The sweeping U.S. , passed in 1972, bans taking dolphins, seals, whales and other marine mammals from the wild, but American institutions can apply for permits to remove these creatures from their habitats or import them for the purpose ofpublic display.

The Georgia Aquarium's request to do just that marked the first such application in more than 20 years. (The new arrivals in today's aquariums are typically rescued animals or ones that have been bred in captivity.)

The Georgia Aquarium wanted to feature the whitefrom Russia at its own marine park in Atlanta and at partner facilities, including SeaWorld's various locations.

But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Fisheries Service denied the request this week. They agency received some 9,000 public comments on the request, many of them against bringing the whales into captivity.

Thewere rounded up in Russia's Sea of Okhotsk between 2006 and 2011, NOAA says, and there is "little reliable scientific information" about the stock of whales in this population. The agency also noted that five of the beluga whales the aquarium wanted to import might have been still nursing when they were captured. What's more, NOAA argued that granting the permit could increase the demand to capture beluga whales, which could hurt the wild population.

"We believe the ongoing live-capture trade since 1989 may have contributed to a cumulative decline over the past two decades, and we considered this in combination with other past, present and foreseeable future actions," a statement from NOAA said.

Beluga whales are listed as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). They are found in the arctic and subarctic waters of Russia, Greenland and North America and they face threats including ship strikes, pollution and habitat destruction, according to NOAA.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court decision on Thursday to uphold patent protections for genetic material that has been changed in the laboratory but invalidate patents for purely natural DNA may seem like a partial setback for the biotech industry, but experts said it isn't: the industry has already moved on.

"There are literally tens of thousands of patents claiming DNA that we would not consider to be a product of nature," and which therefore are fine according to Thursday's decision, said Gregory Graff, a professor at Colorado State University who led an analysis of gene patents published last month in Nature Biotechnology.

One common form of DNA that has been manipulated in the lab and so is eligible for patenting, is called cDNA (the "c" stands for "complementary"). It is essentially an edited form of a gene: extraneous stretches of DNA have been excised.

It was cDNA that launched the biotechnology revolution in the 1980s and that has since fuelled the rise of multibillion-dollar businesses in gene-based medicine and agriculture, from Pfizer Inc to Monsanto.

Pharmaceutical companies use cDNA to produce proteins such as insulin and human growth hormone.

Although those original patents are now so old they have expired or are about to, the Court's decision leaves the door open to patenting other synthetic genes to make new medicines, said Robert Field, a professor of law at Drexel University.

NO SIMPLE GENE PATENTS

The legal protections that support today's DNA-based industries have also moved well beyond the simplest gene patents that referred only to the chemical sequence of a gene (a combination of the letters A, T, C and G). The shift has come largely since the Human Genome Project unveiled the entire 3-billion-letters-long human DNA sequence in 2003 and put it in the public domain.

"For human medical applications, that prototypical gene patent is a thing of the past," said Hans Sauer, general counsel at the Biotechnology Industry Organization, which sided with defendant Myriad Genetics in the case.

Instead, companies "are moving into making proteins and antibodies that closely mimic what is naturally found in the body," said Bill Gaede, an attorney with McDermott Will & Emery LLP in Menlo Park, California. If those disease-fighting compounds are tweaked even slightly, they can be patented.

Both DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred division and Monsanto hold patents on synthetic DNA molecules that make insect-killing proteins designed to increase a crop's ability to withstand pests, said Colorado's Graff. And Roche Holding AG's Genentech, as well as Novo Nordisk, hold patents on the DNA they have constructed to make bacteria churn out human hormones or vaccine antigens.

GENE-BASED TESTS

Another lucrative new DNA-based product that remains untouched by the Court decision is called "companion diagnostic." Recent advances in cancer treatment have come from drugs that target a genetic mutation that fuels the malignancy. Because the drugs work only on tumors that have that mutation, it is crucial to test a patient for it before using the drug.

Abbott Laboratories, for instance, makes the companion diagnostic for Pfizer Inc's lung cancer drug, Xalkori. The medication targets a gene mutation called ALK; Abbott's test determines if a patient has the mutation and is therefore likely to be helped by the drug.

