The 30-year-old Kovalchuk walked away from the $77 million that was left on the 15-year contract he signed with New Jersey in 2010, including guaranteed annual salaries of at least $11 million over the next four seasons.

The Devils announced the news Thursday afternoon, saying that Kovalchuk alerted Lou Lamoriello, the team's president and general manager, earlier this year that he wanted to return home to Russia with his family after 11 seasons in the NHL.

"This wasn't a decision made by the New Jersey Devils," a testy Lamoriello said at the end of a conference call with reporters less than an hour after the retirement was announced.

Lamoriello refused to disclose anything about his conversations with Kovalchuk relating to the surprising retirement.

He also didn't clarify whether Kovalchuk planned to play in Russia's KHL next season as is expected or whether the Devils would retain his rights if he reconsidered his retirement, deferring to the NHL.

"All I know is that he will not be playing here at his desire," said Lamoriello, who built the Devils' three Stanley Cup championship teams and had hoped Kovalchuk would be the centerpiece of a fourth.

Lamoriello said Kovalchuk's retirement wasn't related to anything physical. The forward had back problems during the 2011-12 season and missed 11 games this year because of a shoulder injury.

"This decision was something I have thought about for a long time going back to the lockout and spending the year in Russia," Kovalchuk, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2001 draft, said in a statement. "Though I decided to return this past season, Lou was aware of my desire to go back home and have my family there with me. The most difficult thing for me is to leave the New Jersey Devils."

Kovalchuk was to earn $11.3 million in each of the next two seasons and $56 million over the next five years. Lamoriello said Kovalchuk didn't receive a signing bonus, so the team isn't seeking to recover any money from him.

"I am never surprised about anything that happens in this game today," Lamoriello said.

The defection means the Devils have lost a top player after each of the past two seasons. Zach Parise signed as a free agent with Minnesota after New Jersey's run to the 2012 Stanley Cup finals.

Kovalchuk's exit now deprives the Devils of a star outside of aging goalie Martin Brodeur, who is far from his prime now that he is 41.

Lamoriello wouldn't say whether the team would've done anything different had the Devils known of Kovalchuk's decision before the NHL free-agent signing period began last week.

New Jersey lost forward David Clarkson, who signed with Toronto after posting 30 goals during the 2011-12 season and 15 while playing in all 48 games during this lockout-shortened campaign.

The Devils did re-sign forward Patrik Elias and added some punch to the lineup by reaching deals last week with free agents Ryane Clowe and Michael Ryder.

"We're going to put the best possible team we can on the ice," said Lamoriello, who insisted his main focus is on moving forward.

Lamoriello wouldn't say whether the retirement soured him on Kovalchuk's four seasons with the club, but he gave the clear impression that he was miffed.

The Devils gave up a lot to get Kovalchuk from Atlanta in 2010 and maybe even more to keep him after he became a free agent following that season.

New Jersey sent defenseman Johnny Oduya, then rookie forward Niclas Bergfors and junior prospect Patrice Cormier, and a first-round selection in the 2010 draft to the Thrashers for Kovalchuk and defenseman Anssi Salmela.

After the season, the Devils signed Kovalchuk to a 17-year, $102 million contract that the NHL ruled circumvented the salary cap. The league subsequently fined New Jersey $3 million and took away two draft choices: a third round pick in 2011 and next year's first-round pick.

In tying up a huge chunk of money in Kovalchuk, the Devils also didn't have as much to offer Parise and possibly Clarkson the past two years to try to keep them with New Jersey.

Kovalchuk spent his last four seasons with the Devils. His best was the 2011-12 campaign in which he scored 37 goals. He had 11 goals in 37 games this season.

Kovalchuk scored 417 goals and 399 assists in 816 career NHL games. His best seasons were 2005-06 and 2007-08 when he scored a career-high 52 goals. He had three other 40-goal seasons.

He represented Russia at three Olympic Games, nine World Championships, one World Junior Championship and the 2004 World Cup.

Kovalchuk played in the KHL with SKA St. Petersburg during the recent lockout and was selected as team captain. He could be rejoining that club soon.

He participated in the KHL All-Star game before returning to New Jersey after the lockout. The Devils, however, failed to qualify for the playoffs in the season after they were Eastern Conference champions.

