The 30-year-old Russian's decision to retire from the NHL came as a surprise since he will be leaving behind a reported $77 million from the $100 million contract he signed in 2010.

"After many conversations with Ilya over the past year on his desire to retire from the National Hockey League, Ilya's decision became official today," Devils General Manager Lou Lamoriello said in a statement.

"On behalf of the entire organization, I wish Ilya and his family all the best in their future endeavors."

Taken with the first pick in the 2001 draft by the Atlanta Thrashers, Kovalchuk quickly established himself has one of the league's top scoring threats. He twice topped 50 goals in a season and on four other occasions potted more than 40.

Over 11 NHL seasons with Atlanta and New Jersey, the three time All-Star collected 816 points (417 goals, 399 assists) in 816 games.

Kovalchuk claimed the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy as the NHL's leading goal scorer with 41 tallies in the 2003-04 season but never won a Stanley Cup.

He spent part of last season in Russia playing in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) while NHL owners and players battled over a new collective bargaining agreement.

When a new deal was in place Kovalchuk returned to the Devils for the shortened season but had expressed interest in returning to play in Russia.

It is speculated that Kovalchuk will sign with a KHL club and he is expected to be a member of the Russian Olympic team at next year's Sochi Winter Games.

"This decision was something I have thought about for a long time going back to the lockout and spending the year in Russia," Kovalchuk, who has played in three Olympics for Russia and eight world championships, said in a statement.

"Though I decided to return this past season, Lou was aware of my desire to go back home and have my family there with me.

"The most difficult thing for me is to leave the New Jersey Devils, a great organization that I have a lot of respect for and our fans that have been great to me."

(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto; Editing by Frank Pingue)

Dow Jones Industrial futures are up 131 points at 15,374. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 futures are up 16 points at 1,665. Nasdaq futures are up 27 points at 3,024.

Bernanke said Wednesday that the U.S. needs low interest rates and other economic support "for the foreseeable future." That reassured investors dismayed by Bernanke's comments last month that the Fed would likely slow its bond purchases this year.

Commodities were also big gainers. Oil touched its highest price in more than a year, above $107 per barrel before easing.

Later Thursday, investors will be watching reports on weekly claims for unemployment benefits and reports from select retailers on June sales.

Minutes of their June 18-19 policy meeting show many of the 19 officials felt the job market's gains would have to be sustained before the Fed would scale back its bond purchases, which have helped support spending and growth, lifted stocks and kept mortgage rates near record lows.

Many thought the purchases should extend into 2014, according to a summary of economic forecasts that are released with the minutes.

Still, several thought a slowdown in purchases could start soon.

And one faction backed an aggressive timetable: According to a summary of economic forecasts released with the minutes, about half the "participants" favored ending the bond purchases late this year months earlier than Chairman Ben Bernanke has indicated. Participants include voting and non-voting officials on the Fed's policy committee.

The divisions revealed Wednesday reflect the difficulty investors have had deciphering the Fed's intentions. Bernanke has carved out a measured stance: At a news conference last month, he said the Fed would likely slow its bond purchases later this year and end them around mid-2014 if the economy continued to strengthen. The Fed has been buying $85 billion in Treasury and mortgage bonds each month since late last year.

Most investors and analysts interpreted Bernanke's remarks to mean the Fed would likely announce after its September meeting that it will scale back its bond buying.

Many Fed officials favor Bernanke's approach. But the minutes were a reminder that some officials feel Bernanke's timetable for slowing the bond buying is too cautious.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Bernanke said the economy still needs support from the Fed's low-rate policies. Speaking in Cambridge, Mass., to the National Bureau of Economic Research, Bernanke noted that unemployment remains high and that higher taxes and federal spending cuts are weighing on growth.

It was Bernanke's latest effort to stress to investors that even after the Fed has begun to slow its bond purchases, it will continue to stimulate the economy.

For one thing, the Fed plans to keep its investment holdings constant to avoid causing long-term rates to rise too quickly. It also plans to keep short-term rates at record lows at least until unemployment slides to 6.5 percent. And Bernanke has said 6.5 percent unemployment is a threshold, not a trigger: The Fed might decide to keep its benchmark short-term rate near zero even after unemployment falls that low.

