LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Falling Skies" has a rising episode count at TNT.

The network as renewed the drama, which stars "ER" alum Noah Wyle, for a fourth season, TNT said Tuesday. The 10-episode fourth season is slated to launch next summer.

The series, which is executive produced by Steven Spielberg and premiered in June 2011, is currently in its third season, which premiered in June. So far the third season has averaged 5.8 million total viewers in Live+7 ratings, up slightly from the 5.6 million that the previous season averaged.

"Falling Skies," from DreamWorks Television, stars Wyle as Tom Mason, a college professor who becomes an unlikely resistance leader after a massive invasion by an alien force. Moon Bloodgood, Will Patton, Drew Roy, Connor Jessup and Maxim Knight are also among the cast, with Gloria Reuben, Robert Sean Leonard, Stephen Collins and Doug Jones guest-starring this season.

In the highest profile arrest since Morsi's ouster, security officials said that Mohammed Badie, supreme leader of the Brotherhood, was arrested late on Wednesday in the Mediterranean coastal city of Marsa Matrouh, where he has been staying in a villa owned by a businessman with Brotherhood links.

He was flown to Cairo on a military helicopter, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. He, and his powerful deputy, Khairat el-Shater, are wanted for questioning on their role in the killing this week of eight protesters in clashes outside the Brotherhood's Cairo headquarters.

Morsi himself, the Brotherhood veteran who a year ago became Egypt's first freely elected president, has been held in an unknown location since the generals pushed him out Wednesday.

The Brotherhood announced it would boycott the new military-sponsored political process and called on its supporter to restrain themselves and not use violence.

"We declare our uncompromising rejection of the military coup staged against the elected president and the will of the nation and refuse to participate in any activist with the usurping authorities," said the statement, which the group's mufti Abdel-Rahman el-Barr read to the Morsi's supporters staging a days-long sit-in in Cairo.

Morsi's successor, judge Adly Mansour, took the oath of office at the Nile-side Constitutional Court in a ceremony broadcast live on state television. According to military decree, Mansour will serve as Egypt's interim leader until a new president is elected. A date for that vote has yet to be set.

Dressed in a dark blue suit and a sky blue tie, Mansour used his first remarks as interim leader to praise the massive street demonstrations that led to Morsi's ouster. He hailed the youth behind the protests that began on June 30 and brought out millions around the country.

June 30 "corrected the path of the glorious revolution that took place on Jan. 25," he said, referring to the revolt against autocrat Hosni Mubarak that began Jan. 25, 2011 and led to his ouster 18 days later.

"The most glorious thing about June 30 is that it brought together everyone without discrimination or division," he said. "I offer my greetings to the revolutionary people of Egypt."

"I look forward to parliamentary and presidential elections held with the genuine and authentic will of the people," Mansour said. "The youth had the initiative and the noblest thing about this glorious event is that it was an expression of the nation's conscience and an embodiment of its hopes and ambitions. It was never a movement seeking to realize special demands or personal interests."

The revolution, he said, must continue, so "we stop producing tyrants."

Badie and el-Shater were widely believed by the oppositions to be the real power in Egypt during Morsi's tenure.

Authorities have also issued a wanted list for more than 200 Brotherhood members and leaders of other Islamist groups. The leader of the Brotherhood's political arm Freedom and Justice Party and another of Badie's deputies have been detained. At least a dozen of Morsi's advisers and aides are also under house arrest.

The arrests and warrants against Brotherhood leaders signal a crackdown by the military against Islamists who have dominated the political scene in Egypt since the ouster in 2011 of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The Brotherhood's television station, Misr 25, has been taken off the air along with several TV networks run by Islamists. Morsi's critics have long accused the stations of sowing divisions among Egyptians and inciting against secularists, liberals, Christians and Shiite Muslims with their hard-line rhetoric.

Pushing aside Morsi, army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi announced Wednesday in a televised speech that the military had suspended the Islamist-drafted constitution, and that a civilian Cabinet of technocrat would run the country until new presidential elections are held. No date has been given.

Millions of anti-Morsi protesters around the country erupted in celebrations after the televised announcement by the army chief on Wednesday evening. Fireworks burst over crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square, where men and women danced, shouting, "God is great" and "Long live Egypt."

That fact that Egypt's interim president comes from the Constitutional Court adds a symbolic sting to Morsi's ouster.

The Islamist leader and his Muslim Brotherhood backers had repeatedly clashed with the judiciary, particularly the constitutional court, while in power, accusing the judges of being loyalists of former autocrat Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in a 2011 uprising, and saying they seek to undermine Egypt's shift to democratic rule.

The judges, meanwhile, had repeatedly challenged the Brotherhood's policies and what many in Egypt considered the group's march to power. The Constitutional Court dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament in June last year, saying it was illegally elected. It rejected a Morsi decree to reinstate the chamber.

