Church officials say food shortages and foreign exchange restrictions are causing a lack of ingredients needed to celebrate Mass: altar wine as well as wheat to produce communion wafers.

They say the wheat flour used for the sacramental wafers is scarce and the supply of altar wine used for Holy Communion is threatened, which could force them to ration it.

"We only have enough for two months," said Archbishop Roberto Luckert, a spokesman for the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference. He said Venezuela's only producer of church-standard communion wine, Bodegas Pomar, recently informed the church that it can no longer guarantee production because it lacks some imported ingredients.

The church's concerns echo those of Venezuelans in general, who have struggled to find goods such as toilet paper and staple food items like milk, sugar and cooking oil.

Economists say the shortages stem from the socialist government's controls on the prices of some goods and on foreign currency, which makes it hard for producers to pay for things they need to import.

President Nicolas Maduro blames the shortages on hoarding and says anti-government forces are trying to destabilize the country.

Bodegas Pomar is controlled by Empresas Polar, the biggest food producer in Venezuela. Company officials did not return calls seeking comment. And government officials have not commented on the issue.

The Episcopal Conference is looking for alternative wines, but Luckert said that is difficult because church rules specify wine that is "pure and natural," without additives.

"The other option would be to import it, but the costs would be very high because we don't have access to dollars," the archbishop said. The only other alternative is to ration the wine, he added.

Venezuela has maintained strict currency controls since 2003, creating a black market that now sells dollars at more than triple the official rate of 6.3 bolivars. Falling oil exports and foreign investment have helped dry up the dollar supply.

The church is considering asking the government for access to dollars, but it hasn't made a formal request so far, Luckert said.

The shortage of wheat flour has compounded the problems for the church, because the host, or wafer, administered during Holy Communion must be made of wheat. The wafers are made by nuns in convents and parish houses.

"Sometimes we spend days trying to get two or three bags," said Sister Maria de los Angeles, a 49-year-old nun shopping in a small grocery store in Caracas.

Though the government has announced mass imports of basic food items and toilet paper, many products seem to run out shortly after they hit the shelves.

Liliana Escobar, a 32-year-old housewife, was among those lined up this week outside store rumored to have received a fresh shipment of toilet paper.

"On top of losing hours in order to buy four rolls of paper, now we won't even be able to receive communion as God commands," she said. "It's unbelievable."

The commissioner's office announced the penalty Monday evening, minutes before St. Louis hosted Arizona. Molina appealed the decision and was in the starting lineup against the Diamondbacks.

The announcement was made by Joe Garagiola Jr., baseball's Senior Vice President of Standards and Operations.

Molina was thrown out on a close play at first base during Sunday's game against San Francisco and slammed his helmet to the ground. First base umpire Clint Fagan immediately ejected Molina, who then went to argue. Everitt got in front of Molina, who bumped into him.

Molina, a four-time All-Star and five-time Gold Glove winner, was hitting .347 with three homers, 14 doubles and 27 RBIs this season.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could be about to take the biggest bet of his six-month old administration - sucking the savings of the country's notoriously risk-averse and fast ageing constituents out of the relative safe haven of government bonds.

He could announce the move as soon as Wednesday as part of a package of measures designed to kick economic growth into a higher gear. The prime minister has already pushed through $100 billion in government spending and shaken up monetary policy by prodding the Bank of Japan into a $1.4 trillion stimulus effort.

Having long prescribed "bold" economic measures to turn around 15 years of grinding deflation and sluggish economic growth, he now wants the nation's public pensions to take more risk with their $2 trillion pool of funds.

It is a policy that directly affects tens of millions of Japanese workers and pensioners in a country that is very conscious of how rapidly it is ageing. A government survey last year estimated those aged 65 or over would double by 2060.

"The government is trying to do this with pension money," said Nobusuke Tamaki, a professor at Otsuma Women's University and a former director general of the country's biggest public pensions fund, the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF).

"But how would the public at large feel if their pensions suffer huge losses? Politicians need to talk to the public about this and debate the issue in an intensive way."

Shifting hundreds of billions of dollars from bonds into riskier assets, such as equities or infrastructure financing, also risks disrupting markets, already jittery following two weeks of volatility and some analysts questioned if the public funds had the expertise to manage greater investment risk.

