LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Don't worry about Paula Abdul; she's finding work. At least for one night.

Abdul, who exited Fox's "American Idol" and "The X Factor" amid shakeups to those show's judges' panels, has picked up a little temporary work via a one-night stand on yet another Fox competition series, "So You Think You Can Dance."

Abdul will guest-judge the series on Tuesday night, Fox said on Monday. Abdul will help critique the Top 18 finalists, a group that includes Jasmine Mason, Alan Bersten and Mariah Spears.(The latter, by the way, is not a human mash-up of former "American Idol" judge Mariah Carey and former "The X Factor" judge Britney Spears.)

Fox Sports personality Erin Andrews will also guest-judge the episode.

The police commander, Chief Constable Matt Baggott, took the unusual step of importing 630 police officers from England and Scotland to beef up his own 7,000-member force. The officers have already received Northern Ireland-specific riot training as part of their initial deployment to the British territory last month to provide security for the Group of Eight summit of world leaders.

Baggott said the reinforcements would be needed to help deter trouble Friday when the major British Protestant brotherhood, the Orange Order, mounts 550 parades in commemoration of a 17th century military victory over Irish Catholics. He said 43 parades, an unusually high number, would pass near potentially hostile Catholic areas.

Britain's Cabinet minister for Northern Ireland, Theresa Villiers, and the justice minister of Northern Ireland's unity government, David Ford, on Thursday met some of the officers tasked with keeping order on July 12, the most hallowed date on the Orange calendar. They both said police were confident of containing any street clashes and keeping extremists from both sides apart.

For more than two centuries, Orangemen have marched to commemorate July 12, 1690, when forces loyal to William of Orange, the newly crowned Protestant king of England, routed the army of the deposed Catholic king, James II, in a river valley south of Belfast. Orangemen march beneath banners portraying the British crown atop an open Bible and proclaim William as defender of their civil and religious liberty on what was then, and now, a mostly Catholic island.

Most Catholics loathe the marches as a Protestant effort to intimidate and insult them, a view underscored by the Orangemen's accompaniment on parade by so-called kick the pope bands of fife and drum playing a mixture of Gospel and sectarian tunes.

"People have a choice to make tomorrow. Violence is in no way inevitable," said Assistant Chief Constable Will Kerr, who is overseeing police operations in Belfast, where violence has followed the Twelfth parades every year since 2009.

Tensions rose before the traditional midnight start to the Protestant festivities: the lighting of towering bonfires decorated provocatively with Irish and Catholic symbols. Firefighters must contend with the toppling of recklessly tall bonfires on to nearby homes and also withstand assaults from the often-drunken mobs gathered near the fires.

A British government-appointed panel called the Parades Commission since 1997 has imposed restrictions on the path of Orange parades to keep conflict with Catholics to a minimum, but the effort faces no-win situations in the tight sectarian geography of Belfast, with its patchwork of Catholic and Protestant districts. Most trouble occurs when the Orangemen march from their central rallying point, a farm field south of the capital, back to their lodges in smaller evening parades on most major Belfast roads.

For the past four years, Irish republican extremists have clashed with police after Orangemen passed near Ardoyne, a traditional power base for the outlawed Irish Republican Army in north Belfast. The clashes typically have persisted for two or three nights and involved the burning of hijacked vehicles, the hurling of homemade grenades and bursts of gunfire from IRA members. More than 250 police officers have been injured in Twelfth-related Ardoyne violence since 2009.

The recurring violence has demonstrated how IRA splinter groups remain rooted in places like Ardoyne despite the 2005 decision of most IRA members to disarm and officially abandon their 1970-1997 campaign to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom.

This year for the first time, the Parades Commission has ordered Orangemen to avoid the main road near Ardoyne. But the Orangemen have no logical alternative route to reach their lodge in a nearby district called Ligoniel, and Protestants are threatening to stand their ground until police let them through.

Orange leaders rebuffed concerns that their plan for late-night standoffs with police was a recipe for Protestant rioting that could easily spiral out of control.

"The Parades Commission has created this crisis," said the Orange Order's chaplain, Mervyn Gibson. He said the police's decision to deploy extra officers from Britain "shows that the police are worried about the whole situation and that's because of the Parades Commission's crazy decision."

UPS shares fell 5 percent after the company also cut its full-year earnings forecast to $4.65-$4.85 per share from $4.80-$5.06. Shares of rival FedEx Corpfell 2 percent.

