Honda announced Thursday that it's slashing the monthly lease cost of its tiny Fit EV by one third, following similar moves by other automakers. Honda also is throwing in other goodies, such as a free home charging station and unlimited mileage.

Electric vehicles once were billed as the answer to high gas prices and dependence on foreign oil. But U.S. oil production is rising and gasoline supplies are abundant. Pump prices have remained relatively stable the past three years, while gas-powered cars have gotten more efficient, making consumers reluctant to give them up.

There's also the worry that an electric car could run out of juice on longer trips.

As a result, electric car sales are only a tiny fraction of overall U.S. auto sales. Automakers sold just over 12,000 pure-electric vehicles in the U.S. through April, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank and Tesla Motors. That's less than 1 percent of the 4.97 million cars and trucks sold during the same period. Even a $7,500 tax credit from the U.S. government that effectively lowers prices couldn't persuade most car buyers.

Automakers need to create a market for the cars among buyers who won't ordinarily go for the latest technology, said Larry Dominique, a former Nissan Motor Co. product chief.

"The early adopters are kind of phased out of the EV market. To get that broader appeal to the EV, they're doing some pretty aggressive lease deals," said Dominique, now an executive with the TrueCar.com auto pricing website.

The sluggish sales have dampened high expectations for electric car use. President Barack Obama has said he wants to put 1 million plug-in electric vehicles on the road by 2015, but with two years left, the nation is far short of that goal.

Still, the cheap leases and a broader selection of models are giving electric vehicles a boost. Sales for the first four months of this year already are 80 percent of last year's total sales of about 15,000.

The added models, though, have multiple automakers competing for a small number of buyers.

Automakers generally lose money on electric cars because the technology is so new and the batteries are costly. But they have been subsidizing sales by lowering prices. Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said earlier this year that his company will lose $10,000 on every Fiat 500 electric vehicle it sells. Others have reported similar losses.

With the Fit EV, Honda is offering a $259 per month lease, down $130 from the initial $389 per month offer when the car went on sale in July of last year. The reduced price starts June 1 and will apply to existing Fit EV leases, Honda said. The three-year lease requires no money down and comes with unlimited mileage, free routine maintenance, collision insurance coverage and a free 240-volt home charging station, the company said Thursday. The charging station normally costs $995. The car buyer must take care of installation.

"Although we feel the Fit EV offers significant product benefits over other electric vehicles, in order to effectively compete in the EV market, we need a more competitive price," Honda Motor Co. spokeswoman Robyn Eagles said in a statement.

Earlier this month, General Motors Co. said that it would lease the subcompact Spark EV for $199 per month with $999 due at signing as it goes on sale in California and Oregon. Nissan is offering a $199-per-month lease on its Leaf electric car with $1,999 down. That's down from a high of $369 per month back in 2011.

Both the Spark and Leaf leases run for three years but have 12,000-mile annual limits on the number of miles one can drive without incurring mileage charges.

The lower lease prices put an electric car on par with a comparable small car. For instance, you can lease a gas-powered Fit for $169 per month for three years, with about $2,000 down. Automakers can offer the cheap lease deals on electric cars in part because they get the $7,500 tax credit.

Sales of the subcompact Fit EV have been particularly slow. Through April, Honda has sold or leased only 68 in the U.S. Last year it sold or leased only 93, according to Ward's.

The Fit EV can go 82 miles on a single charge and gets the equivalent of 118 miles per gallon of gasoline.

Honda rolled out the Fit EV last summer in California and Oregon. It now has 36 dealers trained to sell and service the cars in states including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Rhode Island and Connecticut. It plans to expand that network to more than 200 dealers by the end of June.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- A stretch of wet weather has slowed planting of crops in Minnesota.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that last week, Minnesota farmers across the state had an average of just 1.9 days that were suitable for fieldwork.

But despite the wet weather, emergence of corn and small grains continued to move along.

Corn planting was 82 percent complete, compared with 100 percent last year, and the average of 95 percent. Corn emergence increased 32 percentage points to 40 percent emerged, but is still well behind last year's 91 percent.

Soybeans were 42 percent planted, compared with 92 percent last year and the average of 76 percent.

Spring wheat and barley planting were behind normal. Sugarbeets were 92 percent planted compared with 100 percent last year.

The unmannedlaunched into space atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Floridas Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Dec. 11, 2012, kicking off a mission whose objectives and payloads are classified.

