Annie Tummino is coordinator of the National Women's Liberation and the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking unrestricted access to the morning-after pill. She says women and girls should have "the absolute right to control" their bodies.

The Department of Justice said Monday it will submit a plan for compliance with the judge's April ruling. If he approves it, the department will drop its appeal.

Social conservatives and other opponents argue the drug's availability takes away the rights of parents of girls who could get it without their permission.

TOKYO (Reuters) - The Bank of Japan kept monetary policy steady on Tuesday and held off on taking fresh steps to calm bond market volatility, possibly judging that recent market turbulence has yet to pose a significant risk to the economy's recovery prospects.

The yen edged higher against the dollar, Japanese equities futures slipped further and 10-year government bond futures extended losses, reflecting disappointment that the central bank had not taken the additional steps.

Rising bond market yields have already pushed up some mortgage rates, raising concerns that a further rise in yields could increase other borrowing costs and so dent the economy's new found momentum under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Some central bankers had been considering the idea of extending the maximum duration of cheap, fixed-rate funds it offers via market operations to two years from the current one year.

Such a move would have made it easier for banks that were caught wrong-footed by last month's spike in yields to hedge their portfolios by reducing the need to sell bonds to balance their books, thus potentially dampening market swings.

The BOJ's nine-member board likely decided to skip fresh market measures as bond markets have restored some calm and the economy is showing increasing signs of improvement.

Data on Monday showed economic growth was faster than previously thought, the current account surplus was growing rapidly and lending was on the up.

"Japan's economy is picking up," the central bank said in a statement announcing the policy decision, a more upbeat view than last month when it had said growth was starting to pick up.

It also revised up its assessment on exports and output to say they were picking up amid a gradual recovery in global growth.

Under new Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, the BOJ stunned financial markets on April 4 by setting in motion an intense burst of monetary stimulus. It kept its policy settings unchanged at the two-day rate review that ended on Tuesday.

"Today's decision may reflect Kuroda's stance of not taking incremental action in response to day-to-day market moves," said Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo.

"He may also have thought there's no need to be too nervous about the market volatility, hoping to determine more the effect of the BOJ's bond-buying program for the time being."

MARKET TUMULT

Japanese government bond prices extended losses after the BOJ statement. September 10-year Japanese government bond (JGB) futures fell more than a half point to as low as 142.44, while the yield on 10-year cash JGBs rose 4.5 basis points to 0.880 percent.

The dollar fell as low as 97.78 yen, having stood at around 98.65 yen or so just before the BOJ's decision.

Nikkei index stock futures extended losses and were down 2.6 percent at 13,250 by 0300 GMT. The cash market was closed for a lunch break when the statement was released.

The rise in bond yields in late May, slowing growth in China and uncertainty over when the U.S. Federal Reserve would roll back its stimulus have hurt global stocks, including Japanese equities.

The yen also surged to a two-month high against the dollar last week, weighing on the export-reliant economy and taking back a chunk of the feel-good effect of "Abenomics," a policy prescription of sweeping fiscal and monetary expansion aimed at jolting the world's third-biggest economy out of a two-decade long slump.

Before the setback, market euphoria over the government's campaign to reflate the economy had driven Japanese equities up over 70 percent since mid-November and had sent the yen tumbling to a 4-1/2-year low against the dollar of 103.74 yen.

A loss of market confidence would be a big blow to Abenomics, which relies on sentiment to spur a virtuous circle of consumption, investment, higher wages and lending to revitalize the economy.

Markets are focusing on what Kuroda has to say in his post-meeting news conference on the market turbulence, which has cast doubt on his argument that the April action would help push down yields across the curve.

"As long as yields move in line with economic developments, this is not a problem. If yields start to deviate from the underlying economy, the BOJ could make some minor adjustments in the future," said Hiroshi Miyazaki, senior economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities in Tokyo.

The BOJ promised in April to double its bond holdings in two years to expand the supply of money at an annual pace of 60 trillion ($605 billion) to 70 trillion yen to meet its pledge of achieving a 2 inflation target.

