TOKYO (Reuters) - Banks have failed, the yen has fallen and Japan's economy has collapsed, leading to political turmoil. Its great ally, the United States, abandons it. Then comes the final straw: an attack by North Korean guerrillas posing as Korean tourists.

"From the Fatherland, With Love", by veteran Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami, chronicles the political fumbling that is the Japanese government's response and the eventual counterattack by a motley group of homeless, psychotic misfits using largely homemade weapons.

The book is written at least partly from the point of view of the North Koreans, echoing this year's Pulitzer prize-winning novel: "The Orphan Master's Son," by Adam Johnson.

Murakami, 61, who has played in rock bands and dabbled in filmmaking, is often referred to as the "enfant terrible" of Japanese literature for the dark, satiric lens he turns on Japanese society. He spoke with Reuters about his book.

Q: You've said before that all your books start from a "seed," what was the seed for this one?

A: After the end of the bubble economy, Japan - economically, politically and socially - has had a sense of being stalled. Many seriously unsettled misfits have emerged and there are crimes as a result. There hasn't been anything big like terrorism yet, but I wondered about a group of dangerous young people getting together and doing something. On top of that, I'd had (in mind) a vague story about the North Korean High Command invading a Japanese city, Fukuoka. I started feeling that I'd like to write about those misfits facing off with the North Koreans.

Q: And from there?

A: I'd thought as far as North Korea attacking, but if the real North Korean army came, it would just turn into an ordinary war. There was a Hollywood movie just at that time with Michael Caine, and they were trying to kidnap Churchill. German soldiers dressed in English uniforms and pretending to be English military, and that became a hint for me. If you have a group of soldiers who are basically set up as rebels, that allows the government to disown them - and that intrigued me. It wouldn't become a war. If it became a war, it would just turn into a war novel. I also thought the Japanese government would end up in a very tight spot this way.

Q: North Korea, as it has shown up in novels like "The Orphan Master's Son", is really still an unknown country. How did you manage to come up with the North Korean characters?

A: I read a lot of books. A lot of books. There's also North Korean movies that most people can't see - but there's one store in Tokyo that sells those movies. I must have seen 10 movies or so. As a result, I got a pretty good idea of peoples' lives. Scenes of Pyongyang and the countryside show up in the news, and of course I also spoke with refugees from North Korea in the South. They'd always been asked about their escapes, apparently - how and why - but instead I asked about their lives, where they lived, please draw a map of the towns, diagram your houses, and so on. They all thought I was a spy.

Q: Does the fact that the misfits fight back instead of the government to repel these invaders symbolize something?

A: In principle, governments and companies are supposed to guide their organization in a certain direction and have an image of what that direction is. The basic reason Japan's government is dysfunctional is that they don't really seem to understand which direction they should move in.

In most novels, if it was just entertainment, somebody like James Bond emerges and fights everybody. I didn't want to write that kind of book, I wanted the irony of these homeless and really rather strange misfits ending up doing the fighting.

Q: Was envisioning North Korea the hardest part?

A: The North Korean High Command are the ones that tell all the stories, that made things very difficult ... They tell all the stories as if they're the only main characters. But of course there are plenty of things all people have in common - taking care of their parents, falling in love. We all have basic things in common - that we're sad if our mother dies, it hurts if you break a bone, your own son and daughter are unbelievably dear to you. So I wrote based on that, and on the movies that showed a special North Korean way of thought.

Q: Can anybody outside of North Korea understand it? Perhaps the only way is through literature.

A: Nobody really knows the truth there...The thing I think of most vividly is something that happened when the commandos, pretending to be Korean tourists, checked into the hotel. One of them touches some tissues sitting there. It's the softest thing he's ever touched in his life. There's nothing like that in North Korea. First of all they were surprised that Japan had the skills to make something like this, but then they also realized that they would never lose to people who were so soft as to use fluffy paper like this. The tissue paper is a very simple symbol that shows the distance and difference between the two countries. And when I wrote that, it was a hint to me of how to enter the minds of the commandos. I figured that would allow me to really figure out how they thought.

