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(Reuters) - International Boxing Federation (AIBA) President C.K. Wu has decided to run for the post of the president of the International Olympic Committee as the race for one of the world's top sports jobs heats up, a source said.

"Dr Wu handed over a letter this morning to Dr (Jacques) Rogge, informing him about his candidacy. He will announce it officially next Thursday," a source told Reuters.

The Taiwanese is the third IOC member, behind Germany's Thomas Bach and Singaporean Ng Ser Miang, both IOC vice presidents, to decide to run for the post with the election set for September 10 at the IOC session in Buenos Aires.

Rogge, who succeeded Juan Antonio Samaranch in 2001, sees his two-term presidency come to a mandatory end in September.

There are several more potential candidates with Puerto Rican Richard Carrion, head of the finance commission, Swiss sports administrator Denis Oswald and former Olympic pole vault champion Sergei Bubka, seen as possible contenders. The deadline for candidacies is June 10.

Wu took over troubled AIBA in 2006, managing to restore its Olympic credibility after a string of changes to rules and judging following controversies at the Athens 2004 Olympics that led to an IOC ban on funds for the federation.

The England-educated 66-year-old architect, who is a member of the powerful IOC Executive Board since last year and has been an IOC member for 25 years, was urged earlier this week by his own federation to make a bid for the presidency.

He oversaw a hugely successful boxing tournament at the London 2012 Games where women boxers made a glittering Olympic debut.

He was also in charge of designing the Samaranch Memorial in Tianjin, China, which houses the late IOC president's private collections, and was officially inaugurated by Rogge late last month.

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Alison Wildey)

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U.S. companies start reporting their second-quarter results this week, led by aluminum producer Alcoa. Other major companies that will report include JPMorgan and Wells Fargo.

Analysts predict that earnings growth for companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index will come in at 3 percent in the second quarter. While that rate would be down from 5 percent in the first quarter, earnings are still expected to reach record levels.

Investors and traders will search for evidence that companies are increasing revenues, not just cutting costs to boost profits. Sales growth is predicted to fall 0.3 percent in the second quarter.

"We'll be looking to see where revenue comes in," said Jim Dunigan, an executive vice president of investments at PNC.

The Dow rose 88.85 points, or 0.6 percent, to close at 15,224.69. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 8.57 points, or 0.5 percent, to end at 1,640.46.

Dell was among the big gainers in the S&P 500 index. An advisory firm recommended that company shareholders support a plan to take the computer company private. Founder Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners have offered to buy Dell for $24.4 billion, or $13.65 a share. Dell rose 41 cents, or 3.1 percent, to $13.44.

The Russell 2000 index, an index of small-company stocks, closed at an all-time high 1,009.25. The index past the 1,000 mark for the first time Friday and has gained 19 percent this year, a sign that investors are more willing to take on risk. The gains have outpaced those of the Dow and S&P 500, which are up 16 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

In other trading, the Nasdaq composite rose 5.45, or 0.2 percent, to 3,484.83, the smallest gain of the major indexes.

The index was weighed down by a slump in Intel. The chipmaker fell after a Citigroup analyst wrote that weak PC sales and waning demand for smartphones would stunt the company's growth. Intel, which makes up 2.2 percent of the Nasdaq, fell 88 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $23.18.

Other chipmakers also declined. Qualcomm dropped 96 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $59.99.

In government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year government note pulled back from a two-year high of 2.74 Friday. It fell to 2.64 percent on Monday.

The yield had jumped after the government reported strong U.S. hiring for June on Friday. Investors believe that the improving jobs market will prompt the Federal Reserve to ease back on its bond-buying program. The Fed is buying $85 billion in bonds each month to keep interest rates low and spur borrowing and investing.

For the first five months of the year stocks moved higher, supported by the backdrop of low interest rates, a recovering housing market and increased hiring. The S&P 500 index gained 17 percent by May 21 and stood at a record 1,669.

But the stock market pulled back when Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said that the central bank might consider easing its stimulus.

The S&P 500 dropped as low as 1,573 on June 24, about 5.7 percent below its record close.

Since then stocks have gradually recouped losses as investors appear to be getting more comfortable with higher interest rates. The S&P 500 is now 2.2 percent below its May record.

"Interest rates, even though they've risen, are still incredibly low," said Brent Schutte, a market strategist at BMO Private Bank. "Right now, increases in rates are a good thing because it means the economy is doing a little bit better."

The rising rates are still making bond investors nervous though.

Investors pulled a net $900 million from U.S. stock funds for the week ending June 26, but they withdrew $28.1 billion from bond funds over the same period, according to data from the Investment Company Institute.

That sell-off may boost stocks as investors look to reinvest their proceeds from bonds.

In commodities trading, the price of oil was little changed at $103.14 a barrel. The price of gold rose $22.20, or 1.8 percent, to $1,234.90 an ounce.