($1=99.14 yen)

(Additional reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto and Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Neil Fullick)

LONDON (Reuters) - Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver inspired home cooks across Britain with his "pukka tukka" or nutritious food recipes and now he wants to expand his profile internationally by opening up to 20 of his Italian restaurants around the world.

Oliver, 38, whose book, television, and restaurant empire has made him an estimated fortune of 225 million pounds ($334 million), on Tuesday unveiled plans to increase the number of his Jamie's Italian restaurants overseas to 20 from 4.

The international projects are in various stages but restaurants already announced this year include in Australia's capital Canberra, in Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia, Istanbul in Turkey, Singapore and a second restaurant in Dubai.

He also has his sights set on restaurants in Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

"In 2013 we will continue our international restaurant expansion and delivering outstanding products with real added value, great customer service and a range of delicious and nutritious meals," John Jackson, chairman of the Jamie Oliver Group of Companies, said in a statement.

Oliver's five-year-old restaurant chain has bolstered the wealth of the Essex-born chef, posting profits of 7.8 million pounds in 2012 on Tuesday, up 7.5 percent from a year ago.

In Britain, the chain boasts 34 restaurants.

Oliver's book and television work added another 2 million pounds to his profits in the year ending December 30, 2012 as popularity continued to grow for his "pukka tukka" food, his catchphrase to describe good or authentic food or tucker.

Overall revenue for Jamie Oliver Holdings Ltd rose 13.3 percent during the year to 35.3 million pounds aided by strong UK and international sales for his "15 Minute Meals" and "30 Minute Meals" cookbooks.

Oliver's love of Italian food stemmed from his first job at Antonio Carluccio's restaurant in London but it was London's River Cafe restaurant in 1997 that set the charismatic young chef on the path to fame after he made an unscripted appearance in the TV documentary "Christmas at the River Caf".

His first TV show "The Naked Chef" was released the next year.

But the chef hit global stardom on the back of his quest for healthy school meals in Britain that earned him an MBE award from the Queen in 2003 and was expanded to the United States with his TV program "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution".

This September Oliver publishes his 15th cookery book, "Save with Jamie", focusing on low-cost meals, shopping techniques and using left-overs. A TV series will support the book.

(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

It scares me, actually, how much Glass in repose resembles any another hunk of obsolete technology found around the house that will eventually be thrown away. Discarded not by the culture, but by me, the person who bought it and who already from time to time aimlessly holds onto dozens of gadgets and chargers and wires that, though once greeted with erotically high hopes, will be scrapped with the coffee grounds, unrecycled.

But I should not race ahead. Because now is the time of treasuring and pageantry for Google Glass. The first wearable Internet unit is having its moment. No one but real jerks are talking ashes to ashes, or Segways to Segways, when it comes to Glass. Were not anywhere near that.

*

I was just fitted with Google Glass on Friday, at an undisclosed location: spacious, minimalist, done in exposed ducts, painted pipes and reclaimed wood. A bar lined one wall; espresso on ice was offered. Spunky grass-fed humans, of various hues and gender-codings, in non-GMO cotton, danced attendance on me. I am a so-called Glass Explorer, chosen to try out Glass on the strength of my (admittedly overworked) 140-character application to Project Glass from February 27. In this tweet, I told Google what I would do were they to endow me with an early pair of Glass:

I'd sound out its poetry without ignoring its griefs. I'd no longer pretend I live in New York; I'd document the hallucination.

I read what you wrote, said Norm, my warm and adorable Glass Guide, as he greeted me in Glasss organic-modern loft in Manhattan. I really liked it.

It occurred to me that I had never liked a person more than I liked Norm, for that moment. I had tweeted something, and connected with Norm through words like poetry and grief, but connected so exactly that heand Father Google, of whom Norm was an emissarywanted to mark that connection by giving me the companys finest and newest invention: the Internet, strappable to the human skull.

By give, of course, I mean I had the exquisite privilege, along with several thousand other contest winners, of paying $2000 for Glass, plus accessories. Because it is nearly summer I chose the white color called cotton, which spoke to me more than orange tangerine or blue sky or shale or charcoal. I asked Norm about the silliness of the color names, and he told me they were meant to invoke nature.