Q: By using this kind of device in literature, you can actually approach close to the truth.

A: Yes. It's all a question of imagination.

(Reporting by Elaine Lies, editing by Paul Casciato)

Not so much the next time around.

The two schools separated by all of 10 miles of central Connecticut highway cruised to the NCAA hockey championship on Thursday. Yale edged UMass Lowell 3-2 in overtime in one semifinal, and top-seeded Quinnipiac followed by crushing St. Cloud State 4-1.

The victories set up the fourth showdown between the Bobcats and the Bulldogs since Groundhog Day. Quinnipiac is 3-0 against Yale this season, though it will hardly matter if the Bobcats (30-7-5) can't make it four straight.

"The one thing I've seen from Yale, this is a different team than when we beat them (last)," Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold said.

The Bulldogs (21-12-3) appeared so while dominating Hockey East champion UMass Lowell. Yale outshot the River Hawks (28-11-2) 47-18 and spent most of the game in Lowell's end of the ice.

Still, the Bulldogs needed senior Andrew Miller to play hero. The captain circled around two River Hawk defenders, then flipped a backhander between Connor Hellebuyck's legs 6:59 into the extra period to lift one of the nation's oldest programs to its first championship game appearance.

"That's probably the biggest goal in the history of Yale hockey," Yale coach Keith Allain said.

One that will give the Bulldogs a shot at redemption and helped guarantee a member of the ECAC will hoist the trophy for the first time since Harvard did it in 1989. The league plays in the shadow of the mighty Hockey East, but will have the spotlight all to itself in the final game of the season.

Pecknold doesn't think it's a coincidence.

"I think the ECAC was one of the best if not the best league in the country this year," Pecknold said. "Top to bottom, we're as good as anyone."

The Bobcats certainly are. Quinnipiac dismantled St. Cloud State with 12 dizzying minutes of precise hockey, scoring three times then riding Hobey Baker finalist Eric Hartzell to the final.

In a way, Yale's triumph helped its rival move on. When the Bulldogs couldn't finish off the River Hawks in regulation, it forced St. Cloud State and Quinnipiac to wait in the dressing room.

The delay may have gotten to the Huskies. It only appeared to fire up the Bobcats.

Jordan Samuels-Thomas scored on a wraparound 1:49 into the game and Ben Arnt and Jeremy Langlois soon followed with goals of their own. It was more than enough cushion for Hartzell.

"I think we'd do anything to replay the first 10 minutes of the hockey game," St. Cloud State coach Bob Motzko. "We dug ourselves a hole. They score three of their first four shots. We hunkered back down, but just couldn't overcome it."

St. Cloud State forward Drew LeBlanc also a finalist for the Baker Award managed just one shot in his final game as the Huskies struggled to get quality scoring chances.

"Hartzell is our best player, there is no question," Pecknold said. "But we play well in front of him.We compete, we battle, and it's a give and take between the two."

Quinnipiac had little trouble with Yale this season, outscoring the Bulldogs 13-3. The last victory was a 3-0 triumph in the ECAC third-place game, a contest with little on the line.

Pecknold considers his team "lucky" to have escaped. Yale has only gotten better over the last three weeks. Quinnipiac will get an eyeful on Saturday when they meet with a chance at history on the line.

"I think you can throw the 3-0 out the window," Pecknold said. "It's going to be a battle. They've got some great players. We've got some great players, and we definitely play two different type styles of game. We'll have to go to war on Saturday."

The company Made in Space is partnering with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center on thein Zero G Experiment (or 3D Print for short), which aims to jump-start an off-planet manufacturing capability that could aid humanity's push out into the solar system.

"The 3D Print experiment with NASA is a step towards the future. The ability to 3D-print parts and tools on demand greatly increases the reliability and safety of space missions while also dropping the cost by orders of magnitude," Made in Space CEO Aaron Kemmer said in a statement. []

"The first printers will start by building test coupons, and will then build a broad range of parts, such as tools and science equipment," he added.

