a mutation in a person's genetic blueprint has caused their cancer," Rahman told reporters at a briefing in London.

"It allows more personalized treatment, so for example such people are often at risk of getting another cancer and may choose to have more comprehensive surgery, or may need different medicines, or extra monitoring."

The program, called Mainstreaming Cancer Genetics, will use a new Illumina test called TruSight that can analyze 97 cancer predisposition genes within a few weeks for a few hundred pounds, Rahman said.

The new model will be piloted initially in women with breast or ovarian cancer at London's Royal Marsden hospital, but the team hopes it will in future be used across the country and in many more types of cancer.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

SILVERSTONE (Reuters) - Formula One and tire supplier Pirelli faced a full-on crisis on Sunday after the British Grand Prix came close to being stopped for safety reasons due to a spate of explosive high-speed blowouts.

The spectre of Indianapolis 2005, when only six Bridgestone-shod cars competed in a farce of a U.S. Grand Prix because all those equipped by tire supplier Michelin could not compete safely, lurked in the background.

There were also uneasy flashbacks to the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, when Ferrari's Brazilian Felipe Massa suffered a near-fatal head injury after being struck by debris thrown up from a car in front.

With television images broadcast around the world showing bucking cars scraping along on rear left wheel rims stripped of rubber, the drivers wrestling to keep them on the road, the sport breathed a sigh of relief that the race had ended safely.

Race director Charlie Whiting told reporters that it had been a close call, however.

"It was quite close to being red flagged. It did occur to me to do that," he said, when asked how many more failures it would have taken before he had acted. "I don't want to put a figure on it but it was close.

"I don't think we've seen anything like this. I can't remember anything. To have four total catastrophic failures, I believe, is a first."

Britain's Lewis Hamilton, the 2008 world champion who had led for Mercedes from pole position, was the first casualty when his rear tire blew after eight laps at around 200kph and shed debris behind him.

He was followed by Ferrari's Felipe Massa, Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne - who was going the fastest of all - and then McLaren's Sergio Perez. Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez had a front tire failure.

Mercedes' race winner Nico Rosberg had signs of imminent delamination - when tread peels away from the rest of the tire - when he made a pitstop and champions Red Bull said cuts were found on the tires of triple champion Sebastian Vettel, who retired with a gearbox problem.

JUST UNACCEPTABLE

"The safety is the biggest issue," said Hamilton, his words echoed by others around the paddock in a sport that has not had a fatality on track since Ayrton Senna died at Imola in 1994. "It's just unacceptable.

"Someone could've crashed. I was thinking behind the safety car that it's only when someone gets hurt that something will be done about it."

With the next race in Germany only a week away, Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery said the Italian company - which has come under fire all season for the performance of its product - was making the investigation a top priority.

"We can exclude that the new bonding process, which we introduced at this race, is a cause for the tire failures we have seen today," he added.

"There might be some aspect to this circuit that impacts specifically on the latest version of our 2013 specification tires but at this point we do not want to speculate."

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh declined to use the word crisis but said safety was the main concern.

"We are lucky no one has been hurt," he told reporters. "For people like Checo (Perez) it has destroyed his weekend, but first and foremost we are primarily concerned about the safety of our drivers.

"I think there is an argument that Nuerburgring is a slightly less severe circuit than Silverstone, but we have Spa (Belgium) looming not long after that and we would certainly not want to go there with these tyres."

Whitmarsh said the sport could not wait for a scheduled meeting of the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) working committee on Wednesday to discuss the situation.

"You just have to say to Pirelli 'Do whatever you can do by Germany'," he said. "They know what stock they have, they know what they can do practically before Germany and they should do whatever they can to enhance the safety and durability of the tyres."

Asked whether the German race might be cancelled, Whitmarsh suggested a solution would be to go back to last year's specification of tyres.

"In fairness to Pirelli, I don't know how they can respond in such short order but we have to do what we can to support them," he said.

"We don't want an Indianapolis but cancelling a race is a big step, we don't have all the technical insight Pirelli have," he continued. "All I would ask is they do everything they can to give us the most durable tyres they can for next weekend."

Red Bull principal Christian Horner agreed.

"The most logical thing would be to go back to the tyres that worked well for them previously," he told reporters. "The tyres they had last year did not have these failures.

"Whatever has changed, has changed but you would have thought the most logical thing would be to go back to the tires that had served them well."

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by Sonia Oxley)

(Reuters) - The refusal of some foreign buyers to purchase U.S. wheat after an unapproved genetically modified strain was discovered growing in a farm field in Oregon is the latest demonstration that the issue of biotech food safety is far from settled.