PASADENA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. () expects to release its third quarter earnings results after the close of business onMonday, July 29, 2013.

The company then plans to host a conference call onTuesday, July 30, 2013at11:00 AM Eastern Time, during which management will make a brief presentation focusing on the company's results, strategies, and operating trends.

Interested parties can listen to the conference call and view accompanying slides on the Internet at.

Jacobs is one of the world's largest and most diverse providers of technical, professional, and construction services.

Statements made in this release that are not based on historical fact are forward-looking statements. We base these forward-looking statements on managements current estimates and expectations as well as currently available competitive, financial and economic data. Forward-looking statements, however, are inherently uncertain. There are a variety of factors that could cause business results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements.For a description of some of the factors which may occur that could cause actual results to differ from our forward-looking statements please refer to our 2012 Form 10-K, and in particular the discussions contained under Items 1 - Business, 1A - Risk Factors, 3 - Legal Proceedings, and 7 - Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements made herein.

The 33-year-old Canadian will join the Flyers after spending his entire 14-year league career with the Tampa Bay Lightning, with whom he won the Stanley Cup in 2004.

"It is a great honor for me to be a part of the Flyers," Lecavalier said in a statement.

"This is a great hockey team with a great history which I'm very proud to be a part of. I'm going to do my best to help lead this team to another championship."

Drafted number one overall by the Lightning in 1998, Lecavalier was released last week by Tampa Bay to clear space under a smaller salary cap. He had signed a five-year deal with the Flyers worth $22.5 million according to local media.

Lecavalier has scored at least 20 goals in each of his full seasons in the league, with last year's lockout-shortened campaign the only exception. In 1,037 career games for Tampa Bay, he scored a franchise-high 383 goals.

In other moves on Saturday, the St. Louis Blues agreed to a one-year deal with veteran forward Derek Roy, pending the results of a physical, while the Buffalo Sabres signed defensemen Alexander Sulzer (one-year) and Drew Bagnall (multi-year).

"Proud to (be) part of the St Louis Blues organization. Excited to get started," tweeted the 30-year-old Roy, who split last season between the Dallas Stars and Vancouver Canucks, registering seven goals and 21 assists.

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Ian Ransom)

The move follows a claim that GSK staff allegedly handed doctors cash and other rewards for prescribing Botox treatment, which the British group sells in China under an agreement with patent-holder Allergan.

The latest allegations against GSK, which is already under investigation by Chinese police for unspecified "economic crimes", were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper said internal documents and email showed GSK's China sales staff were also apparently instructed to use their personal email addresses to discuss marketing strategies related to Botox.

A GSK spokesman in London said the company believed the new allegations over Botox came from the same source who previously made claims over corruption in China - claims which GSK said earlier it had investigated and found to be without foundation.

"Nevertheless, we are investigating these new claims. However, our inquiries to date have found no evidence of bribery or corruption in relation to our sales and marketing of therapeutic Botox in China," the spokesman said.

"GSK has some of the toughest compliance procedures in the sector. We are proud of our high standards and operate in accordance with them."

The Wall Street Journal said emails and documents it had seen also discussed a marketing strategy for Botox that targeted 48 doctors and planned to reward them with either a percentage of the cash value of the prescription, or educational credits, based on the number of prescriptions the doctors made.

The strategy was called "Vasily", after the Russian World War II sniper Vasily Zaytsev.

"We have investigated the specific claim on the so-called Vasily program. Our investigation has found that while the proposal didn't contain anything untoward, the program was never implemented," the company spokesman said.

GSK is responsible for therapeutic sales of Botox in China - for example, to treat facial spasms - rather than its use as a cosmetic treatment to remove wrinkles.

The allegations come as police in the south-central Chinese city of Changsha investigate high-level Chinese staff at GSK on suspicion of economic crimes. It is not clear if the Changsha investigation is related to any of the allegations.

GSK, Merck and other foreign and domestic drugmakers are also being investigated by China's top economic planning agency on cost and pricing issues, as foreign firms come under pressure from Beijing over possible price-fixing.

China is an increasingly important market for international pharmaceutical companies, which are relying on growth in emerging markets to offset slower sales in Western markets where many former blockbuster drugs have lost patent protection.