The winged craft is known as Orbital Test Vehicle-3 (OTV-3), since it is conducting the third mission of the Air Force's X-37B program. []

Rebecca Killinger of Carlisle, Pa., said she had no idea how extensive the fire was until she debarked in Freeport, Bahamas. Photos of the Royal Caribbean ship show a large area of the stern charred on several decks.

She credited the crew's calm, orderly response. "The crew was in total control, and there was no chaos," she said, and some cracked jokes to lighten the mood.

Passengers described being awoken in their cabins as crew members knocked on doors and sent them to evacuation stations with their life jackets shortly after the fire broke out at 2:50 a.m. Monday.

Robert Alexander of Hamilton, N.J., said crew members from all parts of the Grandeur were involved. An actor from the ship's theater made announcements as passengers left their rooms.

"It just shows the training they do," Alexander said. "Our head waiter at our dinner table was one of the first responders."

Royal Caribbean says life boats were not boarded and power was never lost. The fire was extinguished in about two hours, with no injuries reported among the 2,200 passengers or the crew. The ship, which left Baltimore on Friday for a seven-night cruise, was headed originally to CocoCay, Bahamas, but instead sailed to Freeport on Monday afternoon. It remained there Tuesday.

The vice president of the Grand Bahama Shipyard said the ship would be repaired at his facility, though a full assessment of damage hadn't been done yet. "I'm assuming it will be a big job for us," Reuben Byrd said.

Royal Caribbean spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez said late Tuesday that repairs would be carried out at the shipyard. The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

Byrd said the shipyard didn't know the cause either. National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Eric Weiss said the agency has sent one senior investigator to the Bahamas. No other details about the investigation were available.

Royal Caribbean said passengers would receive full fare refunds and certificates for a future cruise. The company chartered 11 flights for passengers to return to Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Craig Dzubak, 26, of Pittsburgh, was on the second. He said he and his wife were already planning their next sailing while traveling home.

"The crew was awesome. I'll never go on any other cruise line," he said. "They couldn't have handled it any better."

The fire aboard the Grandeur was the second to halt a cruise this year. The Carnival Triumph was disabled during a February cruise by an engine room fire in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving thousands of passengers to endure cold food, unsanitary conditions and power outages while the ship was towed to Mobile, Ala. It remained there for repairs until early May when it headed back to sea under its own power.

Fran Golden, a blogger for the cruise magazine Porthole, said the two incidents were quite different.

"I think it's easier to make people happy when they're not stuck on a ship for four days without toilets," she said.

Still, she applauded Royal Caribbean's public relations efforts after the fire. She said sending Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein to meet with passengers in the Bahamas was a "brilliant move." The company also Tweeted a picture of one meeting.

"It shows that you're a responsible company. It shows that you care. It's not just, 'oh well, this incident happened,'" she said.

Mike Driscoll, editor of the Illinois-based publication Cruise Week, said Royal Caribbean had the benefit of hindsight and could use lessons from the recent Triumph fire in its response. He said company took charge of the response on social media, sending out photos and updates. He likened it to the company saying, "Hey, we're not hiding anything."

Passenger Killinger said there was no comparison to the Triumph in her experience on the Grandeur. "We joked prior to all of this happening about the Carnival ships," she said.

After Monday's fire, the Carnival ship Sensation was on standby to help the Grandeur and remained in its general vicinity as it powered to Freeport.

"We joked about the irony," Killinger said. "I was grateful at the end of the night to see the lights of that ship."

____

Associated Press writers Kasey Jones in Baltimore and Jessica Gresko in Washington contributed to this report. Jeff Todd reported from Nassau, Bahamas.

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama has declared war on the press, say writers at Slate, the Daily Beast, Reason, the Washington Post (Jennifer Rubin, Dana Milbank and Leonard Downie Jr.), Commentary, National Journal (Ron Fournier), the New York Times editorial page, CBS News, Fox News (Roger Ailes) and even Techdirt.

Scores of other scribes and commentators have filed similar dispatches about this or that federal prosecution "chilling" the press and pulping the First Amendment.

Downie, who could open an aquatics center with the leaks his reporters collected during his 17 years as executive editor of the Washington Post, calls the "war on leaks the most militant I have seen since the Nixon administration."