Were bringing the humanity back to technology, he added, just as I tried to imagine what Google was bringing the nature back tobut I didnt ask.

He asked me what app I was most looking forward to using on GlassNorm just said Glass, never your or my Glassand I told him Twitter.

I use Twitter a lot, too, Norm said. Currently, though, you cant initiate tweets. You can only retweet and favorite, not actually tweet from Glass, he explained, looking sanguine as he expertly moved me through some minor fitting and Wi-Fi hookup, which involved pointing the Glass eye at a kind of barcode on a laptop screen. It lamped the bar code and prestoconnected! Amazing! Who cares if I couldnt initiate tweets?

Wait, that means I cant tweet.

But Norm was onto the next thing: taking photos and videos. He showed me a burnished late-afternoon early-summer view of ravishing Manhattan, from the broad and high Google window in Chelsea, looking south. He instructed me to speak the magic words" -- OK, Glass -- which activate the system and precede any command.

OK, Glass, take a picture, I said. It dida hologram the size of an olive pit with an image of the golden Big Apple suddenly framed that image and froze it. The photo, somehow, flew to Google+.

As I half-expected, I am having to finally learn about Google+. Ive , or however long its been around, but now that its the main depot for all things shareable from Glass, Im committing to it. This is partly because currentlyas my savior Norm has taught me to sayFacebook and Twitter and the other social networks play only warily with Glass.

Like a lot of things. In addition to Twitter and Facebook, here are some more things Glass currently plays only warily with: Third-party apps; stuttery users (on Glass, I managed to look up um on Google seven times, and now I am a budding expert on UM, The University of Miami); and network names that have special characters like hyphens in them. I was not able to access Wi-Fi by the beach, because the network I typically use (Guest-Cottage) contains a hyphen.

But somehow this didnt bother me, all the things that Glass is currently stymied by. Its in my wiring, after all, to believe that something works when it doesnt, or doesnt properly, especially when its new. And I never, ever think anythings creepy: not cloning, not Mars expeditions, not Google Glass. If I sense that something is fresh and exciting, like Google Glass, everything in me wants to move heaven and earth to spin it into bliss.

Now, I am holding onto the last sales line that Norm -- who was both cheerful and sphinx-like, come to think of it, like an oracular character from Inception or Vanilla Sky -- gave to me. His parting advice about Google Glass was the koan: Ease into it.

Ease into it?! I said. What does that mean? Like a psychological thing?

Like an epilepsy thing? A brain control thing? asked my boyfriend, Jamie, who had come as my plus-one.

Nothing but dogged reiteration from Norm. Just ease into it, he said. Ease into it. Its new. Its like anything else. Just. Ease. Into. It.

And then Norm was gone.

Still, as I left my Friday initiation with Jamie, I fairly tripped out into the sunset. In a way that has never happened to me before, people actually stared at us, with me in the medical-cyborg headgear, as I snapped photos of Manhattanites with my cotton-colored Glass; waiters and taxi drivers and teens on the sidewalk evinced a childlike sense of wonder.

Lifes too short to be blas about -- or to ease into -- Google Glass. Isnt it?

*

Im going to keep documenting my efforts here in The Glass Menagerie, to find the poetry and grief and hallucination in Google Glass. Next entry up: My experience as a Glass Pariah in Brooklyn -- where I live; where they cherish 1870 and 1940; where they avert their eyes from all things futurish; and where now, thanks to the Glass on my head, no one will talk to me.

Experts aren't sure what's behind the increase. Could it be that children are growing up in households so clean that it leaves them more sensitive to things that can trigger allergies?Or are mom and dad paying closer attention to rashes and reactions, and more likely to call it an allergy?

"We don't really have the answer," said Dr. Lara Akinbami of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the senior author of the new report released Thursday.

The CDC survey suggests that about 1 in 20 U.S. children have food allergies. That's a 50 percent increase from the late 1990s. For eczema and other skin allergies, it's 1 in 8 children, an increase of 69 percent. It found no increase, however, in hay fever or other respiratory allergies.

