A non-Saudi, whose nationality and age were not given, died on Tuesday, the Health Ministry said on its website late on Wednesday. It said he had been admitted to a hospital in al-Qassim several days ago with an "acute respiratory syndrome".

"Most cases recorded so far are among elderly patients and people with multiple chronic diseases," it added.

A World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman confirmed it had been notified of the new death from the disease, which the WHO plans to call Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

"It is in a different area and doesn't appear to be linked to the recent outbreak and cluster in the eastern part of the country," Glenn Thomas told reporters in Geneva.

The WHO's tally of people who have died in the kingdom from nCoV/MERS since it surfaced last year is 18, including one who died in Britain last year after arriving from Saudi Arabia.

The virus, which can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia, is from the same family as the one responsible for an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that killed 775 people worldwide in 2003.

The WHO says a total of 44 cases of the new virus have been recorded so far, 22 of them fatal. Saudi Arabia has had 33 of the cases.

WHO officials say the new virus appears to be transmissible between humans, but only after prolonged, close contact.

(Reporting by Amena Bakr; Editing by Sami Aboudi and Kevin Liffey)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. intelligence official launched an aggressive defense on Saturday of a secret government data collection program, blasting what he called "reckless disclosures" of a highly classified spy agency project code-named PRISM.

While acknowledging PRISM's existence by name for the first time, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said it had been mischaracterized by the media. The project is legal, not aimed at U.S. citizens and has thwarted threats against the country, he said.

"Over the last week we have seen reckless disclosures of intelligence community measures used to keep Americans safe," Clapper said in a statement.

He said the surveillance activities reported in the Washington Post and Britain's Guardian newspaper were lawful and conducted under authorities approved by Congress. "Significant misimpressions" have resulted from recent articles, he said.

Clapper's comments were the latest development in an escalating battle over government spying and civil liberties, involving the Obama administration and news organizations that have published details of U.S. data mining efforts.

A fact sheet accompanying the statement discussed in general terms what had been until Thursday an unknown and highly classified program. It made a rare public acknowledgement that U.S. spy agencies obtained data from U.S. telecommunications providers, but defended the practice as legal and regulated by courts.

"The United States Government does not unilaterally obtain information from the servers of U.S. electronic communication service providers. All such information is obtained with FISA Court approval and with the knowledge of the provider," the fact sheet said, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court.

PRISM, characterized in news reports as a top-secret National Security Agency program for extracting data from the computers of internet companies, in reality is an "internal government computer system" used to "facilitate" the government's handling of information it collects from service providers, according to the factsheet.

The reports this week said the surveillance program involving internet firms and established under Republican President George W. Bush in 2007, had seen "exponential growth" under President Barack Obama, a Democrat. It said the NSA increasingly relied on PRISM as a source of raw material for daily intelligence reports to the president.

The news reports included PowerPoint slides showing that major Internet companies such as Yahoo, Google, Facebook and a half-dozen others were involved in the program.

Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, had no comment on Clapper's statement. Washington Post spokeswoman Kris Coratti said the company had no comment.

REAFFIRMS ADMINISTRATION POSITION

Internet providers have said they knew nothing about any NSA collection program called PRISM and that they have only cooperated with legal government requests for data.

The government can only target someone for internet surveillance if "there is an appropriate, and documented foreign intelligence purpose" for collection, the fact sheet said.

Those purposes include countering terrorism, weapons proliferation and cyber threats, Clapper said in the statement. He did not further explain how those broad targeting guidelines are used in practice.

Previous administration statements in the wake of leaks about the NSA program have not mentioned that it was gathering information related to cyber threats and weapons proliferation.

Clapper strongly reaffirmed the Obama administration's position that U.S. citizens were not "intentionally" targeted by NSA for collection and that the agency's activities were extensively supervised by both Congress and the Courts.

The Guardian published a story on Saturday, based on what it said were more leaked classified NSA documents, about what it described as an internal agency data mining tool created to track the focus of NSA's efforts to collect "metadata" - primitive raw information about message traffic - from around the world.