The most recent casualties in the alleged press war are Fox News Channel and the Associated Press. The phone records of reporters at these outlets were subpoenaed by federal investigators after the organizations published national security secrets.

Then you have New York Times reporter James Risen. Federal prosecutors have been trying to force Risen onto the stand in the trial of alleged leaker-to-the-media Jeffrey Sterling (CIA) since the latter days of the Bush administration. When media strumming on the free-press topic reaches full volume, reporters and their defenders include the leak prosecutions of Thomas Drake (National Security Agency) and John Kiriakou (CIA), even though no journalist (or journalist record) appears to have suffered a subpoena in these cases. (However, the indictments in both the Drake and Kiriakou cases cite email communications with journalists.)

Championing the besieged press has become so popular that some Republicans have switched sides. Even the commander-in-chief of the alleged war, Barack Obama, has proved himself capable of making sad faces about the "war" on journalism!

In his national security speech Thursday, he said, "I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable." Obama went on to promise a review of the Department of Justice guidelines on press subpoenas. These are the guidelines that ordinarily exempt reporters from federal subpoenas and which his Department of Justice ignored in the AP and Rosen investigations.

To make nice with the press, Obama promised to convene a powwow of DoJ bigwigs and media organizations to address the press corps' "concerns." (Word to my press colleagues: Invitations to discuss "concerns" with bureaucrats are usually a prelude to a kiss-off.)

But all this legal battering of the press, while real, hardly rises to the level of war. Take, for example, the language in the affidavit for search warrant for Fox News reporter James Rosen's emails, which refer to a "criminal offense." To journalists' ears, the affidavit sounds like the precursor to an arrest, and has caused many otherwise sober reporters to protest that the Department of Justice was attempting to criminalize their business. But as George Washington University Law School Professor Orin Kerr argues in this precise blog item, the language in the affidavit "is designed to show compliance with the Privacy Protection Act" and is not a prelude to a prosecution.

No charges have been filed against Rosen, and the Department of Justice say none are anticipated. The Obama administration has yet to indict any journalists for acquiring or publishing classified information and claims it has no plans to do so. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on May 15, Attorney General Eric Holder expressed his negative enthusiasm for prosecuting journalists.

"You've got a long way to go to try to prosecute people the press for the publication of that material," Holder said, and such prosecutions have "not fared well in American history." (See Josh Gerstein's take on the affidavit and the business of prosecuting journos.)

The leak crackdown and there has been one has been mostly on the supply side, in the bureaucracy's offices and corridors where the government leakers dwell, and not the demand side in newsrooms, where journalists hang out.

As Scott Shane and Charlie Savage explained in the New York Times almost a year ago long before the AP and Rosen cases surfaced happenstance contributed to the uptick in prosecutions. Obama inherited cases from the Bush administration, both parties in Congress supported a more restrictive secret-keeping policy, leak investigation protocols were "streamlined" in 2009 and surveillance technology was making it easier to bring prosecutions that stick.

Also, the WikiLeaks torrent of 2010 ripped through the headlines, causing the administration major grief and leaving it with a grudge against the press. And, in June 2012, additional new rules to hinder leakers were promulgated.

Meanwhile, Republicans cheered on leak-chasers.

In June 2012, 30 Republican senators agitated for greater leaks investigations because they believed that Obama's administration seeking to improve the president's chances in the 2012 election was planting leaks about the drone program, the "kill lists" and Stuxnet with the New York Times, where big stories appeared.

Of the drone story in the Times, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer declared, "This was no leak. This was a White House press release." These sentiments were shared by progressive Glenn Greenwald, who wrote that the story came from inside the administration and was "designed to depict President Obama, in an Election Year, as a super-tough, hands-on, no-nonsense Warrior." (Hat tip to Huffington Post's Michael Calderone.)

Meanwhile, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) demanded the naming an outside special counsel to investigate the leakers. I have little doubt that before too long we'll be reading on our front pages about the press-entangling investigations into the drone, the kill list and Stuxnet leaks, and the cries of war on the press will escalate again, a crackdown on suppliers, not demanders.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, went the Republican leak-haters one better last year proving that Obama's war on the press belongs to all political parties and two branches of government by proposing a dozen new anti-leak measures.