Some analysts think the Fed, in the end, will back the chairman's notion of slowing its bond purchases later this year if the outlook for the economy continues to strengthen.

The minutes suggest that a slowdown in the bond buying in September "is not quite a done deal," said Michael Hanson, U.S. economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. "For a taper in September, we may still need to see some more improvement in the economy."

Yet even the analysts differ. Dana Saporta, an economist at Credit Suisse, said she still thinks the Fed will start pulling back its purchases in September.

The jobs report for June, which was released Friday, "went at least some way towards satisfying those who were looking for more improvement in labor market conditions," Saporta said.

Unless the economic data significantly worsen in July and August, "it seems like most Fed officials expect tapering to begin in September," she said.

Employers added 195,000 jobs in June, and revisions showed that another 70,000 jobs were added in the previous two months. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.6 percent.

Fed members also struggled at last month's meeting over how best to convey the Fed's thinking about its timetable for bond purchases, the minutes showed.

Some wanted to explain it in the post-meeting statement. Others felt the statement might be misinterpreted. In the end, most participants thought Bernanke should lay out the Fed's thinking in his news conference and stress that any pullback in bond purchases would depend on the economic outlook.

Bernanke stressed at the news conference last month that if the economy weakens, the Fed wouldn't hesitate to step up its bond purchases again. Still, stocks and bonds plunged after his remarks, and interest rates surged.

Several Fed members helped steady stock markets in the days that followed by noting that any pullback in bond buying would hinge on the economy's health, not a target date. Stocks have since regained most of their losses, in part because of encouraging data about the job market and corporate earnings.

Ultra-low rates have encouraged more Americans to buy homes and cars, helped support the economy and cheered the stock market. Investors worried that once the Fed starts scaling back its bond buying, home loans would start to cost more, corporations would pay more to borrow and bond investors would be squeezed.

But steady job gains have raised the likelihood that the Fed will announce after its September meeting that it's reducing its bond purchases.

Still, economic growth has been subpar. The economy grew at an annual rate of just 1.8 percent in the January-March quarter. Economists think growth stayed below a 2 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter. If so, it would mark a third straight quarter of weak growth.

Most think growth will pick up in the second half of the year but stay around 2 percent for the year.

The Fed's forecasts are rosier: It predicts growth of 2.3 percent to 2.6 percent this year and more than 3 percent in 2014. It also expects unemployment to fall as low as 7.2 percent by the end of this year and as low as 6.5 percent by the end of 2014.

Many analysts think the Fed could begin slowing its bond purchases from $85 billion a month to around $65 billion in September and gradually shrink them before ending them by next summer. That would likely happen, though, only if the job market and the economy continued to strengthen. Bernanke has said the bond-buying would end when the unemployment rate would be around 7 percent. It's now 7.6 percent.

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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Alzheimer's experts are set to protest after Medicare issued draft guidelines last week saying it would only pay for an Eli Lilly and Co diagnostic test for the disease if patients were taking part in clinical trials for it.

Both Lilly and the Alzheimer's Association have released statements expressing disappointment with the decision by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which cited "insufficient" evidence that the tests improve patient care.

The agency that runs Medicare did cite evidence that the tests may be of use to rule out Alzheimer's in certain difficult-to-diagnose cases and to help identify patients who would be good candidates for clinical trials seeking better treatments or prevention strategies for the disease.

Patient advocates and the company say the decision might slow the development of future diagnostic tests for Alzheimer's and deny patients with symptoms the chance to find out whether they have Alzheimer's or some other disease that causes symptoms of dementia.

Several experts admit there is still much to learn about what a positive scan might mean, and say CMS's decision to cover only scans used in clinical trials may help in the search for treatments for the fatal, brain-wasting disease that affects 5 million Americans and 38 million people worldwide.

HINDERING TIMELY DIAGNOSIS

Lilly's compound, known as Amyvid, has already been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but Medicare reimbursement is seen as critical for the company because most people begin showing signs of dementia around age 65, the age when Medicare coverage kicks in.