The newspaper said that a different NSA fact sheet it obtained said that the tool, code-named Boundless Informant, "allows users to select a country on a map and view the metadata volume and select details about the collections against that country."

The Guardian said that documents showed NSA collected "almost 3 billion" pieces of intelligence from U.S. computer networks over a period ending in March 2013. It said the new documents raised questions about what NSA had told Congress about its inability to keep close track on the extent to which it inadvertently collects information about messages sent by Americans.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and Paul Simao)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Esther Williams, whose experiences as a young swimming champion led to a career of Hollywood "aqua-musicals" designed just for her, died on Thursday in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 91, her spokesman said.

Williams, one of the biggest box-office stars of the 1940s and 1950s, died peacefully in her sleep and had been in declining health due to old age, spokesman Harlan Boll said.

Williams became known as "Hollywood's Mermaid" and "The Queen of the Surf." At her peak, the woman with the wide smile and bright eyes was second in earnings only to Betty Grable and often in the top 10 box-office draws.

Williams' aqua-musicals were escapist comedies in lush color, with lavish song and watery dance numbers and lots of footage of synchronized swimming. They were so popular that some credited her with a jump in the popularity of home swimming pools.

A typical finale featured Williams diving into a pool or lagoon and surfacing to a crescendo of music with waterdrops glistening on her smiling face and sleek body.

She dismissed her talent, saying "I can't act, I can't sing, I can't dance. My pictures are put together out of scraps they find in the producer's wastebasket."

But after watching the films decades later, she softened that self-deprecating assessment, saying: "I look at that girl and I like her. I can see why she became popular with audiences. There was an unassuming quality about her. She was certainly wholesome."

Williams was born in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood on August 8, 1921. As a young swimmer, she set what were then world records in the 100-meter freestyle and 880-yard relay. She also worked as a model.

With future "Tarzan" star Johnny Weissmuller, Williams began appearing in Billy Rose's Aquacade live water shows, where she attracted the attention of MGM movie executives. She married pre-med student Leonard Kovner and turned down movie offers for a year.

WARTIME PINUP TO 'BATHING BEAUTY'

Williams eventually signed with MGM but begged out of her first planned job, a straight acting role opposite Clark Gable, claiming she was unprepared.

Williams hit the water in her first film, "Andy Hardy's Double Life" (1942) but stayed out of it for "A Guy Named Joe" (1943), the first of five movies she made opposite Van Johnson.

It was the pool - and wartime pinup pictures of her in bathing suits - that made her popular. She returned to the water for "Bathing Beauty" (1944) and "Ziegfeld Follies (1946), both of which featured Williams in water ballets. In "Thrill of a Romance" (1945), the basic plot of most of her movies was established as she played a swimming instructor who falls in love.

Her out-of-the-water roles were generally less successful. "Wet, she is a star," comic Fanny Brice once said. "Dry, she ain't."

As the public's fascination with water sports slipped and Williams moved into more dramatic roles, her popularity fell.

In 1945, a year after divorcing her first husband, she married Benjamin Cage, a former radio announcer who was influential in establishing an Esther Williams line of bathing suits, swimming pools, restaurants and other commercial ventures. She had three children with Cage before they divorced.

In 1961 she co-starred with Fernando Lamas in the circus movie "The Big Show" and they were married in 1969. She wrote in her autobiography, "The Million Dollar Mermaid," that Lamas was so controlling that he refused to let her children come to their house.

Lamas died in 1982 and Williams married actor Edward Bell in 1994.

In her later career, Williams did a few 1960s television specials and hosted swimming events for ABC-TV's coverage of the 1984 Olympic Games.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Andrew Hay and Sofina Mirza-Reid)

Back on the ice just three days after their heart-stopping Game Seven overtime win over the Detroit Red Wings, the Blackhawks had to come from behind to beat the Kings, last year's Stanley Cup champions.

The Kings, who were also taken to seven games in their semi-final with San Jose, snatched the lead in the first period despite being heavily outplayed.

Justin Williams scored against the run of play, grabbing a loose puck and sending it past Chicago goalie Corey Crawford.