But Abbott did not patent the ALK sequence. "Another company could develop an ALK test using different technology," said spokeswoman Darcy Ross. Abbott's DNA-related patents, which are unaffected by the Court's decision, "are primarily directed to detecting sequences and not the sequences themselves," she said.

The companies most likely to suffer from the decision are small biotechs that have yet to develop a product and so raise money from investors based on their gene patents.

"This was the only way some of the early genetics-based companies could survive," said Michele Wales, an attorney who specializes in patent law. Keeping a company afloat based on basic gene patents will now be more difficult, if not impossible, said Wales, a former employee of Human Genome Sciences, one of the largest gene-patent holders, which was acquired by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline last year.

(Additional reporting by Diane Bartz and Bill Berkrot; Editing by Michele Gershberg)

Against a soundtrack of romantic orchestral music and the backdrop of a twisted old olive tree, the collection presented on the first day of Milan Fashion Week on Saturday referenced the southern island's architectural wonders, natural beauty and native fauna.

The designing duo Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana stamped their creations with images of ancient Greek temples and pastoral countryside scenes, imprinted across three-piece suits and loose top-and-shorts combinations. The renderings are in black-and-white and color, creating a tapestry effect.

Dolce&Gabbana's Sicily is both formal and restrained, requiring suits that can be bold in shimmering red or blue, or simply somber black, and casual and lusty, with roughly woven drawstring pants or Bermuda shorts worn with nothing at all.

Outfits were paired with woven shoes, dark or white, or Greek-style leather sandals.

Just after the designers took their bows at the end of the show, a naked man jumped on the runway. He was immediately led away, and his motives were unclear.

On a more decorous note, Barcelona soccer player Lionel Messi set up shop in a Dolce&Gabbana boutique in the city center Saturday to sign books of photographs taken by Dolce himself.

* Nadal to move up to number two in rankings (Adds quotes)

By Steve Keating

CINCINNATI, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Rafa Nadal continued his outstanding hardcourt form beating John Isner 7-6 7-6 in the final of the Western and Southern Open on Sunday, setting up the Spaniard as the red-hot favourite heading into the U.S. Open.

Unbeaten on the surface in 15 matches this year and coming off a win in Montreal, the third ranked Nadal, who will move up to number two on Monday, won back-to-back hardcourt finals on consecutive weeks for the first time in his career.

"It means a lot, being able to win two straight titles, two Masters 1000 on hard back-to-back is just amazing for me," Nadal told reporters. "I never did something like this in all my career, so it was an emotional moment for so many different reasons.

"It is a nice feeling to arrive to the U.S. Open with two victories in two very difficult tournaments.

"And it is nice arrive there knowing that, if I am able to keep playing like this, hopefully, I have the chance to have a good result."

Nadal needed nearly two hours on a muggy centre court to tame the towering in-form American, who had knocked off three top 10 players, including world number one Novak Djokovic, to earn his spot in the final.

But the big-hitting Isner had no answers for the relentless Nadal, who has now claimed nine titles from 12 events this season.

It was the 59th win of Nadal's career but first in nine tries on the Cincinnati hardcourts.

Isner, who has traditionally saved his best for the home crowd with 14 of the his 16 career ATP Tour final appearances coming in the U.S., had the capacity crowd in his corner and bombarded Nadal with 11 aces but could not crack the Spaniard's defences failing to convert any of three break chances.

Nadal played the entire match without a single break opportunity against Isner but came up big in both tiebreaks taking the first set 10-8.

Eager to avoid a third set against the determined Isner, the 12-time grand slam winner was even more aggressive in the second set tiebreak racing to a 6-3 advantage then falling onto his back and leaping into the air when the American's return slammed into the net.

"He kept on coming up with the goods," shrugged Isner. "I thought he played a very smart match, and I knew he would.

"That's what he does. That's why he's so good. He's constantly adjusting to every circumstance, and he did today with me."

Isner, who will move from 22 to 14 in the world when the new rankings come out, has also established himself as a legitimate threat when the final grand slam of the season gets underway in Flushing Meadows on Aug. 26.

Since retiring in the second round at Wimbledon with a left knee injury Isner has been in brilliant hardcourt form putting together a 16-4 match record while picking up his seventh career title in Atlanta followed by runnerup finishes in Washington and Cincinnati.