She wanted intelligence agency employees to report all contact with the media, to limit contacts between intelligence employees and the press to designated officials only, to expand polygraph testing in the executive branch, to restrict commentary in the press by former government officials and to establish a half-dozen record-keeping programs to monitor and discourage leaks. The bulk of Feinstein's initiative failed, but it will be back.

Inevitably, press complaints about a war against them include gripes about how tightlipped the current administration has become. According to Leonard Downie, reporters covering today's White House say officials won't talk to them and refer them to hostile, bullying press aides instead. "The White House doesn't want anyone leaking," one anonymous reporter told Downie about the permanent snub, continuing, "There are few windows on decision-making and governing philosophy. There is a perception that Obama himself has little regard for the news media."

I can match Downie's reporting on this point: My colleagues tell me the same about the Obama administration, likening it to an information black hole. And here, I think, we locate the bedrock of the press beef against Obama. Journalists naturally oppose leak investigations for the practical reason that leak investigations dam the free flow of information that makes their stories breathe.

Of course, the work that journalists do is important, and yes, I want more openness from the administration and less vindictive approaches to leakers. But to fully comprehend the press corps' complaints, it helps to understand that the press lobbies just like any other interest group whose privilege is threatened by government laws, policies and prosecutions. Inordinately sensitive to any changes in the standard source-reporter customs, the Washington press corps revolts at even minor changes in their status.

Obama's wholesale deflation of their standing has made comrades out of ideological enemies. How else to explain Len Downie hollering "Nixon" at the same time Fox News's Roger Ailes is invoking "McCarthy" to denounce the Obama administration?

Suppression of the press contains in it the seeds of its own destruction. Or at least I like to think so. By bottling up information and limiting the opportunity of the press (and civilians) to scrutinize it, politicians lose the faith of some of the most ardent supporters and inspire professional doubters and free-thinkers in the press to redouble their efforts. Obama's campaign against leaks can only succeed if he exterminates all second-guessing from inside the national security establishment.

And seeing as the president is only a short-timer and the national security establishment is permanent, and constitutes an interest group as well, all his victories over leakers and the press will be temporary.

(Jack Shafer is a Reuters columnist covering the press and politics.)

(Jack Shafer is a Reuters columnist but his opinions are his own.)

Charity organizers say monetary donations are far more flexible and useful, and many organizations are expected to see an infusion of cash donations after a benefit concert Wednesday night in Oklahoma City featuring country music stars with Oklahoma ties, including Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, Vince Gill and Reba McEntire.

At the Abundant Life Church in Moore, just a few blocks from the Plaza Towers Elementary School where seven children died in the May 20 tornado, Sunday school classrooms are overflowing with donated clothes and other used items.

"I don't want to come across at all like we don't appreciate people's generosity, because we do," said Norma Clanton, a longtime church member who is helping coordinate volunteer efforts at the church. "To be honest, we've had very few people that have even come and looked at clothes.

"The people who have lost their homes, many of them aren't even in a permanent dwelling. They don't have room for a closet full of clothes or anything like that."

The American Red Cross says it's not equipped to handle a large influx of donations like household items which take time and money to sort, process and transport. Officials with major relief organizations encourage people to send monetary donations instead.

"We spend that money locally to help energize the local economy ... and it allows us to spend it on items we need," said Salvation Army spokeswoman Jennifer Dodd.

Dodd said many people are holding clothing drives to help benefit local residents, but that can pose problems for charities and other groups that might not have the room to store the items.

"Just the logistics of shipping a hundred pounds of clothing from across the country, it's terribly expensive and then you have to worry if you have space on the ground," Dodd said.

Charities involved in helping displaced residents are expected to see a boost in giving Wednesday night from "Healing in the Heartland: Relief Benefit Concert" at the Chesapeake Energy Arena in downtown Oklahoma City. The money raised through the telethon will go directly to the United Way of Central Oklahoma, which will distribute funding to partner agencies directly engaged in helping in relief and recovery efforts for those affected by the May 20 tornado, said Karla Bradshaw, a spokeswoman for the United Way of Central Oklahoma.

"Those are the ones that are dealing right now with the immediate needs," Bradshaw said.

Donations have poured in to Oklahoma since two major tornadoes ripped through the state last week, killing 26 people and affecting nearly 4,000 homes, businesses and other buildings in five counties. Twenty-four people, including 10 children, were killed in the May 20 tornado that hit the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore.