UPS and FedEx, the No.2 package shipper, are considered economic bellwethers because of the massive volume of goods they move around the world.

FedEx said in June it was raising shipping rates and cutting jobs and costs.

UPS's stronger North American domestic ground network puts it in a better position than FedEx, which focuses more on international air shipments.

UPS said on Friday it expected to report second-quarter earnings of $1.13 per share. Analysts on average expected $1.20 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company said its package volume growth had also slowed due to labor negotiations. It said it had extended an agreement that covers its domestic small-package employees with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The company is scheduled to report second-quarter results on July 23.

UPS shares were trading at $86.55 before the bell, while FedEx was trading at $102.00.

(Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bangalore; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- The World Food Prize Foundation on Wednesday took the bold step of awarding this year's prize to three pioneers of plant biotechnology whose work brought the world genetically modified crops.

The private nonprofit foundation, which is in part funded by biotechnology companies, refused to shy away from the controversy surrounding genetically modified crops that organic food advocates say are harmful to people and the environment.

"If we were to be deterred by a controversy, that would diminish our prize," said the foundation's president, Kenneth Quinn, a retired U.S. diplomat.

This year's award goes to Marc Van Montagu, founder and chairman of the Institute of Plant Biotechnology Outreach at Ghent University in Belgium; Mary-Dell Chilton, founder and researcher at Syngenta Biotechnology; and Robert Fraley, chief technology officer at Monsanto.

Van Montagu and Chilton independently developed the technology in the 1980s to stably transfer foreign genes into plants, a discovery that set up a race to develop tools to genetically engineer plants. It allowed other scientists to incorporate genetic traits in plants to better withstand drought, extreme heat and to fight off pests and disease. Fraley was the first to successfully transfer immunity to specific bacteria into a plant.

Fraley genetically engineered the first herbicide-resistant soybean in 1996.

The foundation lists Monsanto and Syngenta Foundation among its annual donors, along with other agribusiness corporations such as DuPont Pioneer, Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Cargill.

The award drew immediate condemnation from opponents of corporate farming.

"We could not ask for a better poster child for what's wrong with the prize than the recipients of this year's World Food Prize," said Frank Cordaro, who organized an Occupy World Food Prize protest last year. "It's all part of the very same system of the corporate elite. The problem is not with the recipients, the problem is with the system that gives the 1 percent all the power and corporate agriculture is built on that system."

Genetically enhanced crops are grown on more than 420 million acres in nearly 30 countries by over 17 million farmers worldwide, the foundation said. More than 90 percent are small, resource-poor farmers in developing countries.

Many U.S. farmers credited genetic modifications in corn with saving last year's crop from all but total devastation as half of the nation endured the worst drought in 60 years. Modern corn plants are more stable and can withstand a wider variety of climate conditions because of genetically improved leaves, roots and reproductive capability.

Fraley said biotechnology will enable the farming industry to meet the needs of a growing global population.

"We know we need from a demand perspective to double food production around the world in the next 30 years," he said.

Some organic farmers warn that widespread planting of genetically modified crops could contaminate organic and traditional crops, destroying their value. Others are concerned about the uncharted long-term impact for those who eat products such as milk and beef from animals raised on genetically modified plants.

"GMO crops have led to the loss of food security worldwide and for small farmers, they have led to the development of factory farms and have destroyed biodiversity in food we do produce and consume," said David Goodner, a community organizer for Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, an environmental and human rights activist group that opposes corporate farming. "The World Food Prize by selecting these people to honor shows that it cares more about corporate profits than it cares about truly feeding the world with healthy food."

Van Montagu said the food prize award should raise understanding of the safety of genetically modified crops.

"We just have to explain to society the science fact and that is not the slightest risk has been identified. These crops are as safe, if not safer, than food that comes from traditional agriculture," he said. "If somebody denies that we bluntly can say they are misinformed."

The World Food Prize was created in 1986 by Norman Borlaug, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to fight hunger. Borlaug was honored in 1970 for work that boosted agricultural production in what has become known as the "Green Revolution."

Recipients will receive the prize, which includes $250,000, at a ceremony in October at the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines attended by hundreds of scholars and agribusiness leaders from around the world.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rose Kennedy's public image as the stoic matriarch of America's most famous political family is one that she carefully cultivated, but writer Barbara Perry reveals a more vulnerable side in "Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch."

The biography of Rose Kennedy, who lived to age 104, includes hundreds of details from her voluminous personal diaries and letters made public by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in 2006.