The justification is that nudging GPIF and dozens of other public and semi-public funds to diversify could increase returns while supporting Abe's push to drive Japan out of its deflationary spiral.

LAGGARD

GPIF's returns have lagged some other big national pensions funds and its asset allocation is more risk averse.

It hit its own internal return targets in recent years, a payout of 1.1 percentage point over wage increases in the economy. But it has been helped in that by falling salaries.

Wages have dropped by almost a percent per year over the past nine years. GPIF's total return on investment over the same period averaged 2.4 percent a year based on a target portfolio that allocates two-thirds of the fund to domestic bonds.

But it has underperformed funds like Canada's Pension Plan Investment Board, with $183 billion in assets, and Norway's $686 billion pool of government savings from petroleum revenue known as the Government Pension Fund Global. Both these funds allocate most of their money to equities.

Norway's GPFG, for example, has a 60 percent weighting in equity markets and 40 percent in bonds and real estate. It returned almost 6 percent a year over the past decade.

Critics have long said GPIF lacks the staff, budget or investment mandate to keep pace with other large public funds.

It has more than $1 trillion under management, but only about 70 staff working from a non-descript office in Tokyo's Kasumigaseki district.

An advisory panel to the pension fund had been working on proposed changes to its investment strategy since April, before the Abe-backed reform proposals surfaced.

With its bureaucratic-payscale, the fund also lacks the ability to lure star fund managers. The highest paid employee is the chairman, Takahiro Mitani, who made the equivalent of $192,000 for the fiscal year ended March 2012.

IT WON'T BE CHEAP

Professor Tamaki said it is uncertain if Abe can convince the Japanese public to support the kinds of reforms needed to make it more like counterparts in Canada or Norway.

"We would have to budget to hire professionals and that won't be cheap," he said. "Very importantly, the government should set up a means to govern and evaluate those new professional fund managers to convince the Japanese public. That won't be easy."

Even with its conservative portfolio, GPIF took a loss of almost 8 percent in 2008 during the global financial crisis.

A higher weighting on equities would mean accepting higher risk in a crisis, a potentially unpopular choice in Japan where many chose to keep savings in almost interest-free bank deposits.

There is also the risk to the Japanese government bond (JGB) market just as it is trying to adjust to huge bond buying by the more activist Bank of Japan, a reason behind recent volatility.

Shifting to the bond-weighting of Norway or Canada would mean GPIF pulling 27 trillion yen ($272 billion) from the JGB market. That would be over half of the amount of additional JGBs that the Bank of Japan has pledged to buy this year as part of a massive round of asset purchases under its stimulus program.

At the same time, GPIF would have to invest another 45 trillion yen ($454 billion) in equities to match the portfolio of its international peers in Canada and Norway.

The scale of the shift means any changes would have to be gradual, analysts said.

"Pension funds tend to play it safe," said Toshihiko Matsuno, senior strategist at SMBC Friend Securities. "It's too early to believe that pension funds are aggressively chasing the market higher."

CREDIBILITY TEST?

Abe's also faces losing some hard-won credibility with markets. Talk of the shift in pension fund investment strategy is emerging at a time when the Nikkei average, Japan's benchmark stock index, has been in retreat and near six-week lows.

It is still up more than 50 percent since Abe started pushing his brand of economic policies, but investors are uncertain about the shape of his growth strategy for the future.

Abe is expected to announce the setting up of special economic zones, targets for domestic private-sector investment and a doubling of farm exports. But analysts say he will avoid major reforms, such as big deregulation or labor reform ahead of an upper-house election in July.

With that vote looming, some questioned whether Abe's team was resorting to the kind of tactics that previous Liberal Democratic Party administrations had tried and famously failed to make work.

In the early 1990s, the pension savings that were later organized into GPIF were a regular target for finance ministry officials who tried to support stock prices with public funds.

The policies - known as "Price Keeping Operations" in a play on the United Nations' organized Peace Keeping Operations - failed and even backfired by encouraging banks to hold riskier assets, said Junji Narita, a professor at Aoyama Gakuin, who has studied the period.