After the market closed Monday, Alcoa reported a wider second-quarter loss due to weak aluminum prices.

Alcoa lost $119 million, or 11 cents per share, in the April-through-June quarter. That compared with a loss of $2 million, or break-even on a per-share basis, a year earlier.

Alcoa fell 5 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $7.87 in after-hours trading.

Among other stocks making big moves:

Priceline rose $33.47, or 3.9 percent, to $888.60 after investment bank Morgan Stanley raised its price target for the online bookings company. Analysts at the bank believe that Priceline can climb as high as $1,010 as it continues to grow internationally and worries about shrinking profits dissipate.

Ministry spokesman Badr Abdel-Atti told reporters on Wednesday that no charges have been leveled against Morsi, who was ousted in popular uprising by military on July 3.

But he says "for his own safety and for the safety of the country, it is better to keep him ... otherwise, consequences will be dire."

The statement comes as Egyptian authorities escalated their crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood by ordering the arrest of its spiritual leader. The group remained steadfast in its defiance of the new military-backed administration and refused offers to join an interim government.

Thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters have been staging a sit-in demanding his return.

The strange bedfellows were a beat-up young amphibian seeking shelter and a sleeping cynodont, considered a distant ancestor of mammals, researchers say.

The burrow was unearthed from what is today South Africa's Karoo Basin, which would have been part of the ancient supercontinentat the start of the Triassic Period. Using high-energy X-rays from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in France, scientists were able to see through the lair and look at its contents without destroying it. []

The scans first revealed the skull of acalled Thrinaxodon. As the X-ray progressed, scientists realized the animal was sharing its grave with an amphibian dubbed Broomistega.

"While discovering the results we were amazed by the quality of the images, but the real excitement came when we discovered a second set of teeth completely different from that of the mammal-like reptile," study researcher Vincent Fernandez of Wits University, South Africa, said in a statement. "It was really something else."

The world these animals lived in was still recovering from the massat the end of the Permian era that wiped out most of life on Earth. It was a time marked by pronounced climatic warming and monsoons. To survive this hostile environment, many animals, including the , learned how to dig out burrows to take shelter, researchers say.

Thrinaxodon not only adapted a burrowing behavior but also went into periods of dormancy, called aestivation, which helped it survive, researchers say. Many fossils of the species have been found in a curled-up position.

"This state of torpor explains why the amphibian was not chased out of the burrow," Bruce Rubidge, another Wits University researcher, said in a statement.

As for the amphibian, the scans revealed it was a juvenile with several broken ribs that showed signs of healing, suggesting it had survived for some time after receiving a crippling injury. This animal was mostly aquatic and had no burrowing abilities of its own. Researchers think that in its handicapped state, the amphibian gingerly crawled into the burrow seeking protection without disturbing the dormant Thrinaxodon inside.

The researchers eliminated the possibility that the animals were in a predator-prey tussle at the time of death since there were no tooth-marks on the bones. The scientists also don't think it's likely that these two species would have cohabitated under normal circumstances.

"Burrow-sharing by different species exists in the modern world, but it corresponds to a specific pattern," Fernandez explained in a statement. "For example, a small visitor is not going to disturb the host. A large visitor can be accepted by the host if it provides some help, like predator vigilance. But neither of these patterns corresponds to what we have discovered in this fossilized burrow."

The peaceful coexistence of these two animals ended when a suddenrushed into the burrow, likely burying the creatures alive and preserving them together in the sediments for 250 million years. The small diameter of the tunnel also rules out the possibility that the Broomistegawas randomly washed into the mammal-like reptile's lair when the flood hit, the researchers say.

The research was detailed online June 21 in the journal .

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SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's top economic planning agency is investigating costs and prices charged by drugmakers, including units of GlaxoSmithKline and Merck, as foreign firms come under pressure from Beijing over possible price-fixing.

The move follows a separate probe into instant milk powder, which has already led to price cuts.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is surveying production costs and prices charged at multiple foreign and Chinese drug companies, according to a July 2 statement from the commission.

News of the investigation was reported earlier on Thursday by the official Securities Daily newspaper.

The NDRC will examine 27 companies on cost issues and 33 for pricing. The investigation is being done to understand the cost and pricing situation within the companies, and to adjust drug prices in a timely manner, the agency said.

In addition to GSK and Merck, other foreign companies being investigated over costs include Astellas, Novartis's generics unit Sandoz, Boehringer Ingelheim, Baxter International and Fresenius.

An investigation team from NDRC will visit the companies involved between July and October, the agency said.

One industry source familiar with the situation said the probe appeared to be focused on so-called transfer pricing, which determines how costs are distributed between units of large companies. Beijing plans to analyze the difference in prices of imported products sold by foreign firms in China compared with those in other markets.

The NDRC has also been investigating potential price-fixing and anti-competitive behavior by five instant milk powder makers, including Swiss food company Nestle and French rival Danone.