Already familiar with the trend in food allergies are school nurses, who have grown busier with allergy-related duties, like banishing peanuts at school parties or stocking emergency allergy medicine.

Sally Schoessler started as school nurse in 1992 in New York state, and didn't encounter a child with a food allergy for a few years. But by the time she left school nursing in 2005, "there were children in the majority of classrooms" with the disorder, said Schoessler, who now works at the National Association of School Nurses in Silver Spring, Md.

Food allergies tend to be most feared; severe cases may cause anaphylactic shock or even death from eating, say, a peanut. But many food allergies are milder and something children grow out of. Skin conditions like eczema, too, can be mild and temporary.

It's been difficult getting exact numbers for children's allergies, and the new report isn't precise. It uses annual surveys of thousands of adults interviewed in person. The report compares answers from 1997-1999 to those from 2009-2011.

Parents were asked if in the previous year their child had any kind of food or digestive allergy, any eczema or skin allergy, or any kind of respiratory allergy like hay fever.

The researchers did not ask if a doctor had made the diagnosis or check medical records. So some parents may have been stating a personal opinion, and not necessarily a correct one.

"We see a lot of kids in clinic that really aren't" allergic to the foods their parents worry about, said Dr. Morton Galina, a pediatric allergist at Atlanta's Emory School of Medicine.

For example, hives are sometimes blamed on a certain food when a virus was the actual cause, he added.

But experts also said they believe there is a real and unexplained increase going on, too.

One of the more popular theories is "the hygiene hypothesis," which says that exposure to germs and parasites in early childhood somehow prevents the body from developing certain allergies.

The hypothesis argues that there is a downside to America's culture of disinfection and overuse of antibiotics. The argument has been bolstered by a range of laboratory and observational studies, including some that have found lower rates of eczema and food allergies in foreign-born children in the U.S.

There could be other explanations, though. Big cities have higher childhood allergy rates, so maybe some air pollutant is the unrecognized trigger, said Dr. Peter Lio, a Northwestern University pediatric dermatologist who specializes in eczema.

Some suspect the change has something to do with the evolution in how foods are grown and produced, like the crossbreeding of wheat or the use of antibiotics in cattle. But Lio said tests haven't supported that.

Emory's Galina said the new CDC statistics may reflect a recent "sea change" in the recommendations for when young children should first eat certain foods.

In families with a history of eczema or food allergies, parents were advised to wait for years before introducing their young children to foods tied to severe allergies, like peanuts, milks and eggs. But professional associations changed that advice a few years ago after research suggested that allergies were more likely in those kids when the foods were delayed.

The old advice "was exactly the wrong thing to do," and could have contributed to some of the increased cases, Galina said.

The CDC report also found:

Food and respiratory allergies are more common in higher-income families than the poor,

Eczema and skin allergies are most common among the poor.

More black children have the skin problems, 17 percent, compared to 12 percent of white children and about 10 percent of Hispanic children.

The mother of a 13-year-old girl, who is black, runs an eczema support group in suburban Washington, D.C. Renee Dantzler says roughly half the families in her group are African-American. Eczema is an itchy skin condition, which often occurs on the arms or behind the knees. The cause isn't always clear.

Her daughter, Jasmine, started getting rashes at 6 months and got much worse when she was 4.

"Her whole body would flare. If she ate something, you would kind of hold your breath," Dantzler said. "And she's allergic to every grass and tree God made."

Her daughter took to wearing long sleeves and pants, even in hot weather, so people wouldn't see her skin scarred and whitened in spots from scratching. She began to improve about four years ago with steroid creams and other treatments and has gradually become less self-conscious about her skin, Dantzler said.

She's now on a school track team, which means wearing shorts.

"She's the only one on the team with long socks," her mom said.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

Dozens of tornado warnings were issued across a wide swath of the Midwest, including Oklahoma and Missouri, as a large storm front moved through the region. Nine died and dozens were injured.