The isslated to blast off in August 2014, tagging along with a cargo mission private spaceflight company SpaceX is launching to the orbiting lab for NASA.

The device will build objects layer by layer out of polymers and other materials, using a technique called extrusion additive manufacturing. The blueprints for these objects will be pre-loaded onto a computer bound for the orbiting lab or uplinked from Earth, Made in Space officials said.

Advocates say 3D printing can help make living in space easier and cheaper. For example, more than 30 percent of the spare parts currently aboard the International Space Station can be manufactured by Made in Space's machine, company co-founder and chief technologist Jason Dunn told NASA chief Charles Bolden and congressman Mike Honda (D-Calif.) during a presentation today (May 24) at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

"3D printing is an exciting technology," Niki Werkheiser, 3D Print project manager at NASA Marshalls Technology Development and Transfer Office, said in a statement. "It will allow us to live and work in space with the same efficiency and productivity that we do on Earth, with the ultimate objective being to eliminate reliance on materials and parts launched from the ground."

While off-Earth manufacturing will get its start at the International Space Station, NASA officials say the technology's potential goes beyond low-Earth orbit. Werkheiser described 3D printing as "absolutely a critical enabler for NASAs exploration missions."

Indeed, NASA recently funded the development of a prototypeproducts out of cheap raw materials that have a long shelf life. This "" could help feed astronauts on long space journeys, such as the 500-day trek to Mars, agency officials say.

California-based Made in Space was awarded a Phase 3 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from Marshall for this mission, and the two organizations will work together to make it happen.

3D Print won't be Made in Space's first foray into microgravity printing. The company tested out various 3D printing technologies in 2011 on parabolic airplane flights that produced short periods of weightlessness.

While 3D Print is primarily a demonstration mission, Made in Space is also developing a more permanent space-printing capability called the Additive Manufacturing Facility that's expected to arrive at the orbiting lab in 2016.

The Additive Manufacturing Facility will likely be used to build components for ongoing off-Earth experiments, Made in Space officials said.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitterand.Follow us , or . Originally published on

REDMOND, Washington (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp unveiled the "Xbox One" on Tuesday, its first new gaming console in eight years, and its strongest push so far to dominate consumers' living rooms with an array of exclusive media content.

The Xbox One took four years to develop and will be the launchpad for a "Halo" live-action video series produced by Steven Spielberg.

It will be sold worldwide "later this year," games unit chief Don Mattrick told reporters at an event at the software company's campus near Seattle, without providing details on timing or pricing.

The device will also be the first platform to release the next installment in Activision Blizzard Inc's blockbuster shooter franchise, "Call of Duty".

Microsoft hopes its third-generation Xbox console will attract video game fans who are increasingly sampling games on mobile devices, while also becoming a hub for living room entertainment.

The new device interacts with a television, responds to voice and gesture commands, includes group video calling on Skype, 15 exclusive game titles and original programming content.

The Xbox One will chiefly compete with Nintendo Co's new Wii U and Sony Corp's forthcoming PlayStation 4 for a bigger slice of the $65 billion-a-year computer game market.

Microsoft did not refer to the new gadget as a "console" but rather an entertainment system, signaling its renewed focus on making the Xbox a sort of window for media and entertainment content, said Forrester Research's James McQuivey.

The software giant is "trying to break out of the category" and risks having to battle not just Sony and Nintendo but Apple Inc, Google Inc and others to control consumer entertainment in the age of Smart TVs, tablets and smartphones, he said.

Acclaimed movie maker Steven Spielberg will be executive-producing a television series based on Microsoft's blockbuster sci-fi game "Halo" -- one of the game industry's largest franchises by revenue -- for the Xbox One.

The new console will also offer exclusive National Football League content and eight new game franchises, executives said.

Yusuf Mehdi, SVP of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business declined to put a figure on the company's investment in exclusive game and video content, but called it a "very serious commitment," in an interview with Reuters.

CONSOLE TO MOBILE

Console gaming still accounts for the largest share, of about 42 percent, of the $65 billion world gaming market, according to Microsoft. But playing games on smartphones and tablets is gaining ground.