Perry, a senior fellow and associate professor in the Miller Center's Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia, has written other books, including "Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier."

Perry spoke to Reuters about her interest in the Kennedy family and her research process.

Q: What sparked your lifelong interest in the Kennedys?

A: My mother took me to a JFK rally in Louisville when I was four. On October 5, 1960, my mother piled me and my two older brothers into our '56 Chevy and drove to downtown Louisville. It helped me to understand his grip on the American people.

Q: Was there a process for deciding who would write Rose Kennedy's biography?

A: No. Presidential libraries are sponsored by the National Archives, in part, and they are public facilities. Anyone can go into the archive room at the library and say "I'm here to look at the Rose Kennedy papers."

In my case, I had to figure out how to narrow down from the 250 boxes what would be most useful. What was difficult was the sheer voluminous numbers of papers, and files, and photographs. She lived to 104 and kept everything.

Q: How did you work through the volumes of papers?

A: I decided to begin with her 1974 memoir, "Times to Remember." There's a huge component of Rose Kennedy's papers devoted to producing that book. Particularly, I was interested in her image creation.

I began combing through all of the things she collected to do that book and then very quickly got into what I will call the oral history - the many, many taped conversations that her ghost writer, Robert Coughlan, did with her and of her as they began to produce that book.

Q: Your book shows a less perfect side. What were you trying to do by bringing out those details?

A: First of all, let Rose be Rose. I just felt her voice had often been subsumed under the men's. That was one of my goals - to let her speak through her diary and through her letters, memos and oral history.

But it's not always an edifying message - because she could be a difficult woman, so caught up in this image making that I think she maybe sometimes lost the larger meaning of life or put people off in her own family. The concept of creating an image of oneself, or ones' family is going to involve some sleight of hand. I came across that on occasion.

Q: I really liked her bouffant hair.

A: Yes, that she was so proud of. She was pretty proud she didn't go gray, just like her mother.

On her travel list, I discovered a wig stand and a wig. Ladies like that had their hair done at least once a week and at least more often. I'd see in her date book - whenever she was about to do a big event, off to the hairdresser she would go, or the hairdresser would come to her home.

She was totally into the image thing. The matron of makeover.

(Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Dan Grebler)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Despite receiving similar cancer treatment as other patients, African Americans with a common form of leukemia didn't live as long in a new study that was aimed at understanding the racial disparity in cancer outcomes.

"We don't have an answer" to explain it, said Dr. Alessandra Ferrajoli, the study's senior author and an associate professor of medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Though all patients received equal medical treatment, the black patients tended to have chromosome mutations and other characteristics that are known to be linked with a worse prognosis.

It's likely "not related to the treatment," Ferrajoli speculated, "it's probably a different biology."

Previous studies have found that African Americans are more likely to die from cancer than whites (see Reuters Health story of February 5, 2013 here:).

For instance, researchers reported last year that blacks have a greater chance of dying after a kidney cancer diagnosis, despite having better odds of developing a more easy-to-treat form of the cancer.

Other research has shown that black women are more likely to die from breast cancer than white women.

The reasons for these disparities are not certain, but experts have often pointed to delays in diagnosis or treatment resulting from difficulty accessing care or differences in socioeconomic status, Ferrajoli said.

To look at what other differences might exist among patients with blood cancer, Ferrajoli and her colleagues examined medical records from MD Anderson and from Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Over a five-year period, between 1997 and 2011, more than 1,600 patients were treated for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the second most common form of leukemia.

About four out of every 100,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with CLL each year.

Of those in Ferrajoli's study, 84 were African American and 1,571 were not.

Her group found evidence that African American patients received the same quality of treatment as the other patients.

However, 56 percent of the African American patients had a complete response to treatment while 58 percent of patients in the other group also went into remission, the researchers report in the journal Cancer.

"We noted that when we treated (African Americans), they will respond in a similar way to the rest of the population, but their responses don't last. They had worse outcomes," Ferrajoli told Reuters Health.

Over years of follow up, the researchers found that 21 percent of the African American patients and nine percent of the other patients died.

In addition, African American patients typically went 36 months without a recurrence of the cancer, while the other patients made it 61 months.

Ferrajoli said there must be some differences in the cancer between African American and other patients to explain why they don't fare as well.

Her team did find differences among the groups at the outset.

Prior to the start of treatment, African American patients were more likely to have factors associated with more difficult CLL cases, such as lower hemoglobin levels and higher rates of a particular chromosome mutation.