The Salvation Army reported Tuesday afternoon it already has raised more than $5 million in monetary donations, as well as in-kind food donations from numerous corporations.

In just the first three days after the tornado hit Moore, the Red Cross reported raising about $15 million in donations and pledges for its response to the Oklahoma tornados, including about $3.8 million in pledges from text donations.

Ken Sterns, who spent years researching the best and most effective charities for his book, "With Charity for All," said donating to reputable, well established charities also helps victims of the next disaster.

"I think most charity experts recommend giving cash donations, but I also tell people that in fact the most valuable contributions are not the contributions made after the fact, but contributions that allow charities, especially disaster relief organizations, to prepare for helping the victims of the next disaster," Sterns said. "We don't know who they are. We don't have a face on them. But we know they are coming."

___

Sean Murphy can be reached at www.twitter.com/apseanmurphy

"After spending a lot of time this spring thinking about my NFL future, I have made a decision to retire," wrote the eight-times Pro Bowl linebacker and Defensive Player of the Year in 2005 who will turn 35 this week.

"Although I could continue playing, I'm not sure I would bring a level of performance or passion that's up to my standards. When considering this, along with the fact that I could retire after a 13-year career wearing only one jersey for such a storied franchise, my decision became pretty clear."

A sure tackler in the middle of the defense, Urlacher lost his quickness last season because of a knee injury and he struggled to find suitors in free agency this offseason after he could not come to contract terms with Chicago.

Four times named a first-team All Pro, Urlacher was the latest in a line of brilliant middle linebackers for the defensive-minded Bears, following in the footsteps of Hall of Famer Dick Butkus and Mike Singletary.

"I'm proud to say I gave all of you everything I had every time I took the field. I will miss the game, but I leave it with no regrets," Urlacher said.

Taken with the ninth pick of the first round in the 2000 NFL Draft out of the University of New Mexico, former college safety Urlacher racked up tackles while also flaunting the ability to cover tight ends deep downfield with his speed and athleticism.

A highlight of Urlacher's career was his 2007 trip to the Super Bowl, where the Bears fell to the Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning.

(Reporting by Larry Fine in New York,; Editing by Gene Cherry)

First, Joe Sakic was given more responsibility in the front office.

And now Hall of Fame goalie Patrick Roy is rejoining the Avs as head coach.

Colorado reached an agreement in principle Thursday with Roy to lead the team and also serve as vice president of hockey operations.

Roy will join forces with Sakic, who was recently promoted to executive vice president of hockey operations. The Avalanche won two Stanley Cup titles with the duo on the ice and the organization is hoping they can help turn around a struggling franchise.

Pull this off and it just might be Roy's biggest save yet.

The Avs finished a year they'd rather forget, winding up last in the Western Conference and sitting out of the playoffs for a third straight season. The dismal season led to the dismissal of coach Joe Sacco late last month.

However, the team does have the No. 1 pick in the upcoming draft.

They also have one of the winningest goalies of all time, a fiery competitor during his playing days who will bring that sort of intensity to the bench.

The 47-year-old Roy becomes the sixth coach in Avalanche history and the 14th in franchise history; the team began as the Quebec Nordiques and moved to Denver before the 1995-96 season. The Avs captured the first of two Stanley Cup titles that season, with Roy in net.

Although he has no NHL coaching experience, Roy did spend the last eight seasons as coach and general manager of the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, winning the 2006 Memorial Cup. He also is a part-owner of the QMJHL franchise.

"This is an unbelievable day for me," Roy said. "It's a new and exciting challenge that I am really looking forward to. Almost 10 years to the day that I announced my retirement as a player I am back in Denver and hope the fans are as excited as I am."

Roy's younger brother, Stephane Roy, let the secret out of the bag earlier this week, posting a Facebook note saying his brother would be the new coach. That left fans in the Mile High City eager all week, hoping two of the most beloved players in team history would team up again.

"This is a very exciting day for our fans and a significant moment in our organization's history," team president Josh Kroenke said.

Following the season, the Avalanche shook up their front office, naming Kroenke as their team president as he took over for longtime executive Pierre Lacroix, who was instrumental in assembling the squads that won championships in 1996 and 2001.

Kroenke's first task was giving Sakic more of a say in every day hockey decisions. He also allowed Sakic to seek out the next coach.

Naturally, he turned to someone he knows quite well.