Videogame publishers have moved towards integrating their games across consoles, PCs and mobile devices to keep gamers engaged. Microsoft said it will have an updated SmartGlass app that connects the Xbox One to tablets and smartphones.

"This is what we needed, a machine that could connect all the possibilities the devices that exist can bring," Yves Guillemot, CEO of games publisher Ubisoft, told Reuters.

The device will have 8 gigabytes of memory and comes with a new-generation Kinect sensor that communicates a user's voice and gesture commands to the console.

The original Kinect was launched in 2010 and sold separately. Bundling the Kinect -- which costs $100 in the current version -- may inflate the Xbox One's overall price tag.

Mehdi said Microsoft is still "evaluating" sale price.

"As a gamer, I wanted to see the additional features to make the gaming experience better," said Dennis "Thresh" Fong, a former professional video gamer and now CEO of gamer network Raptr.

Sony had touted the new PlayStation 4's live streaming of games and social features like a "share" button on its controller when it announced its new console, Fong said.

Despite its strong brand and 'cool' factor, the Xbox itself is not a key financial factor for the world's largest software maker. Its Entertainment & Devices unit is set to break $10 billion in sales for the first time this year, but that's half the sales of its Windows unit, and a lot less profitable, averaging less than 15 percent margin compared to 60 percent or higher for Windows or Office.

The company has more than 46 million users of its online gaming and digital entertainment service Xbox Live. That is still a fraction of the people who pay for its software.

Microsoft's stock closed down 0.7 percent at $34.85.

"Xbox is not going to move the revenue needle but it might change the business model for the better as Microsoft tries to learn how to have the kind of relationship Xbox does" with consumers, McQuivey said.

(Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Dan Grebler, Nick Zieminski and Andrew Hay)

TORONTO (Reuters) - Toronto-Dominion Bank

The result, the first from a Canadian bank in a quarter that has seen Canadian housing sales activity slow, was roughly in line with analysts' estimates.

Shares fell 0.9 percent to C$83.25, underperforming TD's Canadian banking peers, which were also in the red on Thursday.

Income from TD's flagship Canadian retail bank rose 5 percent to C$847 million as stronger business lending and lower loan-loss provisions helped offset slowing consumer loan growth.

Canadian home sales activity has been more sluggish so far this year than in 2012, although prices have risen slightly.

Low interest rates have also pinched retail banking income by reducing the margins on loans.

This has prompted TD to bulk up its higher-margin lending in areas such as auto lending and credit cards. During the quarter, TD closed its acquisition of Target Corp's $5.9 billion U.S. credit card portfolio.

TD's U.S. retail banking network produced income of US$392 million, up 9 percent, on the back of loan and deposit growth.

"The basic business - the Canadian and U.S. personal and commercial banking - performed pretty well," said John Kinsey, a portfolio manager at Caldwell Securities in Toronto.

The bank, Canada's second-largest, earned a net C$1.72 billion ($1.66 billion), or C1.78 a share, in the second quarter ended April 30. That compared with a year-earlier profit of C$1.69 billion, or C$1.78 a share.

Excluding items including a C$58 million amortization charge, earnings were C$1.90 a share. Analysts on average had expected C$1.91, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

TD has about 1,100 bank branches in Canada and about 1,300 in the United States, with a sizeable presence on the Eastern seaboard. It also owns 45 percent of TD Ameritrade Holding Corp.

The bank announced it would buy back up to 12 million of its common shares, or about 1.3 percent of the bank's outstanding shares.

Colleen Johnston, the bank's chief financial officer, said the buyback was related to the bank's strong capital position.

TD's Tier 1 common equity ratio was 8.8 percent during the quarter, even after absorbing the Target credit card acquisition as well as the $688 million purchase of asset manager Epoch Investments, which also closed during the quarter.

That's comfortably ahead of the 8 percent level the Canadian banks will be expected to hold as of 2016.

"We're now at the point, as are other Canadian banks, where we can start more actively thinking about capital deployment, having built to these very good levels," said Johnston.