The Blackhawks, who won the Presidents' Trophy for having the best record in the regular season, tied the game early in the second period.

Patrick Sharp, who has scored a league best eight goals during the playoffs, reacted quickly to score from a shot by Chicago's Johnny Oduya that rebounded off the pads of Jonathan Quick.

The LA netminder made 34 saves but gave up two goals in four minutes in the second period, the first by Sharp then the second by defenseman Marian Hossa.

Crawford turned away 21 shots for the Blackhawks, who host Game Two of the best-of-seven series on Sunday.

The Western Conference winner will play either Boston or Pittsburgh for the Stanley Cup.

(Reporting by Julian Linden; Editing by Patrick Johnston)

CHICAGO (Reuters) - In his first few weeks as head of the melanoma group at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center seven years ago, a young man walked into Dr. Gary Schwartz's office with a rare form of the skin cancer that affects the eye.

"It was horrible. He died of metastatic disease. He was only 24. I promised him I would find a way to cure his cancer," recalls the physician-scientist of the patient who helped inspire his quest to find an effective treatment for uveal melanoma, which affects 2,000 to 3,000 patients each year.

Researchers from Memorial-Sloan Kettering on Saturday reported results of the first clinical trial ever to show that a drug helped patients with advanced uveal melanoma at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Meeting in Chicago.

The mid-stage clinical trial led by Dr. Richard Carvajal, Schwartz's colleague, found that an experimental drug from AstraZeneca called selumetinib shrank tumors in half of all treated patients and doubled progression-free survival, a measurement of the amount of time a medicine controls cancer before it starts to grow again.

"This represents the first real victory in medical oncology for patients with uveal melanoma," said Schwartz, who is chief of the New York hospital's melanoma and sarcoma service.

Melanoma of the eye is far different from other forms of the deadly skin cancer, and attempts to treat it in the past have largely failed. Out of a total of 157 patients treated in eight different prior clinical trials, only two patients had significant tumor shrinkage.

Like skin melanoma, uveal melanoma is caused by specialized, pigment cells called melanocytes, but biologically it is "completely distinct from skin melanoma," Carvajal said in a telephone interview. "Nothing has ever been shown to help patients with metastatic uveal melanoma before," he said.

Most patients are diagnosed with early stage disease, and treatments range from radiation and surgery to remove the tumor to full removal of the eye. In spite of these efforts, the disease spreads to other organs in about half of patients, giving them an expected survival of nine to 12 months.

About 90 percent of patients with this cancer have mutations in genes called Gnaq and Gna11. Through work in Schwartz's lab, researchers discovered that these mutations trigger a known cancer pathway called MAP kinase that helps feed the cancer.

Schwartz and Carvajal began looking for ways to shut down this growth driver using drugs under development that block different aspects of this pathway. Selumetinib, which blocks a protein called MEK, appeared to work.

"We showed if you take a cell with the mutation and drop this drug in there, you can actually prevent the cell from growing," Schwartz said.

HUMAN TRIALS

But would it work in people?

After several attempts to gain funding for a clinical trial, Schwartz and colleagues won a grant from the National Cancer Institute through a program that makes drugs available for testing.

But that still left it up to Schwartz, Carvajal and colleagues to raise the more than $1 million to pay for the cost of running the clinical trial. For this, they turned to a fundraising program called Cycle for Survival that supports research on rare cancers and was started by one of Schwartz's former patients.

For the clinical trial, the researchers enrolled 98 patients with advanced melanoma of the eye. About half of the patients got selumetinib and the other half got temozolomide or Temodar, a standard chemotherapy that is used in skin melanoma. Patients whose tumors got worse on the chemotherapy were given the option of crossing over to the selumetinib arm of the study.

Half of the patients treated with selumetinib had tumor shrinkage, with 15 percent achieving major tumor shrinkage, compared with no tumor shrinkage in the chemotherapy group.

The average time it took for the disease to progress was 15.9 weeks in the selumetinib-treated patients, compared with seven weeks in the temozolomide arm.