Many say the key is what Abe does on other aspects of economic reform.

"Tweaking pension funds' investment policy is a step forward but it has to be accompanied by structural changes," said Xiao Minjie, an independent economist in Tokyo. "There have to be strategies to make domestic investors feel justified in investing in home markets."

He added: "Markets are desperately looking for that kind of detail."

(Reporting by Chikafumi Hodo, Chikako Mogi, Emi Emoto, Taro Fuse, Noriyuki Hirata, Dominic Lau, Takefumi Ito; writing by Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Neil Fullick)

(Reuters) - A Lebanese immigrant in Chicago on Thursday was sentenced to 23 years in federal prison for plotting an attack and planting what he thought was a bomb near the city's Wrigley Field baseball park.

Sami Samir Hassoun, 25, pleaded guilty last year to charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and an explosive device after he placed what he thought was a homemade bomb in a garbage can in the north-side neighborhood during a busy Saturday night, according to court records.

He told an FBI informant and undercover agents he wanted to expose the city's inadequate security measures and embarrass then-Chicago Mayor Richard Daley into resigning, the criminal complaint against him said. It gave no further details as to motive.

In a series of planning meetings secretly tape-recorded by the FBI, Hassoun suggested various attacks including unleashing a virus on the city, poisoning its water supply, bombing the landmark Willis Tower skyscraper, attacking police officers or assassinating the mayor.

On September 18, 2010, undercover agents gave him a fake bomb in a backpack and told him that it was capable of wiping out half a city block, court documents said.

"The thought of what might have happened if it was real is horrific," said U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman, who presided over the sentencing, in a statement released by the U.S. Attorney's office.

Hassoun then drove to Wrigleyville, the neighborhood surrounding Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs. The area is known for its bars and restaurants and is densely populated, with blocks of apartment buildings.

He dropped the backpack into a trash can, before being arrested by law enforcement agents, according to the complaint.

Gettleman ordered Hassoun placed on five years of supervised release following his prison term and said he will be subject to deportation when he is released, according to the statement.

The sentencing comes six weeks after Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar allegedly set off two pressure-cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line, killing three people and injuring 264.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is being held at a prison hospital west of Boston awaiting trial on charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty. His brother was killed during a shootout with police.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Lisa Shumaker)

By Simon Evans

MIAMI, June 1 (Reuters) - David Beckham said the prospect of owning an Major League Soccer team in Miami was "exciting" after he was urged to help bring a new franchise to Miami at a meeting with key political leaders on Saturday.

Beckham, accompanied by Bolivian born billionaire Marcelo Claure, who wants to team-up with him in owning a new franchise, visited two potential stadiums and met with the mayor of Miami-Dade County Carlos Gimenez, who handed him the keys to the county.

The former England captain, who retired from football last month, played in MLS with L.A. Galaxy and his contract included an option to create a new team for $25 million and he is understood to have other locations in mind as well.

But Beckham sounded positive about the chances of taking his step into club ownership in Miami.

"I think bringing an MLS team here to South Florida would be... it's exciting," Beckham told CBS4 News television.

"I think Miami fans are very passionate about their sports and very passionate about winning and of course, it would have to be success but it's definitely exciting," he said.

Miami Dade County commissioner Jose 'Pepe' Diaz said there was real backing for a team in Miami.

"There is huge political support. It is not only from the county, it's 100 percent support from the municipalities, the mayors and the commissioner, the counselors from the different cities, they are also extremely supportive," he told Reuters.

Beckham visited Sun Life stadium, home to the NFL's Miami Dolphins, whose owner Stephen Ross recently set up a soccer division, and met with the Dolphins chief executive Mike Dee.

Sun Life holds around 75,000 fans and has hosted several international friendlies in recent years but may be considered overly large for an MLS team.

Together with British entrepreneur Simon Fuller, whose management company 19 Entertainment, handles Beckham's business affairs, Beckham later visited a 20,000 stadium at Florida International University (FIU).

Claure, owner of Bolivian club Bolivar, is a member of the board of trustees of FIU and has previously promoted the idea of an MLS team playing at the venue.

The FIU stadium underwent major renovations in 2007 and is home to the University's American football team.