Wholesale banking income, which accounts for trading, investment banking and corporate lending, rose 12 percent to C$220 million, due to stronger trading-related revenue and lower expenses.

Barclays Capital analyst John Aiken said TD's results likely won't materially change expectations for the Canadian banks still to report, though he said the strong capital markets result should bode well for Royal Bank of Canada , which reports next Thursday.

National Bank of Canada , the country's No. 6 bank, reports on Friday.

($1 = $1.0336 Canadian)

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

The Enhanced Fujita scale is an updated version of an earlier chart to measure the ferocity of tornadoes published in 1971 by University of Chicago professor Ted Fujita.

In rating the intensity of tornadoes, meteorologists and other experts study damage on the ground, along with wind speeds and other data, to rate twisters between EF0 (the weakest) and EF5 (the most intense).

The scale is as follows:

* An EF5 tornado, capable of causing incredible damage, is characterized by three-second wind gusts between 200 and 234 mph and can level strong framed houses, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Automobile-sized missiles can fly through the air in excess of 109 yards, and trees can be stripped of their bark.

On May 3, 1999, a tornado rated as an F5 under the original Fujita scale struck the town of Moore, killing 40 people and destroying thousands of homes. That event caused more than $1 billion in damage, or $1.3 billion in today's dollars.

The devastating tornado that struck the town of Joplin, Missouri, on May 22, 2011, killing 161 people, also was an EF5 tornado.

* An EF4 tornado can cause devastating damage, and is capable of leveling well-constructed homes and blowing away those with weak foundations. Cars can be thrown and large missiles generated. Such a twister includes wind gusts of between 168 and 199 mph.

The tornado that struck Moore on Monday, ripping up at least two schools, was initially rated an EF4 but was upgraded to an E5 on Tuesday.

* An EF3 tornado can cause severe damage, tearing roofs and walls off well-constructed homes, uprooting trees, and lifting cars of the ground and throwing them. It has wind gusts of between 138 and 167 mph.

Several EF3 tornadoes have been recorded in the United States this year, including one that touched down in Kemper County, Mississippi, in April, killing one person and injuring four.

* An EF2 tornado can cause considerable damage, tearing roofs off frame homes, demolishing mobile homes, overturning boxcars and snapping or uprooting large trees. Such a tornado is characterized by wind gusts between 110 and 137 mph.

A number of EF2 tornadoes have struck the United States so far during 2013, in some cases causing injuries or substantial damage.

* An EF1 tornado can cause moderate damage, with wind gusts of between 86 and 109 mph. Damage caused in such twisters includes surfaces peeled off roofs, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned and cars blown off roads.

* An EF0 tornado causes light damage with wind gusts of between 65 and 85 mph. The impact can include damage to chimneys, branches broken off trees and shallow-rooted trees being knocked over.

Source: NOAA's National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Scott Malone and Jim Loney)

The fourth-seeded Wolverines (31-7) are back in the final for the first time in 20 years, when a brash group better known as the Fab Five was the talk of college basketball.

Top-seeded Louisville (34-5) is trying to bring its first title back to the state of Kentucky's "other" school since 1986. Sitting on the bench with the Cardinals is sophomore guard Kevin Ware, the team's inspiration since snapping his tibia in the regional final last weekend.

Cardinals coach Rick Pitino is working the sideline hours after being named to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.

Pitino is trying to become the first coach to lead two programs to national championships. He took Kentucky to the title in 1996.

Smith, the Louisville team leader who Pitino has nicknamed "Russdiculous" for some of his wild and wildly effective antics on the court, scores 18.9 points a game for the Cardinals during the season but has picked up the scoring in the tournament, averaging 25 in the five Louisville wins.

The Cardinals are playing without their main reserve, Ware, who broke his leg in the regional final against Duke. Needing a pickup without Ware, reserve swingman Luke Hancock scored 20 points in the 72-68 win over Wichita State. And rarely used walk-on Tim Henderson made two key 3-pointers during the comeback.