"Restricting coverage could hinder a timely and accurate diagnosis," said Dr. Daniel Skovronsky, president and chief executive of Avid Radiopharmaceuticals Inc, a Lilly subsidiary, adding that "it may stifle future innovation."

In addition to Lilly, the draft guidance could affect a similar imaging agent being developed by General Electric Co's GE Healthcare called flutemetamol now under review by regulators in the United States and Europe. Both are radioactive tracers designed to light up deposits of an Alzheimer's-related protein called beta amyloid when used in conjunction with brain scans known as positron emission tomography, or PET.

Instead of agreeing to routinely pay for the $3,000 test, CMS proposed "Coverage with Evidence Development," a designation that suggests there are still gaps in the evidence over the benefits of the test. Using this designation allows the agency to gather more data by paying for scans in patients taking part in clinical trials. Once those are completed, CMS could use the data to render a decision on coverage.

"Essentially, they acknowledge that there is the possibly that coverage is important, but they don't understand it quite yet," said Maria Carrillo, vice president of medical and scientific Relations at the Alzheimer's Association, which strongly disagrees with the proposal. The decision is still subject to change before the final rule goes into effect in October.

Carrillo said prior to the decision, the Alzheimer's Association and the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging sent CMS a report detailing the limited circumstances under which the test would be appropriate, such as helping to rule out dementia caused by a condition known as frontotemporal dementia - which involves shrinking of the frontal and temporal lobes - or Alzheimer's disease.

She said she expects patients and the Alzheimer's research community to give CMS a lot of feedback on its draft document in the hopes of winning coverage in the final ruling, expected in October.

Lilly said it stands by its request for coverage of the tests in the appropriate patients.

WHAT DOES A POSITIVE SCAN MEAN?

Dr. Sam Gandy, associate director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said the decision walks a fine line between the strengths of the test and its weaknesses.

"I think CMS found a way to do something truly constructive while holding back what will undoubtedly be a tsunami of worried well who, if they had access to amyloid scans, would find that they have amyloid in their brains that is largely asymptomatic," he said.

"They would have no idea if or when their brains would begin to curdle in response to the amyloid, setting them on the road to dementia," Gandy said.

Gandy pointed to a recent study by Dr. Steven DeKosky of the University of Virginia and Dr. Oscar Lopez of the University of Pittsburgh, which suggested the tests were a poor predictor of whether people over 85 will develop Alzheimer's disease.

The study, which is ongoing, showed that more than half of cognitively normal individuals aged 85 and older who had beta amyloid deposits in their brains remained cognitively normal two years later.

Lilly, in its statement, says its test was not designed to predict whether Alzheimer's would develop, only to rule out Alzheimer's in patients with difficult diagnoses. A negative scan for the presence of beta amyloid would be a sign for doctors to look for other potential causes of dementia.

That still leaves the problem of what to tell patients who have a positive scan, said Dr. Ronald Petersen, an Alzheimer's expert at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

In someone with a precursor condition to Alzheimer's known as mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, a positive scan may mean a higher risk of advancing to Alzheimer's more quickly than a negative scan would indicate, he said. "The data are accumulating, but I don't know if they are there yet," he added.

At Mayo, Petersen is conducting a study of thousands of cognitively normal people to try to answer the question, "What does a positive scan mean in a normal person who is 50, 60 and 70 years old?"

Currently no treatments can prevent Alzheimer's, but as companies work on new drugs, having tests that identify the disease will be essential, DeKosky said.

"One of the reasons for trying to do these studies now is to know what we will actually do once we have drugs that will make a difference," he said.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; editing by Prudence Crowther)

Speaking to a news conference, Luc Bourdon, director-general of rail safety, said engineers must perform a push-pull test with a locomotive to ensure the train cannot move.

Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway officials have said handbrakes were applied on the train that rolled driverless into Lac-Megantic, Quebec on the weekend, leaving 50 people confirmed dead or still missing.

(Reporting by Scott Haggett; Editing by Gary Hill)

The prospect of continued monetary stimulus helped offset worries earlier in the week of a Chinese slowdown, European debt woes re-emerging and disruption of energy markets due to the military ouster of Egypt's president.

Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan markets posted the biggest gains in Asia. Most of the region's other major indexes were also in positive territory after the European Central Bank kept its policy interest rate at a record low to combat a persistent recession. ECB President Mario Draghi said the rate will remain there "for an extended period of time." European markets were moderately higher after sizeable gains the day before.

The European statement plus indications that the U.S. economy is growing but probably not fast enough for the U.S. Federal Reserve to rush into tapering off its purchases of $85 billion in bonds each month to keep interest rates low boosted markets that had been spooked in recent weeks at the prospect of such stimulus ending.

"It's been a wild ride over recent weeks, but market volatility is set to ease as markets undergo an eventually successful transition to Fed tapering," Credit Agricole analysts said in a market commentary. They said that while overall Asian growth appeared to have slowed in early 2013, regional powerhouse China should "gradually re-accelerate" in the second half of the year.

In early European trading, Britain's FTSE 100 was up 0.2 percent to 6,437.17 and Germany's DAX added 0.1 percent to 8,003.18. France's CAC-40 dropped 0.3 percent to 3,798.88.

Futures augured gains on Wall Street after the Independence Day holiday. Dow futures climbed 0.9 percent to 15,053 and S&P 500 futures gained by the same percentage to 1,623.50.

In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 closed up 2.1 percent to 14,309.97 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 1.9 percent to 20,854.67. Taipei's TAIEX jumped 1.4 percent to 8,001.82.

Sydney's S&P/ASX 200 edged up 1 percent to 4,841.70 and China's Shanghai Composite posted a small gain of 0.1 percent to 2,007.29.

Seoul's KOSPI was in negative territory, edging down 0.3 percent to 1,833.31 after shares of Samsung Electronic fell nearly 4 percent on disappointment its quarterly operating profit failed to meet expectations. The company estimated April-June earnings at a record high 9.5 trillion won ($8.3 billion) but that was below analysts' forecasts and investors are worried profit growth could slow as smartphone sales in rich nations reach a saturation point.

"There is some market shock from the Samsung results," said strategist Kang Hyun-cheol of Woori Investment & Securities.

Investors were waiting for a U.S. government jobs report due Friday. Earlier in the week, Wall Street rallied after ADP, a payrolls processor, said that businesses added more jobs last month than analysts had expected. If the U.S. government confirms that Friday, it offers hope that the American recovery is continuing.

Economists predict that the government will report that employers added 165,000 jobs last month, roughly in line with May's increase. The unemployment rate is expected to stay at a still-high 7.6 percent. Another solid month of hiring in June could signal the start of a stronger second half of the year for the U.S. economy.

Benchmark crude for August delivery was down 7 cents at $101.18 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.2874 from $1.2902. The dollar fell to 100.05 yen from 100.23 yen late Thursday.

Gas for Friday delivery was trading 0.60 pence lower at 64.55 pence per therm at 0737 GMT. Prices had been gaining ground over the past couple of weeks.

"The system opened long this morning, which is a bearish factor for (the within-day) contract and may pull down other NBP prompt prices," Point Carbon analysts said.

Oversupply was due to lower consumption, higher Norwegian exports as production at the Kollsnes gas processing plant resumed after a power failure and lower IUK pipeline exports, they added.

The British gas system was oversupplied by 6.4 million cubic metres (mcm) on Thursday, National Grid data showed.

Gas demand on Thursday was forecast at 156.4 mcm, below the seasonal norm of 206.8 mcm, as warm weather curbed central heating demand in many parts of the country.

Temperatures were expected to remain above 21 degrees Celsius for the remainder of the week, according to Britain's Met Office, with highs of 27 degrees on Sunday.

It forecast "a good deal of fine, dry and increasingly warm weather" over the next five-day period.

Conditions should remain fine, dry and settled across Britain over the next fortnight, it added.

"With LNG send outs from South Hook and BBL remaining reduced since July 1, the UK system needs medium-range storages to balance dampening the downward price movement," Point Carbon said.