In response, Nestle and Danone said on Wednesday they were cutting the price of infant formula milk in China.

GSK OPERATIONS IN FOCUS

The NDRC probe into GlaxoSmithKline comes as high-level Chinese staff at the firm are being investigated by police in a separate case in the south-central Chinese city of Changsha on suspicion of economic crimes.

Changsha police have not provided any further details about the investigation and a GSK spokesman in London said it remained unclear what the investigation was about.

An anonymous whistleblower earlier made allegations that GSK sales representatives in China were involved in widespread bribery to get doctors to prescribe the company's medicines.

However, GSK said it had investigated the allegations thoroughly and found no evidence of any wrongdoing. It is not clear if the Changsha police investigation is related to these bribery allegations.

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.

(Additional reporting by Ben Hirschler in London; editing by Jeremy Laurence, Ron Askew)

French authorities have refused to register Mercedes A-Class, B-Class and SL cars assembled since June 12, even though German authorities have approved them, a Daimler spokesman said.

Usually the approval in France follows on automatically from the German approval.

"We have no explanation for why the registration in France was not yet accepted," the spokesman said.

An EU official familiar with the matter said that France had blocked the registration because the cars contained a coolant that was not permitted in the European Union.

The person added that the French transport ministry had informed the Commission about their plans this week and that the Commission would discuss the matter at their next automotive meeting in mid July.

French government officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Daimler said in September that 1234yf, the only air conditioning coolant on the market that conforms to a new European Union directive on greenhouse gases, could be the primary source for a vehicle fire.

It and rival Volkswagenare both developing expensive carbon dioxide-based air conditioning systems in order to avoid what they say is a fire hazard posed by Honeywelland DuPont'snew refrigerant HFO-1234yf, which emits poisonous hydrogen fluoride gas when it burns.

Daimler is violating the EU directive by continuing exclusively to use the non-flammable R134a. The German authorities agreed to extend a permit already granted before to predecessor models to the new models.

General Motor'sEuropean unit Opel began installing 1234yf-based systems in its Mokka model at the start of the year.

Opel said it had found no evidence in a crash test on its new Mokka SUV that the air conditioning refrigerant could catch fire in a collision and release toxic fumes.

(Reporting by Hendrik Sackmann and Ilona Wissenbach; Additional reporting by Laurence Frost in Paris; Writing by Jonathan Gould and Victoria Bryan; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

Both films are fighting for audiences heading into Thursday's U.S. Independence Day holiday, one of the biggest moviegoing periods of the year.

"Despicable Me 2," from Comcast Corp's Universal Pictures, is expected to rule the box office through Sunday with domestic ticket sales of more than $110 million, industry forecasters said. "The Lone Ranger" is projected to capture $60 million to $70 million during the same period.

"The Lone Ranger" stars Johnny Depp as Native American sidekick Tonto in an action remake based on the classic radio and TV series. "Despicable Me 2" features the voice of Steve Carell in a sequel to a 2010 blockbuster.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Chris Reese)

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Boies has been brought in, , following Tuesday's ruling by the MPAA's Title Registration Bureau that granted Warner Bros. the name rights to The Butler. Though The Weinstein Company has a buzzy (potentially Oscar buzzy) film debuting in just a month by that title , Warner Bros. laid claim to the movie title because of a 1916 silent short comedy that likely no one remembers. The ruling, essentially, meant that "TWC had until midnight tonight to remove the word 'Butler' from all their marketing, promotion and other material related to the Lee Daniel's directed film." That's a lot to ask for a film that's about to open, and with Boies now on hand, it's clear that the Weinstein bunch is not going down without a fight—Harvey Weinstein never lets a contender go down without barking all the way to the top.

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Boies, who also represented Al Gore in Bush v. Gore and has stepped in high-profile sports and movie cases before, said in a statement: "The suggestion that there is a danger of confusion between TWC’s 2013 feature movie and a 1917 short that has not been shown in theaters, television, DVDs, or in any other way for almost a century makes no sense. The award has no purpose except to restrict competition and is contrary to public policy." 

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If you're wondering how on Earth Warner Bros. could have gotten away with this so close to The Butler's August 16 opening—new pictures were —look to , who explains how, exactly, this MPAA Title Registration Bureau works. Though movie titles cannot be copyrighted, Appelo writes, the Title Registration bureau is a registration system which companies can opt into which aims to "prevent public confusion over films with similar titles" that are distributed in the United States. Warner Bros. did not make the case that they wanted to use the title, but instead "chose to stand on precedent, arguing that The Weinstein Co., which is a signatory to the TRB though not a member of the MPAA, hadn't followed the established rules." Usually, these matters are settled with a little behind-the-scenes deal-making. But Deadline's Fleming points to another element of the feud: TWC recently took issue with a Warner Bros. film title, The Good Lie, for being close to The Good Life. Now that's picky.