"The other night, we were not going to play in the championship game unless a walk-on steps up and makes a play to give us momentum," Pitino said in a pregame interview.

Chris Webber, who infamously called a timeout the Wolverines didn't have at the end of Michigan's 77-71 loss to North Carolina in the 1993 final, has had very little to do with his alma mater in recent years, but was on hand at the Georgia Dome to watch Monday's game.

In the program's first Final Four game since then, Michigan topped Syracuse 61-56 on Saturday despite an off night from Burke, who finished with only seven points on 1-for-8 shooting.

Burke, a sophomore, seriously considered leaving for the NBA after last season but decided he had unfinished business left in Ann Arbor. He picked up the AP Player of the Year award, among others, and is now one victory away from the ultimate prize in college hoops.

Before leaving the locker room, Michigan coach John Beilein gave his team a pep talk: "You play with poise, play with confidence, you do all those things today and we're going to have one heck of a celebration," he said.

Monday night's game is the final act in what has been an ugly season overall in college hoops, with scoring at its lowest (67.49 points per team) since 1951-52 and shooting at its worst (43.3 percent) since 1964-65. The 131.2-points-per-game average during March Madness is the lowest since the 3-point line was brought to the game in 1987.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The long-awaited, controversial new edition of the bible of psychiatry can be characterized by many numbers: its 947 pages, its $199 price tag, its more than 300 maladies (from "dependent personality disorder" and "voyeuristic disorder" to "delayed ejaculation," "kleptomania" and "intermittent explosive disorder"), each limning the potential woes of being human.

But to the psychiatrist who shepherded the tortuous creation of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders," perhaps the single most important number is the "5" in its title: This is the DSM-5, not the DSM-V.

That may seem like a cosmetic change, but the American Psychiatric Association, which will release the book on Saturday at its annual meeting, decided to use Arabic instead of Roman numerals because "we want it to be a living document," said Dr David Kupfer of the University of Pittsburgh, the chairman of the task force that produced the DSM-5. Rather than waiting another generation to revise the manual - the DSM-IV was published in 1994 - psychiatrists will regularly update it with, for example, findings from genetics and neuroscience, labeling the revisions DSM-5.1 and DSM-5.2 and so on.

"We used '5' because V.0 and V.1 just don't look good," said Kupfer.

The fact that the world's most powerful psychiatrists (their decisions determine what counts as a mental disorder, and thus what insurers cover and which children receive special services in school) are already building in ways to change the manual is commendable, even its critics say.

But it is also emblematic of the DSM-5's failures, they argue, which include turning normal human behavior and feelings into mental illnesses, and expanding the criteria for disorders until an astonishing one in four U.S. adults has a diagnosable mental illness every year - and even more do over a lifetime.

The latest revision began in 1999 with high hopes for putting mental illness on a scientific footing, using neuroscience in particular to tell the difference between, say, normal sadness and major depression.

That reflected persistent criticism that "drawing a line between sickness and disease is a special problem in psychiatry," said psychotherapist Gary Greenberg, who participated in the "field trials" that tested the DSM-5's proposed diagnostic criteria before they made the final cut. "We don't have blood tests or other objective criteria to distinguish mental sickness from health. So you have a set of criteria that are very common, which means the potential for many people being diagnosed as mentally ill when they're not."

STILL WAITING FOR SCIENCE

The 1,500 experts who contributed to the DSM-5 would have liked nothing better than to base diagnoses on genetics or neuroscience, rather than on subjective judgment and lists of mostly self-reported symptoms such as fear of acting "in a way that will be negatively evaluated" (social anxiety disorder) or approaching and interacting "with unfamiliar adults" (disinhibited social engagement disorder in children).

"It would be great if we had been able to have a paradigmatic shift" by basing the diagnosis of mental illness on biology, as the APA hoped to when it began the DSM-5 process, said Dr Jeffrey Lieberman, chairman of psychiatry at Columbia University and president-elect of the APA.