Weather service meteorologists said Saturday that crews have to assess the damage before determining whether it was caused by tornadoes or severe thunderstorms. Cars were toppled on an interstate in the Oklahoma City area, and aerial images showed damaged to homes and businesses in the suburbs of St. Louis.

They said they expected to have an estimate by Saturday afternoon.

A cold front will move through the Plains and Midwest today, lessening the chances for severe weather.

More than 500 astronomers, journalists and guests will bring their cosmic know-how to Indianapolis, Ind. next week for the 222nd meeting of the(AAS). The conference begins on Sunday (June 2) and runs through June 6 at the Indiana Convention Center; it is the second of two meetings held annually by the AAS.

New findings about alien worlds, mysterious dark matter and the Milky Way will be discussed, and this year anyone can take part in the cosmic action. []

"For the first time ever, the AAS is opening its meeting to amateur astronomers and other interested members of the public, who may take advantage of a special one-day registration rate of $50 per day on Monday, 3 June, or Tuesday, 4 June, or both days (in which case the cost will be $100)," officials from the AAS wrote in a release.

Several presentations on Monday and Tuesday will be geared toward amateurs that decide to pay the fee and attend. The presentations include information about the , nearby exoplanets, Pluto, and the formation of galaxies in the early universe.

In addition to those talks, the society will also hold two free public events during the convention.

Astronomers will throw a star party on Monday night at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 June 4 GMT) to show off Saturn and the ringed giant's moon Titan through telescopes set up outside of the convention center. Any curious members of the public are welcome to come take a peek for free.

"It's a great opportunity to see the stars with professional astronomers and meet the local astronomers in your hometown," AAS officials wrote.

On Tuesday night, "BBC Sky at Night" presenter Chris Lintott of the Adler Planetarium and Oxford University will speak about citizen science and its role in astronomy today. This talk begins at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT) at the convention center. It is also free and open to the public.

Throughout the course of the conference, scientists will take part in town hall-style meetings about NASA, the National Science Foundation and other agencies. The latest findings from the badly damaged planet hunting will be presented as well.

Twitter users can follow the conference using the hashtag #AAS222, and SPACE.com will bring you complete coverage of the meeting from Indianapolis. For more information on the events open to the public, visit:

Follow Miriam Kramer onand . Follow us on , and . Original article on .

The game, which was scheduled to start at 7:05 p.m., finally resumed at 12:13 a.m. 2 hours, 39 minutes after the third rain delay. Before that there was uncertainty, confusion and, of course, rain.

The teams were delayed a total of 4:49 and played just 16 minutes.

With a forecast for heavy rain on Saturday and Sunday, the umpires figured they had to try to get in one game with the possibility the whole weekend could get washed out. The teams aren't scheduled to meet again this season.

Rays starter Matt Moore remained unbeaten. The left-hander, who was trying to become the majors' first nine-game winner, pitched one scoreless inning. Cleveland's Corey Kluber made it through two hitless innings before the game was stopped for a third time.

On Thursday night, the Kansas City Royals and St. Louis Cardinals were delayed an hour before the first pitch and another 4 hours, 32 minutes by rain.

The online blueprints for a fully functional 3D-printed gun have disappeared faster than a speeding bullet.

On Wednesday, the State Department ordered the company that posted the schematics, Defense Distributed, to remove them from the web. (Watch a Defense Distributed video explaining the gun above.) According to the State Department, publicly posting the instructions may have violated the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which governs the "transfer of, and access to" certain weapons and their technical details. By posting the files to the web where anyone in the world could download them, the company may have inadvertently violated those export restrictions.

"Please note that disclosing (including oral or visual disclosure) or transferring technical data to a foreign person, whether in the United States or abroad, is considered an export," the State Department  in a letter.

However, the State Department did not say that the instructions must remain offline for good. Rather, the department asked that Defense Distributed file the necessary paperwork for the government to determine if the blueprints are, in fact, a violation of ITAR. In the meantime, State wrote, the company "should treat the above technical data as ITAR-controlled."