IMS Health, which tracks pharmaceutical industry trends, expects China to overtake Japan as the world's second-biggest drugs market behind the United States by 2016.

(Reporting by Kazunori Takada and Ben Hirschler; Editing by Stephen Coates and Louise Heavens)

Roche, the world's largest maker of cancer drugs, said on Tuesday the contingent payments depended on the achievement of certain milestones, without giving details.

It said CMI would strengthen Roche's position in the laboratory hematology testing business, with an estimated global market size of more than $2 billion.

CMI is developing "Bloodhound" technology which should increase efficiency and save laboratory space by replacing several workstations with a single, compact unit.

Boston-based CMI was created and funded by private equity firm Warburg Pincus and former Cytyc Corporation executives Patrick Sullivan and Daniel Levangie.

(Reporting by Emma Thomasson; Editing by Mark Potter)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who eat a diet high in fiber-rich whole grains are less likely to develop diabetes or heart disease, according to a review of past studies.

The analysis was conducted for the American Society for Nutrition. In a position statement, the group said evidence suggests foods with cereal fiber or mixtures of whole grains and bran are "modestly associated" with a reduced disease risk.

The strongest evidence for benefit came from cereal fiber, researchers said. That would include breakfast cereals as well as breads and brown rice with a high fiber content listed on the label, according to Teresa Fung, a nutrition researcher at Simmons College in Boston.

"Cereal fiber may be one of the protective ingredients of whole grains that contribute to lower disease risk," Lu Qi, one of the study's authors from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, told Reuters Health in an email.

His team's review included 28 studies that looked at the risk of developing diabetes among people who ate different amounts of whole grain and bran, 33 studies on the risk of cardiovascular disease and 19 on obesity.

Qi and his colleagues found that overall, people who ate the most cereal fiber or whole grains and bran had an 18 to 40 percent lower risk of diabetes than those who ate the least.

Likewise, people with diets high in cereal fiber had a 22 to 43 percent lower risk of stroke across the studies and were 14 to 26 percent less likely to die of cardiovascular disease.

Fiber-rich grains were also tied to a lower body weight, but the effect was small. Two studies found people who ate the most of those grains lost about one more pound than other participants, the researchers wrote in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The benefits of whole grains in general - without bran and outside of cereal fiber - were less clear, they said.

The analysis was funded by grants from the Kellogg Company as well as other food and nutrition companies.

Because none of the studies randomly assigned people to eat different amounts of whole grains, including cereal fiber, they can't prove it was the fiber, itself, that prevented diabetes and heart disease.

But a large enough long-term study to prove cause and effect would be difficult, the study team wrote.

"It may simply be, people (who eat cereal fiber) are full longer, and therefore they don't eat so much, and they're leaner," Fung, who wasn't involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

"Another possibility is people who eat a lot of cereal fiber, they don't just eat a lot of cereal fiber. They're also more healthy" in other ways, she said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/14MVLs2 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, online June 26, 2013.

(Logo: )

"The U.S. Senate's unanimous confirmation proves that Secretary Foxx has great bi-partisan appeal," said Mr. Diridon. "Not only is he a strong advocate of transit, but he also has emphasized the importance of safety in our transportation systems. This is especially gratifying to MTI because transit and safety are two of the institute's key priorities. MTI is looking forward to a strong and successful relationship with Secretary Foxx as he takes on this impressive responsibility."

Secretary Foxx follows in the footsteps of the newly-retired Secretary Ray LaHood, who became one of the nation's most visible transportation secretaries. In his farewell note, Secretary LaHood said, "This truly has been the best job I have ever held" He also noted that he worked with Secretary Foxx on a number of projects, and that Foxx will be a strong leader who will continue efforts to build a transportation system "that is second to none."

Previously, Secretary Foxx earned his law degree from New York University's School of Law, becoming a Root-Tilden Scholar in honor of his public service. As mayor of Charlotte, he led economic recovery by investing in an improved transportation system that now includes the LYNX light rail, establishing Charlotte Streetcar, and expanding the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. He also chaired the Transportation Committee while serving on the Charlotte City Council.