But the science did not arrive in time. "The DSM can only reflect the research we have," said Lieberman." With rare exceptions such as narcolepsy, which can be diagnosed by testing cerebrospinal fluid, there are no objective biological measures for mental illness.

This lack of scientific rigor led the nation's leading mental health official to attack the DSM-5 for a "lack of validity," as Dr Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said in a blog post late last month.

The manual bases diagnoses on symptoms, he noted, but "symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment." Allergies and flu share some symptoms, for instance, but no doctor would try to treat flu with an antihistamine.

"Patients with mental disorders deserve better," said Insel, who announced that "NIMH will be re-orienting its research away from DSM categories."

Pittsburgh's Kupfer shrugged off this attack. "NIMH expressed that a couple of years ago," he said. "It would be a mistake to reify the DSM for research purposes."

"Reification" has become a buzzword among the DSM's critics. In this context, it means "taking a concept and turning it into a reality," said Greenberg, whose new book, "The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry" argues that the manual and the process behind it are hopelessly and dangerously flawed. "The categories are not reliable in a biological sense."

That can cause harm to people who are labeled "mentally ill" when all they have is a variation of normal human behavior, said Greenberg. "The sphere of normality has to have room for some distress, which is part of being human."

On a practical level, "once you have a diagnosis in your medical record you can have trouble getting insurance or a security clearance, and it changes how you think of yourself," said Greenberg.

BLACK-BOX WARNING

Changes that make it easier to qualify as mentally ill - fewer symptoms, lasting for a shorter time - have drawn the most impassioned criticism of the DSM-5. Dr Allen Frances, the psychiatrist who led the development of the last DSM and who has emerged as the new one's fiercest and most eminent critic, warns of a "hyperinflation" of diagnoses and calls for "a black-box warning" in the dozen or so most controversial changes, much like the black-box warning that regulators require on the labels of potentially dangerous drugs.

The black box, he said in a 2012 essay, would indicate the risks of calling people who engage in binge eating, for instance, or who grieve a dead child mentally ill, and would serve as "an admission that the change is a hypothesis," not a scientific fact.

The new DSM does not include more disorders than its predecessor, said Lieberman, "and it shouldn't increase the number of people who warrant a diagnosis of mental illness."

The changes it does make, however, could have far-reaching consequences.

It classifies compulsive gambling as an addiction, the first behavior to be so categorized. That could make it easier for pathological gamblers to get help, said Jeff Beck of the New Jersey Council on Compulsive Gambling and a recovering gambling addict.

The new manual also breaks out compulsive hoarding from obsessive-compulsive disorder and makes it a stand-alone disorder. That should tell clinicians that treatments that work in OCD are not the best way to treat hoarders, said psychologist Randy Frost of Smith College, who has developed a unique therapy for hoarding.

One of the more controversial changes was to eliminate the previous DSM's "bereavement exclusion" for depression. Now, if a father grieves for a murdered child for more than a couple of weeks, he is mentally ill. A footnote in the DSM-5 explains that "the inability to anticipate happiness or pleasure" in such a situation is a diagnostic criterion for the mental disorder of depression.

To some, this smacks of pathologizing a normal, understandable human reaction. "This completely leaves the person out of the equation and turns people into patients," said psychotherapist Eric Maisel, a critic of the DSM. "The DSM claims that an unwanted, distressing feeling is a sign of a disorder rather than being just a feeling, and it isn't at all interested in whether your circumstances could have caused those feelings."

It is important to consider circumstances, he said, because if someone experiences deep anxiety as a result of losing her job, becoming ill or facing foreclosure, "the remedy shouldn't be a pill," the usual outcome of a diagnosis of "generalized anxiety disorder."

The DSM-5 will likely reduce diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). It eliminated Asperger's syndrome and tightened the ASD criteria.

While no one wants to see children incorrectly labeled, said Katie Weisman of the patient advocacy group Safe Minds, "children who were borderline cases under the previous DSM now won't get a diagnosis, which means they won't be eligible" for early, intensive behavior therapy - or won't have it paid for by insurance.