Tim Turnham, executive director of the Melanoma Research Foundation, said the results are encouraging in a group of patients who have no other options. "Finally, something is having some kind of impact, and you can build on that," he said.

The research is still early, and it may be years before a treatment becomes commercially available. But Carvajal said he hopes patients can benefit from clinical trials until then.

The team is working with AstraZeneca on plans for a follow-up study to confirm the findings for selumetinib, which the company has been studying as a treatment thyroid and lung cancer. That study will open this fall.

And they are also working with GlaxoSmithKline and the National Cancer Institute to study their MEK inhibitor, called Mekinist, or trametinib, which won approval this week for treatment of advanced melanoma.

The team wants to combine Mekinist with an experimental Glaxo treatment that blocks a different protein called Akt based on studies in Schwartz's lab that show the combination may be even more effective at halting tumor growth.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Lisa Shumaker)

DUBLIN, Ohio (Reuters) - Tiger Woods had plenty of fun playing with good friend Fred Couples in Thursday's opening round of the Memorial Tournament, but was frustrated after failing to capitalizes on good ball-striking in tough conditions.

While PGA Tour veteran Couples surprised himself with his own good play on lightning-fast greens that became increasingly bumpy for the late starters, Woods had to settle for a one-under-par 71 after mixing five birdies with four bogeys.

"It was probably the highest score I could have shot today," five-times Memorial champion Woods told reporters after launching his title defense with a total of 30 putts on a hot, muggy and breezy afternoon at Muirfield Village Golf Club.

"Didn't capitalize on a few opportunities I had. Short irons, I didn't hit them close enough. All in all it was a pretty high score.

"But I played a lot better than my score indicates. Hopefully tomorrow I can clean up, make a few more putts and get a roll."

Woods, who has clinched four victories in just seven starts on the 2013 PGA Tour, is considered one of the best putters of all time but he struggled on greens he described as "a little crusty and a little bumpy".

He added: "I just didn't make anything today. I thought I hit good putts. I misread a couple pretty badly.

"Chipping is tough around here. You've got to leave it in the correct spots. I left all my chip shots on the correct spots where I had uphill putts coming for the next one.

"And unfortunately I didn't bury those," added Woods, who was six shots behind leader Charl Schwartzel of South Africa.

BEATEN BY COUPLES

Asked what he thought of the five-birdie 70 carded by the 53-year-old Couples, who will captain the U.S. Presidents Cup team against the Internationals in October at Muirfield Village, Woods smiled: "Yeah, kicked my ass."

Overall, though, Woods thoroughly enjoyed being grouped with former Masters champion Couples and fellow American Keegan Bradley, who also opened with a 71.

"We had a good time," said Woods, a 14-times major winner. "We had our spells when we were having a lot of fun and had spells when it got a little quiet out there.

"I made a few mistakes, so did Keegs. It had its moments."

Couples, champion here in 1998, was delighted with his round after playing no competitive golf for a month since he tied for fourth in the Liberty Mutual Insurance Legends of Golf in Savannah, Georgia on the over-50s Champions Tour.

"I was not expecting 70," the laid-back Couples beamed. "I'm not going to lie to anyone. But I'm thrilled. I've not been playing any golf. I skipped last week.

"To be honest, I sent him (Woods) a text and said, 'Do you really want me in this group? I've played no golf.' You're nervous playing with him.

"But I was more nervous, because I've not played since Savannah with Jay Haas and I didn't play well there, so to go through all that ... but I did beat him (Woods)," he added with a laugh.

Couples, who has played just four times on the Champions Tour and twice on the PGA Tour this season, outlined the strategy he usually adopts when paired with Woods in competition.

"My goal when I play with him always is to try to hit it solid and stay out of his way," he said.

"And today was a good one. I've putted extremely well and I look forward to playing tomorrow."