ABOUT THE MINETA TRANSPORTATION INSTITUTE (MTI): MTI conducts research, education, and information transfer programs focusing on surface transportation policy and management issues, especially related to transit. MTI was established by Congress in 1991 as part of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act and won national redesignation competitions in 2002, 2006 and 2011. The Institute is funded by Congress through the US DOT Research and Innovative Technology Administration, by the California Legislature through Caltrans, and public and private grants. In 2006 the US Department of Homeland Security selected MTI as a National Transportation Security Center of Excellence. The internationally respected members of the MTI Board of Trustees represent all major surface transportation modes. Visit .

Contact: Donna MaurilloMTI Communications Director831-234-4009donna.maurillo (at) sjsu.edu

SOURCE Mineta Transportation Institute

Russian news agencies Tuesday quoted President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Snowden withdrew his request when he learned about the terms Moscow has set out. Putin said on Monday that Russia is ready to shelter Snowden as long as he stops leaking U.S. secrets.

At the same time, Putin said he had no plans to turn over Snowden to the United States.

Several of the other countries where the WikiLeaks says Snowden has applied for asylum have said he cannot apply from abroad. Officials in Germany, Norway, Austria, Poland, Finland and Switzerland all said he must make his request on their soil.

WikiLeaks said requests have also been made to Bolivia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Iceland, India, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Spain and Venezuela.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, who is visiting Moscow, told Russian reporters on Tuesday that his country has not received an application for asylum from Snowden. Maduro dodged the question whether he may take Snowden away with him to Venezuela.

WikiLeaks also posted a statement attributed to Snowden on its website late Monday, in which he slams President Barack Obama for "using citizenship as a weapon."

"Although I am convicted of nothing, (the United States) has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person," Snowden says in the statement. "Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

"Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me."

The asylum requests reported by WikiLeaks and the Snowden statement could not be independently authenticated.

Snowden, who has been on the run since releasing sensitive NSA documents, is believed to have been in Moscow airport's transit zone since his arrival from Hong Kong on June 23.

WikiLeaks legal adviser Sarah Harrison delivered the requests for asylum to an official at the Russian consulate at the Moscow airport on Sunday, according to the group that has adopted Snowden and his cause.

The U.S. has annulled Snowden's passport, and Ecuador, where he had initially hoped to get asylum, has been giving mixed signals about offering him shelter.

The expanded requests for asylum come as the Obama administration contends with European allies angry about the release of documents that alleged U.S. eavesdropping on European Union diplomats.

Obama said Monday that the U.S. would provide allies with information about new reports that the NSA had bugged EU offices in Washington, New York and Brussels. But he also suggested such activity by governments would hardly be unusual.

French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday that France has "not received any particular requests from Mr. Snowden." He also called for a common EU stance on the NSA snooping.

France prides itself on being a haven for political prisoners, and offers asylum to more people annually than any other country but the United States. French politicians on the far right and far left have called for France to take Snowden in as have members of the Green party, which is a part of Hollande's Socialist-led government. However, it is unlikely that France would take in Snowden. Hollande and leading French officials, despite outraged comments in recent days, sees the US as a key ally.

A foreign ministry spokeswoman in China and an Interior Ministry spokesman in Spain both said they were not aware about Snowden's possible plea to seek asylum in their respective countries.

__

Frank Jordans in Berlin, George Jahn in Vienna, Matti Huutanen in Helsinki, Finland, Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, Angela Charlton in Paris, Vijay Joshi in Beijing and Ciaran Giles in Madrid, Spain, contributed to this report.

The attendees came to the first-ever Space Hacker Workshop on Saturday and Sunday (May 4 and 5) to learn about how they could build and fly experiments on a new generation of manned suborbital vehicles such as XCOR Aerospace's .

The event, which was sponsored by the Silicon Valley Space Center and Citizens in Space, attracted high-school and college students, university professors, space professionals, scientists, technology experts and others interested in this emerging field. []

New reusable vehicles slated to come online soon will provide affordable and repeated access to space for professional and amateur scientists and help to revolutionizeand science education, said Citizens in Space founder Ed Wright.

"With the suborbital vehicles being developed...there's going to be an opportunity to fly many thousands of small payloads on suborbital vehicles every year," Wright said.

Citizen space scientists

Citizens in Space is a program run by Wright's Texas-based organization, the U.S. Rocket Academy, which has purchased 10 flights aboard the two-seat Lynx just for research. Ten lucky citizen scientists will get to fly in the passenger seat of the vehicle and operate the experiments that they have designed and built. Five of those slots already have been filled.