A mother of triplets on the autism spectrum, Weisman says "I'm not sure my boys would be where they are today" - in regular school classrooms, not special education - "without these services."

Whether the critics' fears come true will become clear only once psychiatrists, psychologists and even primary-care providers - who write the majority of prescriptions for drugs to treat mental illness - begin using the new DSM. "We're trying to establish accurate and reliable guidelines, and you can't completely control how they're applied," said Columbia's Lieberman. "The problem is not with the instrument but with the way it's used."

(Reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by Douglas Royalty)

CANNES (Reuters) - Paolo Sorrentino's "The Great Beauty," a nostalgic, melancholic ode to the eternal city Rome, is one of several films that touch on the unraveling of contemporary Italy in official selection at the Cannes film festival this year.

Also competing for the prestigious Palme d'Or award to be handed out on May 26 is "Un Chateau en Italie" ("A Castle in Italy") by Franco-Italian director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi about the demise of an aristocratic family.

Italian actress Valeria Golino makes her directorial debut with "Miele" ("Honey") about a woman who helps terminal patients end their lives. The movie is competing in the "Un Certain Regard" category for emerging filmmakers.

Bathed in the beautiful Roman light of yellows and golds, "La Grande Bellezza" ("The Great Beauty") is a lush, sweeping film that both critiques the emptiness of life and revels in it.

We first meet protagonist Jep Gambardella, played by Toni Servillo, at a late-night bash that makes the famed "bunga bunga" parties of Silvio Berlusconi look tame.

Jep is living the high life on the laurels of a famous novel he wrote 40 years ago, and now at 65 is stuck in a rut.

As he reflects on the possibility of writing again, he questions his hedonistic life and his rich, vapid friends, whom he entertains at raucous parties at his apartment overlooking Rome's Colosseum.

"The film tries to portray a poverty that is not material," Sorrentino told reporters on Tuesday. "At the same time, we're not passing a negative judgment but showing what it is, and it symbolizes our country."

"A BY-GONE TIME"

With its thousands of years of civilization on show at every turn, Rome is a character in "The Great Beauty" and Sorrentino's camera guides us like a privileged guest through locked palaces, interior courtyards and private terraces.

"You have a portrait of a city that symbolizes a certain human condition," Servillo said. "It doesn't symbolize hope at all, but rather missed opportunities, a by-gone time."

In a review, Screen magazine called "The Great Beauty" a "virtuoso piece of filmmaking.

"An alternately elegiac and world-weary cinematic fresco of contemporary Rome that references both the melancholy hedonism of 'La Dolce Vita' or Fellini's 'Roma' and the decadence of the latter days of the Roman empire," wrote reviewer Lee Marshall.

Sorrentino's "Il Divo" ("The Divine") based on Italy's ex- Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, won Cannes' 2008 Jury Prize.

Tedeschi, an actress/director and sister of former French first lady and supermodel Carla Bruni - chooses as the centerpiece of "A Castle in Italy" an Italian family who can no longer afford the upkeep of their ancestral castle.

Inspired by the famous Chekhov play "The Cherry Orchard," the film mixes the story of the impending sale of the castle with the death of a brother, and a budding relationship between the lead character, played by Tedeschi, and a much younger man played by French actor Louis Garrel.

In "Honey," director Golino deals with another kind of death, euthanasia, following a young woman who works outside the law to ease the suffering of the terminally ill.

The issue of euthanasia is not the focus of the film, but rather the inner goings-on of the edgy heroine, played by Jasmine Trinca, who never emotionally engages with her clients until she meets one who turns out not to be sick at all.

(Editing by Mike Collett-White)

The two men were part of a group of 22 skydivers who jumped from a plane in Zephyrhills, about 30 miles northeast of Tampa, according to the Tampa Tribune newspaper.

When only 20 of those who jumped returned, authorities launched a search and found the bodies of the two men a few hours later, Florida media said.

The two men were from Iceland, according to Skydive City, which planned the jump, the Tribune reported.

Their identities were not released.

A spokesman for the Pasco County, Florida Sheriff's Office could not be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Todd Eastham)