On the power side, day-ahead baseload power fell 1.22 pounds to 47.13 pounds per megawatt hour.

EDF Energy restarted unit 8 at its Heysham nuclear power plant in the early hours of Thursday, after an unplanned outage, the company said.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; editing by James Jukwey)

Zanotti, three times a runner-up on tour, the last time at the 2012 Irish Open, shot his second 68 to finish six-under-par and ahead of a group that included 42-year-old Dane Thomas Bjorn.

Overnight leader Hansen, another 42-year-old Dane, dropped four shots in his first 11 holes, following up his 66 with a 78 and was two over along with former world number one Martin Kaymer of Germany, who carded a 76.

Zanotti, 30, ranked 391st in the world, had four birdies and a single bogey in his round at the testing Le Golf National course, venue for the 2018 Ryder Cup.

Defending champion Marcel Siem of Germany missed the cut and others who struggled were Luke Donald and Ian Poulter, the Britons both on two over. American Matt Kuchar was three over after a 75.

After fog delayed the start for an hour, one man in early contention was Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell. The former U.S. Open champion fired a second 69 to be four under.

McDowell, like many of the leading contenders warming up for the British Open at Muirfield this month, had missed the cut in five of his last six strokeplay events before this week.

"I'm playing this golf course the way it's supposed to be played - fairways and greens. Once you start hitting it off line it will punish you. I just have not got the putter revved up but I am well in touch and right where I need to be," McDowell said.

"It's been a rough couple of months for me. I've not been playing the kind of golf I'd like to and the key to this week was to come and get myself in the mix for the weekend and get some of the juices flowing again."

(Writing by Tony Goodson in London; Editing by John Mehaffey)

NUERBURGRING, Germany (Reuters) - There was no sign of the tyre blowouts which marred last weekend's British Grand Prix in Friday's two practice sessions in Germany with Lewis Hamilton and local hero Sebastian Vettel leading the way.

Hamilton, who won at the Nuerburgring two years ago with McLaren, topped the timesheets in the first session ahead of Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg while championship leader Vettel was only eighth fastest.

However, the German triple world champion, who has never won a Formula One race on home asphalt or in July, sped around the track with the day's top time of one minute 30.416 in the afternoon session.

Rosberg was second fastest again with a 1:30.651 as Mercedes were roared on by small pockets of home fans sprinkled among the half empty stands at the rural western German venue. Hamilton was only eighth fastest.

Red Bull's Mark Webber, preparing for his final German Grand Prix as he quits for endurance racing at the end of the season, was third quickest in both practice runs at the circuit where he took his first Formula One victory in 2009.

The Grand Prix Drivers' Association announced on Thursday that they will withdraw from Sunday's race if the multiple tyre blow-outs seen at Silverstone occur again but both practice sessions were free of incident.

After the intervention of the governing FIA, Pirelli has brought upgraded rear tyres to the Nuerburgring with an inner belt made of the synthetic fibre Kevlar rather than steel.

The cooler tyres were expected to aid Mercedes and Red Bull, based on this season's analysis, and practice bore that out.

The tyres are not totally new to the teams as Pirelli offered them for practice in Canada last month but bad weather meant teams used them sparingly and did not gather much data.

Practice in Germany also began under gloomy skies, which mirrored the mood of Spaniard Fernando Alonso after he ground to a halt just off the track in his first practice lap.

Ferrari said on Twitter that it was an electrical problem and the championship contender only managed one more lap before being recalled to the pits for further checks.

Alonso, 21 points behind Vettel after eight of 19 races, was able to take to the track normally second time around and was sixth quickest as he targets a first front row on the grid since the German Grand Prix at alternate host Hockenheim last year.

Hamilton edged out Sunday's Silverstone winner Rosberg in early practice with a time of 1:31.754 compared to 1:31.973 but the Briton's engineer reported DRS problems over the radio.

Third practice takes place before qualifying on Saturday.

Marussia's Venezuelan reserve driver Rodolfo Gonzalez was allowed to take Jules Bianchi's car for first practice and clocked 1:37.459 as the slowest out on track. Bianchi was back in the afternoon and was second slowest.