"All along Patrick was our top candidate and we are thrilled that he has decided to accept this offer," Sakic said. "Patrick has a great hockey mind, is a tremendous coach and there is no one more passionate about this game. He will bring that winning attitude to our dressing room to help this young team grow."

Roy was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2006. He retired with the most regular-season wins in NHL history (551), since passed by New Jersey's Martin Brodeur. Roy also won two Stanley Cups with Montreal and remains the winningest goalie in Stanley Cup history with 151 postseason victories.

"Patrick's passion for the game of hockey both as a player and as a coach defines who he is as a person," Kroenke said. "He is a winner and is coming back to Denver, where he created numerous special moments on and off the ice while helping lead us to two Stanley Cup championships."

Roy won three Vezina Trophies (1989, 1990, 1992) and was selected to the NHL All-Star team six times.

The excitable Roy started his career with Montreal, winning two Stanley Cup trophies for the Canadiens. But a rift grew with the team after a game against Detroit on Dec. 2, 1995, when Roy allowed nine goals before he was finally taken out in the second period. Upset, Roy told Montreal it was his last game for the team.

A few days later, he was in Colorado, helping the Avs win their first Stanley Cup title.

To this day, Roy sweaters permeate the Pepsi Center on game days. He's that revered.

Roy had his number retired by the Avs a decade ago and a banner to commemorate the achievement now hangs from the arena's rafters, alongside those of Peter Forsberg (21), Ray Bourque (77) and his new partner in turning around this franchise, Sakic (19).

The team has quite a bit to build around, too, especially since the Avs have a young nucleus in place with Matt Duchene, Ryan O'Reilly and captain Gabriel Landeskog all under 23.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore will host the glittering annual finale of the women's tennis season from 2014 until 2018, the WTA said on Wednesday.

The Southeast Asian city-state beat Tianjin in China and Mexico's Monterrey for the right to stage the WTA Championships after Turkey's Istanbul ends its three-year stint in October.

"Your sensational city, the amazing city of Singapore, has won the right to host the WTA Championships for the next five years from 2014," WTA chairman and chief executive Stacey Allaster told reporters.

Allaster called the agreement a record breaker and "the largest and most significant WTA partnership in our history", with prize money increased to a record $6.5 million.

The season-ender is the most prestigious women's tennis event outside the four grand slam tournaments - the Australian, French and U.S. Opens plus Wimbledon.

The top eight singles and doubles pairs over the season qualify for the event which was won last year by American world number one Serena Williams. Russian pair Maria Kirilenko and Nadia Petrova took the doubles title.

The event was first staged in 1972 in the United States but has moved around the world since 2001 with Munich, Madrid and Doha joining New York and Los Angeles in staging it.

The hosting rights are a major coup for Singapore, which has not held a top level tennis event since the 1999 Heineken Cup on the men's ATP Tour. Lower ranked challenger events and exhibition tournaments have struggled to attract crowds.

The event will take place at the Sports Hub complex, which is due to be finished by the first quarter of 2014 at a cost of S$1.3 billion ($1.05 billion).

The impressive complex will feature a 55,000-seater stadium with retractable roof, a 13,000 indoor stadium, aquatics center and water sports center.

The indoor stadium will host the show court with the other facilities to be used in a entertainment filled "10 day fan fest."

The venue could be key for sports and entertainment businesses to tap into the lucrative southeast Asian market with Singapore's low crime rate and overall ease of doing business a rarity amongst nearby nations.

World Sports Group, the commercial partner of the Sports Hub, have talked previously about attracting a rugby 7s event and Indian Premier League Twenty20 matches. WSG Chief Executive Andrew Georgiou said the WTA Championships was just the start.

"It is also another feather in the cap for Singapore, which continues to prove itself as Asia's premier events destination. We are really excited about working towards the first event of 2014," the Australian told reporters.

"We are pretty proud, one of the first of many to be announced over the next couple of months to be hosted at the Singapore sports hub."

(Additional reporting by Ossian Shine; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

"There is a growing sense of urgency about what's going on in the environment," Todd Clear, dean of Rutgers University's School of Criminal Justice, said here at a symposium Tuesday (May 14) on wildlife crime.

A variety of new research projects highlighted during the conference show that poaching and crimes against wildlife do follow patterns seen in other areas of criminology, knowledge that could be used to prevent these misdeeds. Famed Rutgers criminologist Ronald Clarke called on biologists and criminologists to work together to fight poaching and other issues where illegal acts are committed against nature.