"I would say Rafa is the favorite going to the U.S. Clear cut? I wouldn't say that," said Isner. "I think he'd probably say the same."

The problem sent brokers racing to figure out what went wrong and raised new questions about the pitfalls of the electronic trading systems that have come to dominate the nation's stock markets.

Nasdaq said only that the problem lay in its system for disseminating prices and that it planned to investigate.

The outage disrupted what had otherwise been a quiet summer day on Wall Street. It was another in a series of technical problems to disrupt financial markets in recent years, though less alarming than the "flash crash" plunge of May 2010.

"The market has gotten quite complex and needlessly so," said Sal Arnuk, co-founder of the brokerage Themis Trading.

The Nasdaq, an exchange dominated by some of the largest, most prosperous technology companies, sent out an alert shortly after noon that said trading would stop. The Nasdaq composite index spent much of the afternoon stuck at 3,631.17.

Trading resumed at 3:25 p.m. Thirty-five minutes later, the day ended with the index up 38 points, or 1 percent, at 3,638.71.

Investors were not at risk of losing any money from this type of glitch, said Marty Leclerc at Barrack Yard, chief investment officer at Barrack Yard Advisors.

"Clearly it's an annoyance, but it doesn't in any way affect the value of your underlying assets," Leclerc said. "Warren Buffet used to say that if you own a stock, you ought to be comfortable with it even if the market were to close for a year."

During the outage, the Nasdaq said it would not cancel any orders stuck in limbo, but that customers were free to cancel them.

The stock of the exchange's parent company, Nasdaq OMX, took a hit Thursday, falling $1.08, or 3.4 percent, to close at $30.46 in heavy trading.

Phil Stern, a former Securities and Exchange Commission attorney for 10 years, said Nasdaq could face significant financial penalties and other sanctions.

"It's pretty significant for an exchange to be shut down this long," Stern said. "The disruption to the marketplace is huge."

The White House, the Treasury Department and other government agencies monitored the disruption.

Brad McMillan, chief investment officer of the independent brokerage Commonwealth Financial, said competition between rival exchanges for customers is partly to blame for recent trading problems. The exchanges try to bring in more business with the promise of faster trading, which makes them more reliant on new technology.

"The more trading is tied to technology, the more computer crashes matter," McMillan said.

McMillan called the interruption an "inconvenience," comparing it to other times when snowstorms and squirrels have closed the market. In August 1994, trading on the Nasdaq stopped for 34 minutes after a mischievous squirrel chewed into power lines near the exchange's computer center in Trumbull, Conn.

Thursday's shutdown was another sign that the days of stock brokers in colorful jackets roaming the floor of the stock exchange have faded away. Now powerful computer programs dominate trading by sifting through reams of data and executing trades in fractions of a second. That makes trading faster and, arguably, more efficient. But it also introduces more possibilities for errors that can jolt the entire market.

Last year, BATS Global Markets tried to go public on its own exchange but had to back out after a computer error sent its stock price plunging to just pennies. Nasdaq mishandled Facebook's public offering last spring, when technical problems kept many investors from knowing if their trades had gone through and left some holding unwanted shares. And in April, the Chicago Board Options Exchange shut down for a morning because of a software problem.

Then there was the 2010 "flash crash" in which the Dow Jones industrial average fell hundreds of points in minutes before eventually closing 348 points lower. It was one of the first major problems that revealed to the public the potential dangers of computerized trading.

One of the lessons from the flash crash was that it's better to stop trading and reopen a market in a fair and orderly manner than to have messy trading, said James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University who specializes in the structure and regulation of financial markets.

"I think people are so used to the fact that every once in a while the power goes out and a computer crashes," Angel said. "As long as the trading is fair and orderly, I don't think that's going to deter people from investing."

Trading glitches can also change fortunes. A technical bug spelled the end for Knight Capital as a stand-alone company. It marred the company's long-standing reputation as a stellar risk manager after sending stocks of dozens of companies swinging wildly on Aug. 1 of last year.

It also left Knight, which takes orders from big brokers like TD Ameritrade and E-Trade, on the hook for many of the stocks that its computers accidentally ordered. Knight teetered near bankruptcy and this summer was taken over by the high-speed trading firm Getco.