So, just how cheap will it be to fly experiments in space? Wright said that while a typical tinymight cost between $3,000 and $5,000 to build and another $100,000 or more to launch into orbit, developing and flying scientific payloads aboard the Lynx will be many orders of magnitude cheaper.

"At the base level, you're going to have people who are able to build an experiment for $200 or less and have an opportunity to fly in space through programs such as Citizens in Space, and I think this is just going to change everything," Wright said.

"We may reach the point in five or 10 years where every high school science major will have the opportunity to build and fly a payload in space during the course of his academic career before he graduates, he added.

The development of suborbital vehicles such as the Lynx andis coming at a time when maker spaces are popping up all over the country. Wright said these joint work spaces are perfect places for people to build the types of do-it-yourself science experiments that Citizens in Space wants to fly.

Wright's academy is developing the Lynx Cub Payload Carrier, a unit that can hold up to a dozen small experiments in a space behind the pilot's seat. The carrier will give XCOR the ability to flyin the passenger's seat while also carrying scientific experiments as secondary payloads.

A seat on Lynx costs $95,000, while a ticket to fly on SpaceShipTwo which last week made its will set you back $200,000 at the moment. (Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson said recently that ticket prices would soon temporarily rise to $250,000.) []

A range of experiments

Four XCOR employees traveled 300 miles (500 kilometers) north from the town of Mojave, where they are building the first Lynx, to address the Space Hacker audience and answer questions.

Khaki Rodway, XCOR's director of payload sales and operations, gave an overview of Lynx's capabilities and a progress update on the assembly of the first vehicle, which could fly by the end of this year.

"We're doing it because there's lots of stuff to do," Rodway said of the emerging market for experiments.

During the two-day workshop, participants heard talks about the experiments that will be carried out in the microgravity environment and vacuum of space. These experiments will range across many different fields, including materials processing, fluid dynamics, life sciences, protein crystal growth and technology demonstrations.

NASA astronaut Yvonne Cagle talked about sending odd "water bears" into space. Water bears, also known as tardigrades, are tiny organisms that are virtually impervious to heat, radiation and vacuum conditions. Cagle believes that by studying water bears, scientists can learn a great deal about how to help humans adapt to space.

Jason Reimuller, president of the company Integrated Spaceflight Services, told the audience about his Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere (PoSSUM) campaign, which will use a Lynx to study the dynamics of clouds over the North Pole. The vehicle will operate out of a high-altitude spaceport in either Alaska or Sweden, Reimuller said.

Ryan Gillespie, an aerospace engineer from Sunnyvale, Calif., said he is interested in pursuing Citizens in Space's High Altitude Astrobiology Challenge, which is offering cash prizes of up to $10,000 for the development of a device that will collect micro-organisms living at the edge of space.

I'm not so much interested in the $10,000 it's more the fact that when you come up with anything, it needs a purpose," Gillespie said. "Here's something that actually has a purpose for mankind."

Driving technology forward

Richard Mains of Mains Associates, who works with the NASA Flight Opportunities Program that funds experiments on , said these new spaceships are driving technology development at a much faster rate than traditional NASA programs tend to do.

"I think what's actually going on here with these reusable suborbital launch vehicles is kind of a whole new paradigm where you're not putting a payload up onfor six months," Mains said. "And these vehicles aren't that big. But they are flying very often, So these payloads now have to be small, smart, autonomous very very easy to kind of activate and deactivate, reprogram, get data out of."

"I see all of that driving technology in a very, very interesting fashion," Mains added, mentioning the emergence of open-source platforms as another powerful driver. "So I'm very excited about what I've heard here."

Silicon Valley was a perfect location to hold the workshop given that it's at the leading edge of technology development, Mains said.

Wright said he was extremely pleased with the workshop, which sold all of its 95 tickets and had a waiting list on Saturday morning.

"I think it's gone very well," Wright said. "It's really been a great turnout. It's been very exciting for everyone here. The people from the NASA Flight Opportunities program were very excited about this. XCOR was very excited about this."

Wright says he hopes to conduct five or six additional workshops in cities across the country over the next year.

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