Jose Sotolongo, the executive director of the Miami-Dade Sports Commission, was among those who met with Beckham and said he had no doubt the city was ready for a top flight soccer team.

"We know that our community can support not only the international soccer (friendlies) that have been coming to Miami for a while now, but that it would support an MLS franchise," he told Reuters.

"The city of Miami has a very international fan base and a very soccer savvy fan base. This is the kind of ownership group that would electrify the community and hopefully we will get good news," he said.

Beckham also met with representatives of a fan group which has been campaigning for a team to come to the city.

Julio Caballero, spokesman for the group, who call themselves MLS Miami Bid, said there was a positive mood among the fans.

"I feel really good about it, it looks really positive. It is pretty much down to Beckham now, I have heard he will make his decision inside 90 days," he said.

"Beckham will bring something spectacular here - not just his name, but a class organisation to Miami. Claure knows how to run a club. The two together is just what Miami needs for soccer."

The city briefly had an MLS team, the Miami Fusion, who played in neighboring Fort Lauderdale and joined MLS in 1998 but were closed by the, then, struggling league after four seasons.

The only professional team in the area is the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, who play in the second tier North American Soccer League, and owner Aaron Davidson said that while he would be open to meeting with Beckham they would take on the challenge of another team if one emerged.

"It is great that people showing interest in South Florida soccer. We would be happy to talk to him, but ultimately if he decides to do something in South Florida without us, we look forward to the rivalry," he said. (Editing by Julian Linden)

Your dining-room table may be one of the reasons why Russian tiger forests are being pushed to the brink of destruction. And without realizing it, you may be stepping on tiger habitat each time you walk on your hardwood floor.

That's a hard fact to read. The idea that flooring or a piece of furniture you purchased could be endangering the survival of theis as troubling as it is surprising.

Its a story that begins thousands of miles away in the Russian Far East, where loggers are illegally chopping down the largest and most valuable oak, ash, elm and linden trees, and shipping them across the border to China. There, companies are turning this illegal timber into hardwood furniture and flooring, and shipping it to the United States and Europe, where it is purchased by consumers who are unaware that the wood in their furniture was stolen from tiger habitat.

looked at more than 10 years of on-the-ground observations and found the situation sobering: Russias forest sector has become deeply criminalized, with poor law enforcement, allowing illegal loggers to plunder valuable timber stocks with impunity.

When we looked at Russian customs data from recent years, we were astounded by what we found. In 2010 alone, the volume of Mongolian oak logged for export was twice the amount legally authorized for harvest from the region meaning that at least half of the oak shipped across the border to China that year was stolen. Even worse, in 2007 and 2008, the amount was four times as much as legally allowed.

We also looked at how timber thieves are prosecuted and found that very few are brought to trial. In 2011, for example, only 16 percent of the 691 registered cases of illegal logging in Russias Primorsky province were officially brought to court the lowest percentage in the past 10 years.

With the financial rewards from illegal logging high and the odds of being caught low, it's no surprise that illegal logging has reached epidemic proportions in the Russian Far East, and is devastating forest ecosystems and the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities.

Illegal logging degrades vital habitat forand their prey. Scientists estimate around 450 Amur tigers remain in the wild. Overharvesting limits the supply of pine nuts and acorns a main food source for Amur tigers prey. And as timber supplies dwindle, ecologically sensitive forests, like wildlife reserves, are increasingly threatened. []

Its more critical than ever to get these crimes under control. WWF has been working for more than a decade in the region, seeking solutions. We are tackling the problem from several angles in Russia: urging stronger law enforcement and transparency; engaging with companies committed to responsible forestry by promoting Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification; and encouraging international cooperation among governments committed to addressing the trade of illegal wood including the United States, with the .

But there's more to be done to reduce the demand for those illegal products here at home. As one of the largest importers of flooring and furniture from China, U.S. consumers and businesses can play a role in helping combat illegal logging and save this crucial tiger habitat. []

Businesses: As Russian plant species can be purposely mislabeled as originating from other countries, importers of Chinese or Russian hardwood furniture and flooring must confirm the species and country of wood origin. Companies can face a significant risk of liability under the U.S. Lacey Act for trading and purchasing illegally sourced wood products. For products made with Russian oak, ash, elm or linden, companies should exclusively purchase FSC-certified products to ensure they are sourcing products from legal and responsible sources. If FSC-certified products are not available, companies should establish rigorous legality and traceability confirmation systems. If neither approach is possible, buyers should avoid any products made from Russian Far East hardwoods due to the high risks of illegality.