___

Associated Press Business Writers Christina Rexrode, Steve Rothwell, Marcy Gordon, Chris Rugaber and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.

Australian Federal Police, Australian Customs and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration said they had collaborated with South Pacific countries for several years to target criminal organisations using the region as a transit point.

The probe led officers to a yacht called the "Raj" docked in Vanuatu's capital Port Vila earlier this week and it was seized by local authorities.

Australia and US officers travelled to Vanuatu on Monday and discovered an estimated 750 kilograms of cocaine worth some Aus$370 million (US$334 million) hidden in the lower engine compartments and the keel area of the hull.

Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Ramzi Jabbour said criminal networks would find it harder and harder to operate given the cooperation between of multiple law enforcement and border protection agencies in the South Pacific.

"We are well aware that international criminals see Australia as a lucrative market for their drugs, but we will continue to work closely with our partners to identify syndicates such as these," he said.

The agencies said since they began cooperating on Project Cringle in 2010, close to two tonnes of cocaine destined for Australia had been seized from five vessels, with authorities in Tonga, the Cook Islands and New Caledonia also involved.

These seizures include the discovery in November 2012 of some 200 kilograms of cocaine on a yacht in Tonga which also held the decomposing body of a man, and some 200 kilograms found on a yacht in waters off New Caledonia earlier that year.

Australian authorities have also uncovered more than 760 kilograms of the drug in two separate seizures in Queensland since late 2010.

Sales in stores open at least a year at the Swedish budget fashion firm were down 1 percent in local currencies in July from a year earlier, against a mean forecast in a Reuters poll of analysts for a 1 percent rise.

Total sales in the month - the second of H&M's fiscal third quarter - were up 9 percent in local currencies, against a forecast for a 10 percent rise.

Apparel firms have faced tough times in Europe as the economic downturn and uncertain outlook make consumers hold on tighter to their wallets, and H&M has seen competition toughen in its low-price segment.

H&M, which has the bulk of business in Europe, did not comment on the data on Thursday. It said it had 2,940 stores on July 31, up from 2,603 a year earlier.

The quarter had had a healthy start with comparable sales up 3 percent in June, their fastest pace in 9 months. In the second quarter, consumer gloom and bad weather in Europe led to more markdowns than planned and a larger profit drop than expected.

Chief Executive Karl-Johan Persson said in mid-June that new collections had sold surprisingly well to date. But he cautioned this could be down to pent-up demand after chilly weather held back spring shopping, rather than a rise in underlying demand.

H&M's shares, which are up nearly 10 percent this year, trade at 23.8 times forecast 2013 earnings, just below biggest rival Inditex'24.9 times multiple, according to Thomson Reuters data.

(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell slightly on Friday, and the Dow industrials posted the biggest weekly loss this year as rising bond yields hurt shares paying rich dividends and earnings from retailers disappointed investors.

The S&P 500 utilities sector, down 1.1 percent, led the day's decline as the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose to a two-year high, making the highest dividend-paying stocks less attractive.

Nordstrom late Thursday was the most recent department store chain to miss revenue estimates. The upscale retailer cut its full-year sales and profit forecasts. Shares fell 4.9 percent to $56.43.

Earlier this week, Macy's reported an unexpected decline in sales and blamed hesitation by consumers. Macy's stock was down 2.8 percent to $44.99.

It was a second week of losses for the major indexes. The Dow fell 2.2 percent for the week, its biggest decline since June 2012, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq registered their biggest weekly losses since June, 2013.

"Given how the consumer has been such a powerhouse, I think these are things that make you at least stop and wonder if you should be an aggressive buyer of retail stocks," said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer, North Star Investment Management Corp, Chicago.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 30.72 points, or 0.20 percent, at 15,081.47. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 5.49 points, or 0.33 percent, at 1,655.83. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 3.34 points, or 0.09 percent, at 3,602.78.

For the week, the S&P 500 was down 2.1 percent and the Nasdaq was down 1.6 percent.

It was a third day of declines for the S&P 500, which also ended just below its 50-day moving average of 1,657, while the Dow ended below its 100-day moving average of 15,102. Breaks below these technical levels could add to selling pressure.