(Editing by Greg Stutchbury)

PARIS (Reuters) - After fickle Parisian weather and the exploits of a French heroine kept Novak Djokovic waiting to make his bow at Roland Garros on Tuesday, the world number one began his quest to complete his grand slam collection in style with victory over David Goffin. Home favorite Marian Bartoli saved two match points in a rain-interrupted three-hour triumph against Olga Govortsova, rewarding the patience of the fans who sat huddled under grey November-like skies for much of the day.

Hawks name Spurs assistant Budenholzer as new head coach

(Reuters) - Mike Budenholzer paid his dues during a long apprenticeship with one of the NBA's most successful franchises and the hard work paid off as he was named head coach of the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday. Budenholzer, 43, spent the last 17 seasons with the San Antonio Spurs as an assistant coach, serving the last six years as the top assistant to coach Gregg Popovich, who has taken the Spurs to four National Basketball Association (NBA) titles.

Beckham to visit Miami in quest for MLS team ownership

MIAMI (Reuters) - Former England captain David Beckham will visit Miami this week as he steps up his interest in owning a new Major League Soccer (MLS) team. Beckham, who played for L.A. Galaxy in the MLS, has an option to create a new franchise in the North American league.

NBA board approves sale of Kings basketball team to local investors

(Reuters) - The National Basketball Association's Board of Governors on Tuesday unanimously approved the sale of the Sacramento Kings to a California investor group, effectively ending a tug-of-war with competing potential bidders, one of whom had hoped to move the team to Seattle, a league official said. The deal to sell a majority stake in the team to investors led by tech developer and philanthropist Vivek Ranadive followed months of wrangling between Seattle-based investors who wanted the team to replace its beloved Seattle SuperSonics franchise lost in 2008, and California investors who wanted it to stay put.

Nike drops partnership with Lance Armstrong-founded charity

(Reuters) - Nike Inc is dropping its partnership with Livestrong Foundation, the cancer charity founded by disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, the latest repercussion from the doping scandal that last year stripped him of his titles. Nike said on Tuesday it would end production of its Livestrong gear and apparel after the holiday 2013 line, concluding a long-standing licensing agreement for footwear and apparel between the two that helped Livestrong raise a total of $100 million over the course of the partnership.

Djokovic too strong for young shot-maker Goffin

PARIS (Reuters) - Novak Djokovic showed glimpses of frailty along with his usual ruthless streak as he eased past French Open opponent David Goffin on Tuesday by moving through the gears whenever the first-round tie looked like getting tricky. Djokovic wrapped up a 7-6(5) 6-4 7-5 win in a little over two hours, but was frequently under pressure against an opponent who played without fear and showcased an attacking armory that belied his lowly ranking.

2014 Draft set for May 8-10, future dates uncertain

(Reuters) - The National Football League's (NFL) 2014 Draft will be held May 8-10 at Radio City Music Hall, two weeks later than its usual slot due to a scheduling conflict with the landmark New York City theater. No decision has been made regarding dates of the NFL Draft in 2015 and beyond, the NFL said in a statement on Tuesday.

Tomic stands by father and coach after French Open defeat

PARIS (Reuters) - Bernard Tomic's father accompanied his son to Paris despite being barred from attending any events sanctioned by the governing bodies of tennis, the Australian said on Tuesday. After losing in the first round of the French Open, Tomic stood by his dad John who faces a court case for assaulting his son's former practice partner Frenchman Thomas Drouet earlier this month in Madrid.

Three arrested after death of Dutch volleyball player

MADRID (Reuters) - Three men have been arrested on suspicion of murdering former Dutch Olympic volleyball player Ingrid Visser and her partner in what Spanish police believe may be a business-related incident. Visser, 35, and her partner Lodewijk Severein, 57, were reported missing on May 17, the Spanish police said in a statement. Two bodies fitting the descriptions of the couple were found in a shallow grave in a lemon grove outside Murcia on Sunday.

American young gun aiming to sock it to Haas

PARIS (Reuters) - While evergreen Tommy Haas was striking another blow for the over-30s on Tuesday, a few courts away at the French Open American Jack Sock, 15 years his junior, was crushing a seasoned Spanish professional with a display of pure youthful exuberance. When they meet in round two it will truly be a clash of the generations.