That letter came just two days after Defense Distributed, through its open-source printing project DEFCAD, posted the instructions for its "Liberator" handgun to the Internet. In just three days, the instructions had already been downloaded more than 

Here's how it works, :

Fifteen of the gun's 16 pieces are constructed on the $8,000 Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer, Forbes said. The final piece is a common nail, used as a firing pin, that can be found in a hardware store. []

And indeed, by Thursday evening, the webpage to download the instructions had been updated with the : "This file has been removed from public access at the request of the US Department of Defense Trade Controls. Until further notice, the United States government claims control of the information."

Still, the federal order does not mean all copies of the blueprints have been be wiped from the web. The instructions have been posted to the file-sharing sites Pirate Bay and Mega, among others, meaning they're still available for download.

Wilson, who claims to have been inspired by anarchist writings, himself made that point in an , saying he thought he would ultimately be free from the government's oversight.

"I still think we win in the end," he said. "Because the files are all over the Internet, the Pirate Bay has it to think this can be stopped in any meaningful way is to misunderstand what the future of distributive technologies is about."

Lawmakers at the state and federal level have already moved to ban printable firearms.

In California, Democratic state Senator Leland Yee said in athat he would soon introduce a bill to ban weapons that "are invisible to metal detectors and that can be easily made without a background check." At the federal level, Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have likewise called for legislation to ban such firearms.

"A terrorist, someone who's mentally ill, a spousal abuser, a felon can essentially open a gun factory in their garage," Schumer

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - SABMiller, the world's second-biggest brewer, forecast margin expansion in the year ahead after profit grew in line with expectations thanks to a surge in earnings in Latin America and Africa.

The maker of Grolsch, Peroni and Pilsner Urquell, said on Thursday it expected trading conditions to be broadly unchanged in the next 12 months, with strong growth in developing markets and difficulties in Europe and the United States.

The brewer said it would increase prices in places, with input costs expected to rise by a low to mid-single digit percentage from a mid single-digit rise in 2012/2013.

"We would assume that our margins would grow next year by a modest amount, somewhere between 20 and 50 basis points, so similar to the current year," Chief Financial Officer Jamie Wilson told a conference call.

Operating margin grew by 40 basis points on a constant currency basis in the financial year to the end of March.

SABMiller shares were down 1.7 percent at 1007 GMT, compared with the 1.1 percent decline of the STOXX European food and beverage index. However, the brewer's shares have outperformed its rivals in the year to date, gaining 23 percent, against 11 percent for the index.

Analysts said SABMiller's earnings were slightly lower than expected at the operating level, with more or less in line earnings per share and a reasonable outlook.

"Directionally it's better than the others largely due to geographical mix. They aren't in Brazil and have minimal exposure to Western Europe," said Bernstein Research analyst Trevor Stirling.

Anheuser-Busch InBev has cut its sales forecast for Brazil and Heineken its view for overall group growth after weak starts to the year, while rival Carlsberg benefited from its push into Asia.

Stirling said that with a price to forward earnings ratio of 21 times, SABMiller was trading at a premium of 20 percent to peers so many of its positives were already priced in.

SABMiller, which now earns 75 percent of its profit from emerging markets, said adjusted earnings per share rose 11 percent to 238.7 U.S. cents, matching the Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S average forecast of 239 cents.

The London- and Johannesburg-listed company said EBITA (earnings before interest, tax and amortisation) rose 14 percent to $6.42 billion, in line with the Thomson Reuters mean forecast but below the $6.54 billion StarMine SmartEstimate, which weights analyst forecasts according to previous track record.

The brewer, which has expanded rapidly since the 2002 takeover of Miller by SAB, whose origins were in South Africa, said EBITA (earnings before interest, tax and amortisation) in Latin America grew 11 percent on a like-for-like basis.

The continent now makes up about a third of SABMiller's earnings, with leading positions in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, although volume growth slowed in the January-March period, with a decline in Colombia, partly due to price increases.

In Africa, EBITA grew by 20 percent and overtook both North America and Europe through brands such as Nile and Castle, which dominate the east of the continent from Uganda to South Africa.

Asia-Pacific earnings also improved, as it made gains in China and India and achieved half the targeted $180 million cost savings from its end-2011 acquisition of Australia's Foster's.