Japan and South Korea canceled purchases of U.S. wheat after the discovery of the experimental wheat developed by Monsanto Co. The furor erupted just days after a May 25 protest in cities around the world targeting Monsanto, the leading developer of crops with transgenic DNA.

At the crux of the concerns is the question of safety. While crop developers and U.S. regulators say that biotech crops on the market are safe, there are widespread fears that gene-altered crops, carrying DNA from other species, are harmful to humans and animals that consume them.

Both sides of the debate say scientific studies buttress their points.

"I think there is a strong international consensus that the current crops grown in the U.S. are safe to eat," said Greg Jaffe, director of biotechnology at Center for Science in the Public Interest, a health and food safety advocacy group.

Not so says Dave Schubert, who heads the cellular neurobiology laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California.

"There is no evidence that any GM plant is safe to eat and there are solid data showing that necessary components of the GM technology, like herbicides, are toxic and carcinogenic," Schubert said. "Almost daily there are more problems coming to light."

CONFLICTING STUDIES

It has been 17 years since Monsanto and rivals including DuPont and Dow Chemical rolled out genetically altered crops, and they say their tests show no safety concerns. Also, the chief U.S. authority for food safety, the Food and Drug Administration, says there is no need for either mandatory safety testing or labeling of foods made with GMOs.

FDA officials also say no credible independent research has found harm from GMOs, and many independent studies show genetically altered crops are as safe as conventional ones.

There are many studies to back them up. A group of seven scientists from Europe reviewing 24 animal-feeding studies in 2011 found that none of the studies showed evidence of health hazards, according to their article in the peer-reviewed Food and Chemical Toxicology journal.

An older 2003 Society of Toxicology position paper said potential adverse health impacts from biotech foods appeared no different from other foods.

But other studies indicate potential dangers. Some see a risk of new toxins or allergens stemming from new combinations of genes that would not occur naturally. Others say people or animals could be hurt by residues of the weed-killing chemicals that might linger in food made from biotech crops.

A report published in April by a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said health problems could be linked to herbicides lingering in food. A study last year by French scientist Gilles-Eric Seralini and seven other researchers showed organ damage and increased tumor rates on rats fed Roundup Ready corn with trace amounts of herbicide.

Research published in 2008 by a group of Italian scientists found biotech corn appeared to harm the gut and immune systems of mice. Another mouse study in 2008 found liver problems after ingestion of GMO soy.

And a pair of Greek scientists in 2009 said they found enough evidence of harm from GMO foods to warrant extensive testing.

"Since these GM foods are going to be consumed by every human being they should be tested even more thoroughly than drugs, and more experiments are required in order to study the possible toxicity and make any conclusions," said the 2009 paper by Artemis Dona of the University of Athens Medical School, and Ioannis Arvanitoyannis of the University of Thessaly School of Agricultural Sciences. "Results indicate that many GM food have some common toxic effects."

The Biotechnology Industry Organization, which represents the interests of biotech developers, disagrees.

"The safety of biotech-derived food products has been thoroughly addressed by the international scientific community," said Colleen Lerro, a spokeswoman for the industry lobby.

RELYING ON COMPANIES

GM crop manufacturers use DNA from other species, including types of bacteria, to splice into crops to alter the way they function in the fields. Popular crops not only survive treatments of toxic weedkiller; they manufacture their own toxins to kill insects.

When new biotech crops are developed, companies are not required to apply for FDA approval, but are encouraged to share testing data with FDA scientists. The agency signs off on such a "voluntary consultation" with a letter reminding the biotech company it is responsible for ensuring its GM food is safe.

In an October 2011 letter to Monsanto regarding a new genetically altered soybean, the FDA wrote that Monsanto's testing concluded the soybean "is not materially different in any respect relevant to food or feed safety" from other soybeans. The FDA added that: "It is Monsanto's continuing responsibility to ensure that foods marketed by the firm are safe, wholesome and in compliance" with regulations.

Jason Dietz, a policy analyst in the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said the FDA is exerting responsible oversight. "We think our process is actually quite, quite good and protects public health," said Dietz.

"Firms producing these crops do extensive safety testing before marketing," Dietz added. "It is a firm's responsibility to ensure the safety of the food it markets."

Some scientists are critical of the FDA approach.

"Our regulation ... largely leaves the companies in charge of the safety testing protocols," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist specializing in food at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a pressure group. "That does not strike me as in the best interest of the public."

(Reporting By Carey Gillam; Editing by David Gregorio)