Consumers: Knowing where your wood comes from is more important than ever, if we are to conserve this crucial habitat for the Amur tiger and its prey. How can you be sure youre not contributing to the destruction of Amur tiger forests when you purchase wood flooring or furniture products? The easiest way is to purchase FSC-certified products. FSC certification provides the assurance that legal, environmental and social protections are in place and that forests have been managed responsibly.

So next time you sit down at your dining room table and have a bite to eat, or dance across your hardwood floor, remember that as a consumer, you can play an important role in protecting the most precious places on the planet. Your responsible purchasing decisions can make a difference.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.

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The storm toppled cars and left commuters trapped on an interstate highway as it bore down during Friday's evening rush hour near Oklahoma City. The National Weather Service reported "several" tornadoes rolled in from the prairie, terrifying towns along their paths.

The storms brought another tense day for a region still reeling from the recent top-of-the-scale EF5 tornado that struck the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on May 20, killing 24 and decimating neighborhoods. Many said they took severe weather warnings issued during the day Friday seriously.

As the storm bore down on suburban Oklahoma City, Adrian Lillard, 28, of The Village, went to the basement of her mother's office building with a friend, her nieces, nephews and two dogs.

"My brother's house was in Moore, so it makes you take more immediate action," Lillard said while her young nieces played on a blanket on the floor of the parking garage. "We brought toys and snacks to try our best to keep them comfortable."

Storm chasers with cameras in their cars transmitted video showing a number of funnels dropping from the supercell thunderstorm as it passed south of El Reno and into Oklahoma City just south of downtown. As the cell advanced, police urged motorists to leave I-40 and seek a safe place.

Violent weather also moved through the St. Louis area. Early aerial images of the storm's damage showed homes with porches ripped away, roofs torn off and piles of splintered wood scattered across the ground for blocks. Officials in St. Charles County also reported that local schools suffered some damage.

Among the nine dead in Oklahoma were a mother and a baby found in a vehicle. Amy Elliott, a spokeswoman for the state medical examiner, said Saturday the death toll was up to seven adults and two children. At least 75 people were hurt, five critically, hospital officials said.

Meteorologists had warned about particularly nasty weather Friday but said the storm's fury didn't match that of the tornado that struck Moore. The Friday storm, however, brought with it much more severe flooding. It dumped around 8 inches of rain on Oklahoma City in the span of a few hours and made the tornado difficult to spot for motorists trying to beat it home, said Bruce Thoren, a meteorologist with National Weather Service in Norman.

"Some tornadoes are wrapped in rain, so it's basically impossible to see, which is extremely dangerous," Thoren said. "Somebody driving along really not familiar with what's going on can basically drive into it."

The heavy rain and hail hampered rescue efforts in Oklahoma City. Frequent lightning roiled the skies well after the main threat had moved east. Highways and streets were clogged late into the night as motorists worked their way around flooded portions of the city. Roads all around Oklahoma City were inundated with muddy water Saturday morning.

Will Rogers World Airport was slowly reopening and some flights were resuming. But the airport reported significant damage to the roof of the terminal, and flooding damage to walls, counters and floors.

Emergency officials reported that numerous injuries occurred in the area along I-40, and Randolph said there were toppled and wrecked cars littering the area. Standing water was several feet deep, and in some places it looked more like a hurricane had passed through than a tornado. More than 86,000 utility customers were without power.

Among the injured was Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Bettes, who suffered minor injuries when his "tornado hunt" SUV that he and two photographers were riding in was thrown 200 yards. The Weather Channel said all of the people in the vehicle were able to walk away, and that it was the first time a network personality was injured in a storm.

In Missouri, the combination of high water and fallen power lines closed dozen of roads, snarling traffic on highways and side streets in the St. Louis area. At the Hollywood Casino in the St. Louis suburb of Maryland Heights, gamblers rushed from the floor as a storm blew through, causing minor damage to the building.