Even with an interim leader now in place, Egypt remains on an uncertain course following Morsi's ouster, and the possibility of further confrontation still looms. Beyond the fears over violence, some protesters are concerned whether an army-installed administration can lead to real democracy.The Muslim Brotherhood's supreme leader has been arrested in a coastal city and flown to Cairo on a military helicopter, security officials said on Thursday, the most high profile move by the military in a crackdown against the Islamic group from which ousted president Mohammed Moris hails.

It was a remarkable show of papal authority and confirmed Francis' willingness to bend church tradition when it comes to things he cares deeply about. Both popes are also closely identified with the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that brought the Catholic Church into modern times, an indication that Francis clearly wants to make a statement about the council's role in shaping the church today.

Francis approved a decree that a Costa Rican woman's inexplicable cure from a deadly brain aneurism was the "miracle" needed to canonize John Paul. More significantly, he decided that John XXIII, who convened Vatican II, could be declared a saint even without a second miracle attributed to his intercession. The Vatican said Francis had the power to dispense with such requirements and could proceed with only one confirmed miracle to John's name.

The ceremony is expected before the end of the year. The date of Dec. 8 has been floated as likely, given it's the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a major feast day for the church that honors Mary, to whom both saintly popes were particularly devoted. Polish prelates continue to press for October, to mark the 35th anniversary of the Polish-born John Paul's election, but Vatican officials have suggested that's too soon to organize such a massive event.

The announcement came on a remarkable day melding papacies past and present: It opened with Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI attending their first Vatican ceremony together, sitting side-by-side on matching papal chairs for the unveiling of a statue in the Vatican gardens. It continued with the publication of Francis' first encyclical, a meditation on faith that was largely written by Benedict before he retired but was signed by Francis. And it climaxed with Francis' decision to canonize two other predecessors.

Each event, historic on its own, would have captured headlines. But the canonization announcement capped them all, reflecting the priorities of this unique pontificate that has already broken so many rules and traditions, from Francis' decision to shun papal vestments to his housing arrangements, living in the Vatican hotel rather than the stuffy Apostolic Palace.

The Rev. Thomas Reese, a Vatican analyst, said the decision to canonize both popes was a "brilliant move to unify the church," given that each pope has his own admirers and critics.

"With the joint announcement, Pope Francis is saying we do not have to choose between popes, we can honor and revere both as holy men who served the church well in their times," he wrote on his blog for the National Catholic Reporter newspaper.

Vatican II, which John XXIII opened a year before his 1963 death, opened the church to people of other faiths and allowed for Mass to be celebrated in the languages of the faithful, rather than Latin. In the years since it closed in 1965, though, it has become a source of division in the church, with critics blaming a faulty interpretation of Vatican II's true meaning on the fall in priestly vocations and the "crisis" in the church today.

To anyone who has been paying attention, Francis' decision to canonize John Paul and John XXIII should come as no surprise: The Jesuit was made a cardinal by John Paul, who attended Vatican II, and is very much a priest of John's legacy.

On the anniversary of John Paul's death this year, Francis prayed at the tombs of both John Paul and John XXIII an indication that he sees a great personal and spiritual continuity in them.

"Two different popes, very important to the church, will be announced saint together - it's a beautiful gesture," said the Rev. Jozef Kloch, spokesman for Poland's Catholic bishops, who like most Poles was overjoyed by the news of John Paul's impending canonization but impatient to know the date.

Francis will set the date at an upcoming meeting of cardinals.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, confirmed that the miracle that brought John Paul to the ranks of saints concerned a Costa Rican woman, Floribeth Mora, who on Friday broke months of silence to tell her story in public, surrounded by her family, doctors and church officials at a news conference in the archbishop's residence in San Jose, Costa Rica.

A tearful Mora described how she awoke at her home in Dulce Nombre de Tres Rios, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the capital, on April 8, 2011 with a debilitating headache that sent her to the hospital. She was diagnosed with having suffered a cerebral aneurism in the right side of her brain.

Doctors decided they couldn't operate because the area was inaccessible.

"With an open operation or an endovascular intervention, the risk to Floribeth would have been to die or be left with a significant neurological deficit," her doctor, Dr. Alejandro Vargas, told reporters.

She was sent home with painkillers.

"I returned home with the fear that I was going to die," Mora said.

Nevertheless, a few days later, she insisted on participating in a religious procession during which she said she received a sign that she would be healed. The family decided to build a shrine to John Paul outside their home: a colorful altar with a photo of the late pope next to a statue of the Madonna and surrounded by flowers, candles and Christmas lights.