Adding to the market's concern, the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's preliminary reading on consumer sentiment in August slipped from July's six-year high.

Other data showed U.S. housing starts rose 5.9 percent in July, compared with a 9.9 percent drop in June. Homebuilders Pulte Group and Lennar Corp gained on the news.

Pulte shares rose 2.3 percent to $16.28, while Lennar advanced 1.8 percent to $33.88.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters shares rose 3.3 percent to $76.38 after Nasdaq OMX said the company will replace Life Technologies in the Nasdaq 100 index on August 22.

Volume was roughly 4.8 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, well below the average daily closing volume of about 6.4 billion this year.

Decliners beat advancers on the NYSE by nearly 2 to 1 while on the Nasdaq decliners beat advancers by about 13 to 11.

(Additional reporting by Havovi Cooper; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Kenneth Barry and Diane Craft)

BOSTON (Reuters) - In the world of cyber fraud, a fake fan on Instagram can be worth five times more than a stolen credit card number.

As social media has become increasingly influential in shaping reputations, hackers have used their computer skills to create and sell false endorsements - such as "likes" and "followers" - that purport to come from users of Facebook, its photo-sharing app Instagram, Twitter, Google's YouTube, LinkedIn and other popular websites.

In the latest twist, a computer virus widely used to steal credit card data, known as Zeus, has been modified to create bogus Instagram "likes" that can be used to generate buzz for a company or individual, according to cyber experts at RSA, the security division of EMC Corp.

These fake "likes" are sold in batches of 1,000 on Internet hacker forums, where cyber criminals also flog credit card numbers and other information stolen from PCs. According to RSA, 1,000 Instagram "followers" can be bought for $15 and 1,000 Instagram "likes" go for $30, whereas 1,000 credit card numbers cost as little as $6.

It may seem odd that fake social media accounts would be worth more than real credit card numbers, but online marketing experts say some people are willing to spend heavily to make a splash on the Internet, seeking buzz for its own sake or for a business purpose, such as making a new product seem popular.

"People perceive importance on what is trending," said Victor Pan, a senior data analyst with WordStream, which advises companies on online marketing. "It is the bandwagon effect."

Facebook, which has nearly 1.2 billion users, said it is in the process of beefing up security on Instagram, which it bought last year for $1 billion. Instagram, which has about 130 million active users, will have the same security measures that Facebook uses, said spokesman Michael Kirkland.

He encouraged users to report suspicious activity through links on Facebook sites and apps.

"We work hard to limit spam on our service and prohibit the creation of accounts through unauthorized or automated means," Kirkland said.

KNOWING WHEN TO STOP

The modified Zeus virus is the first piece of malicious software uncovered to date that has been used to post false "likes" on a social network, according to experts who track cyber crime.

Fraudsters most commonly manipulate "likes" using automated software programs.

The modified version of Zeus controls infected computers from a central server, forcing them to post likes for specific users. They could also be given marching orders to engage in other operations or download other types of malicious software, according to RSA.

Cyber criminals have used Zeus to infect hundreds of millions of PCs since the virus first surfaced more than five years ago, according to Don Jackson, a senior security researcher with Dell SecureWorks.

That the virus is now being adapted to target Instagram is a sign of the rising importance of social media in marketing, and the increasing sophistication of hackers trying to profit from the trend.

Online marketing consultant Will Mitchell said he sometimes advises clients to buy bogus social-networking traffic, but only to get an early foothold online.

When asked about the ethics of faking endorsements, Mitchell replied, "It's fine to do for the first 100, but I always advise stopping after that."

He said one of his clients once bought more than 300,000 "likes" on Facebook against his advice, a move that Mitchell felt damaged the client's reputation. "It was just ridiculous," he said. "Everybody knew what they were doing."

Still, experts say schemes to manipulate social networks are unlikely to go away. Creating fake social media accounts can also be used for more nefarious purposes than creating fake "likes," such as identity theft.

"The accounts are always just a means to an end. The criminals are always looking to profit," said computer security expert Chris Grier, a University of California at Berkeley research scientist who spent a year working on a team that investigated fake accounts on Twitter.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Tiffany Wu and Claudia Parsons)