Rich Gordon, of Jefferson City, said he was on the casino floor when he heard a loud "boom."

"I didn't know if it was lightning or what, but it was loud," Gordon said.

The U.S. averages more than 1,200 tornadoes a year and most are relatively small. Of the 60 EF5 tornadoes to hit since 1950, Oklahoma and Alabama have been hit the most seven times each.

National Weather Service meteorologists said Saturday that it's unclear how many tornadoes touched down as part of the Friday evening storm system. Dozens of tornado warnings were issued for central Oklahoma and parts of Missouri, especially near St. Louis, they said, but crews must assess the damage before determining whether it was caused by tornadoes or severe thunderstorms.

But one thing is certain: The chances for severe weather are on the decline as a cold front moves through the region, said weather service meteorologist Gene Hatch in Springfield, Mo.

This spring's tornado season got a late start, with unusually cool weather keepingfunnel clouds at bay until mid-May. The season usually starts in March and then ramps up for the next couple of months.

___

Associated Press writers Ken Miller and Tim Talley in Oklahoma City, Justin Juozapavicius in Tulsa; Jeannie Nuss in Texarkana, Texas; and Jim Salter in Maryland Heights, Mo., and freelance photographer Nick Oxfrod in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

After moving between small losses and gains for most of the day, the stock market plunged in the final hour of trading. The Dow Jones industrial average lost more than 200 points, half of them in the last 15 minutes. It was the worst drop in six weeks.

Some traders said the afternoon swoon came as large investors rearranged their holdings to match changes in the widely followed MSCI indexes. Others said rapid-fire automated sell programs kicked in as the decline accelerated, exacerbating the loss.

By late Friday, the market looked like it was "feeding on itself," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott. "Why did we go from trading flat to down 200 points at the close? It suggests to me that it was driven by computer models."

The market managed to hold on to gains for the month, extending winning streaks for major indexes. The Standard & Poor's 500 index ended May with its seventh straight monthly gain, its best run since 2009, but the last two weeks have been choppy. The index has declined on five of the last seven trading days and had its first two-week decline since November.

Traders and investors have started to question whether this year's record-setting rally has run its course. Concern is building that the Federal Reserve may slow its $85 billion bond-buying program. The program has supported the stock market as investors move money out of bonds and into riskier assets. The bond purchases also hold down long-term interest rates to encourage borrowing and spending.

The market appeared to be headed for an inconclusive day of trading early Friday after both encouraging and disappointing news on the economy was reported. An unexpected decline in consumer spending in April was offset by news that a measure of U.S. consumer confidence jumped to the highest level in almost six years in May.

The late afternoon slide in stocks caught many market-watchers by surprise. Big investors may have gotten spooked at the end of the day and sold, says Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities.

"In a thin market, all you need is one or two big money managers to reassess their view and the market can go down quickly," Ricchiuto said.

MSCI, originally known as Morgan Stanley Capital International, provides a range of global stock indexes that professional investors track to measure their performance. The company reviews its indexes twice a year, adding some stocks and removing others.

In government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.13 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. That has troubled some investors since a rapid rise in rates could curtail borrowing and spending.

The yields on Treasury notes are benchmarks for setting interest rates on many kinds of loans to consumers and businesses. The higher yields are already pushing mortgage rates higher. On Thursday the mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported that average mortgage rates jumped this week to the highest level in a year.

"People are worried a rise in interest rates might derail the recovery," says Joseph Tanious, the global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds.

The Dow closed down 208.96 points, or 1.4 percent, to 15,115.57.

It was the biggest loss for the index since April 15, when markets plunged after worries about an economic slowdown in China caused commodity prices to drop sharply.

The Dow managed its sixth straight month of gains.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 23.67, or 1.4 percent, to 1,630.74. The Nasdaq composite declined 35.38 points, or 1 percent, to 3,455.91.

In commodities trading, oil fell $1.64, or 1.8 percent, to $91.97 a barrel, close to its lowest in a month, after OPEC oil ministers said they would keep their output targets steady. Gold fell $19 to $1,393 an ounce, a decline of 1.3 percent.