In all the photos, taken by New York City artist Arne Svenson from his second-floor apartment, the faces are obscured or not shown. The people are unidentifiable.

But the residents of a glass-walled luxury residential building across the street had no idea they were being photographed and they never consented to being subjects for the works of art that are now on display and for sale in a Manhattan gallery.

"I don't feel it's a violation in a legal sense but in a New York, personal sense there was a line crossed," said Michelle Sylvester, who lives in the residential building called the Zinc Building, which stands out with its floor-to-ceiling windows in a neighborhood of cobblestone streets and old, brick warehouse buildings.

Svenson's apartment is directly across the street, just to the south, giving him a clear view of his neighbors by simply looking out his window.

"I think there's an understanding that when you live here with glass windows, there will be straying eyes but it feels different with someone who has a camera," Sylvester said.

Svenson's show, "The Neighbors," opened last Saturday at the Julie Saul Gallery in Chelsea, where about a dozen large prints are on sale for up to $7,500. His exhibit is drawing a lot of attention, not for the quality of the work, but for the manner in which it was made.

Svenson did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, but says in material accompanying the exhibit that the idea for it came when he inherited a telephoto lens from a friend, a birdwatcher who recently died.

"For my subjects there is no question of privacy; they are performing behind a transparent scrim on a stage of their own creation with the curtain raised high," Svenson says in the gallery notes. "The Neighbors don't know they are being photographed; I carefully shoot from the shadows of my home into theirs."

That explanation has done little to satisfy some residents of the Zinc Building, where a penthouse was once listed at nearly $6 million. In an email circulating among the building's owners and renters this week, a resident whose apartment was depicted in Svenson's photographs suggested legal recourse against the artist.

"I am not an expert in this area of the law, but I do think we may have some rights and the ability to stop this," the email reads. "I love art, but find this to be an outrageous invasion of privacy."

Civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel said that according to New York civil rights law, there may be a way for Svenson's subjects to challenge him in court but the case will depend entirely on context.

"The question for the person who's suing is, if you're not identifiable, then where's the loss of privacy?" he said. "These issues are a sign of the times. How do you balance the right of privacy vis--vis the right of artistic expression?"

Linda Darcia, an exchange student from Colombia living with a family on the sixth floor facing Svenson's studio, said she had no idea whether or not she was depicted in any of the pieces but she was anxious to go to the gallery and find out.

"I'm not really upset about it because that's his job," she said. "But maybe he should have asked before the gallery opens. Everybody's talking about it."

The Dow Jones industrial average is on track to advance for a sixth straight month. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is set to gain for a seventh straight month, its longest winning streak since 2009.

On Friday, there was both encouraging and disappointing news on the economy.

Stock indexes started the day lower after the government reported that Americans cut back on spending. They were moving between small gains and losses in afternoon trading Friday.

Consumer spending fell 0.2 percent in April, the first decline since last May, the Commerce Department said early Friday. That news was offset by a report released later showing that a measure of U.S. consumer confidence jumped to the highest level in almost six years in May, lifted by rising home prices and record-high stock prices.

The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index rose to 84.5 in May, up from 76.4 in April and the highest since July 2007. Investors are hoping that increasingly confident consumers will step up their spending, which would contribute to U.S. economic growth.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down six points, or 0.04 percent, to 15,318 as of 2:09 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down three at 1,651, or 0.2 percent. The Nasdaq composite lost less than a point to 3,491.

In government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.19 percent from 2.12 percent late Thursday. The yield has risen by half a percentage point since the start of the month and is the highest it's been since April 2012.

Rates have risen on concern that the Federal Reserve is considering easing back on its purchases of $85 billion in bonds every month.

The sharp rise in Treasury yields could be trouble for the market if it continues unabated, said David Bianco, chief U.S. equity strategist at Deutsche Bank. The yields on Treasury notes are benchmarks for setting interest rates on many kinds of loans to consumers and businesses. If they rise quickly, lending rates would rise too, holding back the economy by discouraging borrowing and spending.