As with other crimes, poaching often takes place in certain hotspots where conditions are optimal. Rhinos and elephants, for example, are often shot near watering holes where they predictably return to drink and the poaching of elephants and rhinos is at an all-time high in many areas. Poaching has already pushed , for example. []

Andrew Lemieux, a scientist at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, has outfitted rangers in Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park with GPS-enabled cameras that allow them to cheaply document signs of crimes like poaching, setting animal snares or harvesting of firewood. The project, which began earlier this year, will help rangers know where to go to best prevent these illicit activities, he said during his presentation.

'Hot products'

Animals like parrots are also desirable to poachers in the same way certain "hot products" like cellphones and jewels are desirable to thieves. These products can be described by the acronym "CRAVED," which stands for concealable, removable, available, valuable, enjoyable and disposable, Clarke said. Most parrots poached from the , for example, meet these criteria, and are opportunistically plucked from the forest by villagers looking for supplemental income, said Stephen Pires, a Florida International University researcher.

The same goes for fish, which are illegally caught more often when they are CRAVED. Fish found in multiple recipes, a measure of enjoyableness, are nine times more likely to be caught illegally than those less often found in cookbooks, said Gohar Petrossian, a researcher at William Paterson University in New Jersey. There are also 10 ports around the world that account for a large percentage of , she said. In the same way the most crimes occur near a perpetrator's home, the illegal fishing tended to take place near these ports, Petrossian said.

Poverty also plays a large role, said Kenyan scientist andat the conference. In many cases poachers are opportunistic, poaching to supplement their incomes, or merely survive. Throwing money at the problem, like hiring rangers, doesn't necessarily help, Leakey said. Some rangers in East Africa make about $500 per month. If you've got 10 elephant tusks, though, you could make a cool $10,000. It's easy to see how rangers could be bought off, especially if poaching seems like the only viable way to feed one's family, said Leaky, who is the son of famed paleontologist and fossil hunters Louis and Mary Leakey, and himself a paleoanthropologist.

"If you haven't got enough money to see your kid through the next semester of school, and if you can be offered several years worth of income by turning a blind eye who wouldn't?" Leakey said. "Hell, I would if my family were at stake."

Too often Westerners ignore the underlying poverty and assume the people committing these crimes have completely different values, Leakey said. "I think we need to change the idea that if you went to Cambridge or Rutgers, you have a different value set."

Taking aim at poaching

Besides dealing with poverty, Leakey offered two options to fight poaching. First, he advocated building more fences around large reserves a suggestion that was met with some resistance by at least one ecologist at the conference, who questioned Leakey after his talk about the fence's ability to stop elephants. Leakey noted that electrified fences were quite capable of stopping the large animals. In places where they've been installed, he added, sheep herders have come to rely on fences to protect their flock from predators inside the parks meaning they can help both people and animals, he said.

Fenced reserves have helped South Africa prevent more poaching than many of its neighbors, Leakey added (athough even in ). While this takes funding, he said, the problem is not lack of money per se, but a lack of political will.

By making it harder to enter and exit reserves, fences increase both the risks and difficulties involved in poaching, both widely accepted tenets of crime prevention, Clarke said.

The second tool to fight poaching is awareness. One of the main reasons thatand rhinos has shot up in the past few years is due to growing demand in China for ivory and medicinal products (although rhino horns are made of the same material in finger nails and have no curative properties, they are desired for their supposed healing powers in traditional Chinese medicine). But Leakey said that most of these consumers buying , or visiting traditional pharmacies have no idea these animals are dying out. []

Increasing awareness would likely reduce demand for these products. As with other illegal activities, reduced rewards mean reduced crime, Clarke said.

In 1989, when Leakey headed the Kenya Wildlife Service, he came up with the idea to burn 12 tons ofto bring public attention to poaching, which in the late '80s had flared up. The ploy worked, cutting the value of ivory by a factor of 30 and almost single-handedly suppressing elephant poaching for nearly two decades, Clarke said.

Perhaps it's time to do something similar, he said. But as to what exactly that might be, Leakey didn't have any concrete suggestions.

"We need to get youngsters in the conservation world to think outside the box," he said. "Thinking inside the box isn't working... continuing to talk, talk, talk nothing gets done."

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