Among stocks making big moves:

Lions Gate Entertainment rose 77 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $28.80. 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 $5.87, or 11 percent, to $48.52 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 $2.98, or 19 percent, to $18.47. The company reported that its net income doubled in its fourth fiscal quarter as revenue rose sharply.

___

AP Business Writers Matt Craft and Bernard Condon contributed to this report

The , a daily record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, has been running continuously since March 1958, when a carbon dioxide monitor was installed atin Hawaii. On its first day, the observatory measured a carbon dioxide concentration of 313 parts per million (ppm). That number means there were 313 molecules of carbon dioxide in the air for every 1 million air molecules.

The number continued to climb through May 1958 and then slowly started to drop, reaching a minimum in October that year. This maximum-minimum pattern, repeated seasonally, reveals how trees withdraw carbon dioxide from the air in summer to grow and then release it through dead, decaying leaves and wood in the winter.

Upward creep

But humans release carbon dioxide into the air, too, by burning fossil fuels. This activity has caused the Keeling Curve to creep ever upward since 1958: The lows get a little higher each year, as do the highs. []

Because carbon dioxide typically peaks in May, researchers are expecting the Keeling Curve to break a milestone of 400 ppm this year. (If not, the number will almost certainly be reached in May 2014.) As of May 1 of this year, the last day data was available, the Mauna Loa observatory recorded 399.39 ppm of carbon dioxide in the air.

There will be no huge atmospheric or climatic shift once carbon dioxide hits 400 ppm, but the milestone has symbolic significance, said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University.

"It is a reminder of just how uncontrolled this dangerous experiment we're playing with the planet really is," Mann told LiveScience.

What 400 ppm means

In the 1,000 years that occurred before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, atmospheric carbon dioxide held steady at around 270 to 280 parts per million.

Scientists believe that the most recent period to reach 400 ppm was the Pliocene Epoch, between 5 million and 3 million years ago, according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which keeps track of the Keeling Curve.

Back then, it was a different world. Global average temperatures during the period were between 5.4 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 4 degrees Celsius) higher than today, and sea level was as much as 131 feet (40 meters) higher in some places. Even the least-affected regions saw16 feet (5 meters) higher than today's.

A major difference between then and now, though, is the speed at which carbon dioxide is rising today. Typically, in the last 40 to 50 years, the Keeling Curve shows increases of 2 to 2.5 ppm a year, Mann said. In the 1950s and 1960s, carbon dioxide increased by less than 1 ppm each year, according to Scripps.

"We're on course for more than 450 ppm in a matter of decades if we don't get ourunder control quite soon," Mann said.

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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Rising stars Rhys Wakefield and Emma Rigby have joined the cast of Universal Pictures' remake of romantic drama "Endless Love."

Shana Feste ("Country Strong") is directing the film, which stars Alex Pettyfer and Gabriella Wilde as teenage lovers from opposite backgrounds.

Bruce Greenwood and Robert Patrick play Wilde and Pettyfer's fathers, respectively.

Wakefield will play Wilde's older brother who is under pressure to live up to the legacy of his late older brother.

Scott Stuber and Pam Abdy of Bluegrass Films are producing "Endless Love" with Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage of Fake Empire. J. Miles Dale and Tracy Falco are executive producing.

Josh Safran wrote an earlier draft of the screenplay, which has since been rewritten by Feste. Kristin Lowe and Chloe Yellin are overseeing the project for Universal.

Wakefield is quickly becoming a favorite on the Universal lot, as he also stars in its home invasion thriller "The Purge," which hits theaters on June 7. He previously starred in their studio's 2011 thriller "Sanctum," which was executive produced by James Cameron. The Australian actor just wrapped "Rita," Miguel Arteta's Bravo pilot starring Anna Gunn, and he'll also be seen in the indie movie "The Philosophers."

Rigby starred on the hit Brit series "Hollyoaks" and has appeared on the BBC America series "Ripper Street." She recently wrapped the indie movie "The Physician" and will soon be seen as the Red Queen on ABC's "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland."

Wakefield is represented by CAA, Anonymous Content and Sloane, Offer, Weber, and Dern, while Rigby is repped by WME, Alan Siegel Entertainment and Independent Talent Group.