"I'm not bearish, but I'm a little bit cautious," Bianco said.

The Dow is up 3.3 percent this month and is on track to record its first gain in May since 2009. The S&P 500 index has risen by 3.5 percent.

The S&P 500 has only fallen in one month, October, over the last year.

The "Sell in May" tactic is part of the Stock Trader's Almanac's "Best Six Months" strategy, which recommends investing in the Dow between Nov. 1 and April 30 each year and then switching into fixed income for the remainder of the year.

The Dow rose an average of 7.5 percent between November and April between 1950 and 2011, according to this year's Almanac. The average gain over the six-month period from May 1 to Oct. 31 was only 0.3 percent.

In commodities trading, oil fell 77 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $92.84 a barrel, close to its lowest in a month, after OPEC oil ministers said they would keep their output targets steady. Gold fell $17.30 to $1,395 an ounce, a decline of 1.2 percent.

Among stocks making big moves:

Lions Gate Entertainment rose $1.51, or 5.3 percent, to $19.52. The company reported net income that topped Wall Street's expectations as it benefited from home video sales of the finale to its hit franchise "Twilight."

Palo Alto Networks fell $5.38, or 10 percent, to $48.97 after the network security company posted a quarterly loss and predicted lower profit and revenue in the current quarter than analysts were expecting.

OmniVision Technologies, a maker of mobile camera sensors, jumped $3.22, or 21 percent, to $18.72. The company reported that its net income doubled in its fourth fiscal quarter as revenue rose sharply.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- Chinese hackers stole the blueprints of Australia's new spy agency headquarters years ago and the breach has been dealt with since then, an opposition lawmaker said Wednesday in the first confirmation of media reports.

"These events did take place some time ago," senior opposition lawmaker George Brandis told Sky News television after a confidential briefing with Australian Security Intelligence Organization officials.

"I can say this is a very serious matter; ASIO has dealt with it; beyond that I'm not sure that there's a lot I can say," he added.

The 630 million Australian dollar ($608 million) building housing the headquarters of Australia's main spy agency is near completion in the national capital.

Australian Broadcasting Corp. television had reported on Monday night that a cyberattack on a building contractor exposed plans such as communications cabling, server locations and security systems and was traced to a Chinese server.

The government has refused to discuss specifics on the matter. When Prime Minister Julia Gillard told Parliament the ABC report was "inaccurate" on Tuesday, she refused to go into any detail.

Brandis later demanded and got a confidential briefing with ASIO Director-General David Irvine. And while he wouldn't discuss what was said, he disputed Gillard's statement.

"She said the allegations are false; that claim is wrong," Brandis said.

The government responded by criticizing Brandis for discussing in the media a confidential security briefing.

The ABC reported that China could use the blueprints to bug the building.

Des Ball, an Australian National University cybersecurity expert, told the ABC that given the breach, ASIO would either have to operate with "utmost sensitivity" within its own building or simply "rip the whole insides out and ... start again."

But The Australian newspaper reported on Wednesday that the plans were stolen at least three years ago and the agency's operations were no longer at risk.

In an unsourced report, the newspaper said the breach occurred in 2009 or 2010. Although construction began in 2008, the discovery of the breach meant that ASIO had the opportunity to alter the designs of the building to reduce the risk of espionage.

The lakeside glass and concrete structure was to be completed in 2012, but has faced construction delays and cost blowouts since it was initially budgeted to cost AU$460 million.

Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, the minister in charge of the spy agency, said ASIO will move in this year.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China opposed hacking in any form and questioned what evidence the ABC report relied on.

"Since it is technically untraceable, it is very difficult to find the source and identify the hacker," Hong said. "Therefore we have no idea what is the evidence for their report in which they make the claim with such certainty."

He said countries needed to cooperate to fight hacking. "Groundless accusations won't solve the problem," Hong said.

ASIO has grown rapidly since the al-Qaida attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and needs the new headquarters to house its growing staff that has trebled to almost 1,800 in a decade.

____

AP researcher Zhao Liang contributed to this report from Beijing.