But even after taking those issues into account, race continued to be a risk factor for a worse outcome.

"The demonstration that these differences in survival persist even when similar therapies are administered for CLL is a novel finding, and it suggests that (African American) patients may have different disease biology than (non-black) patients," said Dr. Christopher Flowers, an associate professor at Emory University School of Medicine, in an editorial accompanying the study.

Ferrajoli said it will be important to investigate the potential biological explanations so that treatments can be tailored to address these differences.

Her findings don't rule out that non-biological differences might still play a role in other cancers.

"For other diseases, there may be differences in treatment...but not for ours at this point," Ferrajoli said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/13FEsNd and http://bit.ly/13x4vau Cancer, online July 8, 2013.

The free agent forward from Gatineau, Que., has agreed to terms on a two-year contract with the Montreal Canadiens.

"For me, the Montreal Canadiens' fans are probably the most passionate fans in the NHL," Briere said on a conference call Thursday night. "It's an honor to be playing for them, in front of them, and all I'm hoping is that we will all be cheering in the same direction when the season starts."

The Philadelphia Flyers last week used a compliance buyout on the final two seasons of the eight-year, $52 million deal Briere signed in 2007. Because he turned down an offer from the Canadiens to sign with the Flyers that year, Briere was booed whenever Philadelphia visited Montreal.

Now the 35-year-old returns to his native Quebec with a deal reportedly worth $4 million per season.

"Daniel Briere brings a great deal of skills, experience and leadership to our team and he is a significant addition to our group of forwards," Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin said in a statement. "Daniel showed a great desire to pursue his career in Montreal and we are very happy that he committed to playing in Montreal for the next two seasons."

Briere had only six goals and 10 assists in the lockout shortened 2013 season.

"Last season with the short season, starting behind everybody because of injuries, I am definitely looking forward to bouncing back. I've done that my whole life, my whole career," Briere said. "It's always been about finding the motivation to bounce back. Coming to Montreal makes it really easy, first of all.

"Having the chance to play for the Canadiens, I think there's no better motivation than that."

He has 282 goals and 373 assists in 847 career NHL games, but was mostly coveted for his postseason play.

In the Flyers' run to the Stanley Cup final in 2009, Briere had 12 goals and 18 assists in 23 games. In 108 career playoff games, he has 50 goals and 59 assists.

The ancient parasite, described today (June 27) in the journal Current Biology, had a mouth and body smaller than older fleas, but larger than modern-day pests. The new species, Saurophthyrus exquisitus, may be a transitional species that could shed light on why modern-day bloodsucking parasites evolved to become smaller and take dainty, unobtrusive bites.

Ancient pests

Last year, Chungkun Shih, a visting professor at Capital Normal University in Beijing, and his colleagues discovered the . The ancient parasites, known as Pseudopulicidae, were unearthed in 165-million-year-old sediments in northeastern China.

Pseudopulicidae had huge, 0.8 inch-long (2 centimeters) bodies with long tubes for sucking blood and sharp, sawlike teeth. The males also had completely external genitalia. Those ancient pests likely fed on the blood of thick-skinned, feathered dinosaurs that lived during the . []

"The flea needed to cut through the thick skin to get to the blood, and they could do that harm without the host knowing it," Shih told LiveScience.

By contrast, modern-day fleas have bodies that are five to 10 times smaller, and have much smaller mouths, completely hidden genitals and longer legs for jumping.

In-between species

Shih and his colleagues were excavating in the same region when they uncovered three specimens of the new species, Sauropthyrus exquisitus. The ancient pest had a body size in between the oldest and modern-day fleas, growing up to 0.4 inches (1 cm) long. It also sported partially hidden genitalia, and a thin, relatively small sucking tube for drawing blood; it also lacked the fierce teeth of its older relative.

In addition, the new species had longer legs and short, stiff bristles on its body.

The researchers hypothesize that fleas originally evolved to feast on thick-skinned dinosaurs, so piercing the skin was the main challenge.

But as dinosaurs evolved, so did their parasites. The , or flying reptiles, that lived in the same region during thathad much thinner skins. As a result, Sauropthyrus exquisitus adapted to deliver less painful bites, "so they would be harder to detect by the host," Shih said.

The bristles on its body may have helped the paleo pest cling to hairs on an animal's body to hide. And the longer legs and partially internal genitalia may also have enabled greater jumping ability, Shih said.

"You can imagine if you have something sticking out, it's hard to move around," Shih said, referring to the genitalia.

The new discovery suggests the parasites co-evolved with their hosts in a way to balance their bloodsucking and hiding abilities. Mammals have even thinner, more sensitive skin than pterosaurs, which makes the ability of fleas to take dainty, unobtrusive sips and jump away from a deadly swat especially important, Shih said.

Follow Tia Ghose on and .FollowLiveScience , & . Original article on.

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So now it can boast higher earnings than even Manhattan, home of Wall Street, which is in second place on the Bureau of Labor and Statistics rankings, at weekly wages of $2,107 for the quarter — over $1,000 less than the Facebook billionaires. 

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Another huge jump in weekly wage earning — though not nearly as impressive at 107.3 percent — happened in Douglas county in Colorado, a suburb outside of Denver. Though no big tech company IPOs happened at the end of last quarter, the area does have somein growth industries like healthcare and telecommunications.

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Now that San Mateo Co. has so many super-duper rich people, what will happen to the local economy? "It will be interesting to see if that wealth bump is reflected in giving back to the community," wondered Henton. That's a nice thought, but not one that's likely to result in anything. The gap between the rich and the poor in the South Bay , with food stamp participation at a 10 year high . If anything, the influx of money will only make things worse, with the cost of living soaring to reflect the new riches, pushing middle class people up. But hey, , with Zuckerberg leading the pack, will decide to do something about it now? 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fellow actors mourned James Gandolfini as a great craftsman and a warm and generous man at a his funeral on Thursday, a week after the 51-year-old star of the HBO television show "The Sopranos" died of a heart attack while visiting Rome.

"Sopranos" creator David Chase and the actor's wife Deborah Lin Gandolfini were among four speakers at a packed ceremony for the actor whose performance as a cigar-chomping New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano made him a household name.

Most of the cast of "The Sopranos," including Edie Falco, who played Tony Soprano's wife, and Michael Imperioli, who played his nephew Christopher Moltisanti, attended the 90-minute ceremony at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in upper Manhattan.

"It was heaven on earth. You could feel James' presence," actor George Loros, who played mobster and FBI informant Ray Curto in the series, said about the funeral.

GOD-GIVEN GIFT

Loros, who was visibly moved by the service, and other actors praised Gandolfini's generosity, dedication and talent.

"He could be talking like you and I are talking right now," Loros told Reuters, "and then he could be called to the set and be just brutal (as an actor). He had such a God-given gift."

New York actor Tommy Bayiokos, who worked on the fifth season of "The Sopranos," described Gandolfini as "a master of his craft."

Laila Robins, who played Soprano's mother as a young woman in the early seasons of the show, said Gandolfini had an acting coach on the set.

"That was so sweet, and I remember that about him the most - just how badly he wanted to do a good job. He worked so hard," she added.

Scores of fans waited in the sweltering heat to get a glimpse of actors Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, Chris Noth and Julianna Margulies, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as they entered the cathedral.

Other fans managed to get into the funeral service, which was led by the Very Reverend Dr. James A. Kowalski.

On Wednesday about 100 people attended a private wake for the actor in New Jersey. Gandolfini, who was raised in a working-class neighborhood, shared Tony Soprano's Italian-American heritage and New Jersey roots.

Broadway theaters dimmed their marquees on Wednesday night in memory of the actor, who also had a successful stage career.

Gandolfini collapsed in the bathroom of his hotel room in Rome while vacationing with his 13-year-old son, Michael. He had been scheduled to attend the closing of the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily. He body was flown to the United States on Sunday.

Gandolfini's portrayal of a gangster who ordered hits on his enemies and saw a therapist to talk about his insecurities, was the signature role of his career and won him three Emmy Awards as best actor in a drama series. The show ran for six seasons.

In 2009 Gandolfini was nominated for a Tony Award for his role in "God of Carnage." He also appeared in "On the Waterfront" in 1995 and "A Streetcar Named Desire" in 1992.

The actor had been working on an upcoming HBO series, "Criminal Justice," and has two films due out next year. He also appeared in the crime drama "Killing Them Softly" and "Zero Dark Thirty," a film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Apart from his son Michael with his first wife, who he divorced in 2002, Gandolfini is survived by his wife and daughter Liliana, who was born last year.

(Additional reporting by Victoria Cavaliere; writing by Patricia Reaney; Editing by David Storey)