On the day John Paul was beatified, May 1, 2011, Mora said she insisted on watching the Mass, which drew some 1.5 million people to St. Peter's Square and the streets around it.

"I contemplated the photo of the Holy Father with his arms extended and I fixed my eyes on him," she said. "In this moment, I heard a voice tell me 'get up, don't be afraid,' and I could only say 'Yes, I'm going to get up.'"

She said her family was shocked to see her get out of bed. "I was afraid to tell my husband, because he was going to think I was crazy or on drugs. But I got up from bed, and I am here before you, healthy," she said.

Medical tests confirmed that the aneurism had disappeared, Vargas said. "It's the first time I've seen anything like it," he said, showing the before and after images of the hemorrhage.

John Paul, who was pope from 1978-2005, revolutionized the papacy, traveling the world and inspiring a generation of young Catholics to be excited about their faith. He was the first Polish pope and the first non-Italian in 455 years a legacy that continued with the German-born Benedict XVI and Argentine Francis.

John XXIII, dubbed the "good pope" for his affable nature, is best known for having convened Vatican II, sensing that the time was ripe for a renewal of the church. But he has fallen from favor among conservatives who blame Vatican II for the church's problems today.

Benedict spent much of his pontificate trying to correct what he considered wrong interpretations of Vatican II, insisting it wasn't the break from the past that liberals believed.

While not disagreeing outright with Benedict, Francis seems to take a more progressive read of Vatican II and its call to go out into the world and spread the faith a priority he has shown in the first months of his pontificate.

The two living popes, however, clearly get along.

"Your holiness, good day and thank you!" Francis beamed on Friday as he greeted Benedict in the Vatican gardens for the unveiling of the statue. Benedict, 86, appeared in good form, walking slowly but on his own and greeting well-wishers.

The Vatican's complicated saint-making procedure requires that the Vatican certify a "miracle" was performed through the intercession of the candidate a medically inexplicable cure that is lasting, immediate and can be directly linked to the prayers offered by the faithful. One miracle is needed for beatification, a second for canonization.

Benedict put John Paul on the fast track for possible sainthood when he dispensed with the traditional five-year waiting period and allowed the beatification process to begin weeks after his John Paul's death. Benedict was responding to chants of "Santo Subito!" or "Sainthood Immediately" which erupted during John Paul's funeral.

There has been some concern that the process has been too quick. Some of the Holy See's deep-seated problems clerical sex abuse, dysfunctional governance and more recently the financial scandals at the Vatican bank essentially date from shortcomings of his pontificate.

Thus the decision to canonize John Paul along with John XXIII can be seen as trying to balance those concerns, as well as the shortcomings of each pope.

Such was the case in 2000, when John Paul beatified John XXIII, dubbed the "good pope," alongside Pope Pius IX, who was criticized by Jews for condoning the seizure of a Jewish boy and allegedly referring to Jews as dogs.

As soon as the announcement was made, John Paul's critics came out: Juan Vaca, one of the victims of notorious pedophile priest the Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ religious order, said the decision to canonize John Paul was "appalling and shocking" given the thousands of victims of sex abuse who were ignored under his 27-year pontificate.

The Vatican has argued that sainthood cases are based on the record of the person, not the pontificate.

Asked how John XXIII, elected in 1958, could be canonized without a second miracle, the Vatican spokesman insisted that many theologians believe that a second miracle isn't required. He said Francis had approved a decision by the cardinals and bishops of the Vatican's saint-making office.

"Certainly the pope has the power, in a certain sense, to dispense of the second miracle in a cause, and this is what happened," Lombardi said.

He stressed that this decision didn't represent any relaxing of the Vatican's overall standards for canonization, but represented a unique situation, given that the church this year is marking the 50th anniversary of Vatican II.

"John XXIII is someone who we know is beloved in the church, we're in the 50th anniversary of the Council which he started, and I don't think any of us have any doubts about his virtues," Lombardi said.

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, John Paul's longtime secretary, was clearly pleased that his pope would finally be made a saint.

"John Paul II's holiness was simple, humble, of service," Dziwisz wrote in Friday's Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. "He lived for God and brought others to God."

___

Javier Cordoba in San Jose, Costa Rica, and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw contributed to this report.

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

The triangle consists of three of the brightest stars in the sky, each the brightest star in its own constellation. The brightest is the bluish-white star Vega, in Lyra, the lyre. Next in brightness is yellow-whitein Aquila, the eagle. Finally there is white Deneb, in Cygnus, the swan.

From our viewpoint, Vega appears twice as bright as Altair and more than three times brighter than Deneb. But sometimes things are not always what they seem. We know that Vega clearly is more luminous compared to Altair, because its situated at a greater distance from us. Altair is 17 light years away, while Vega is just a little farther out at 25 light years away. []

The light you're seeing from Altair tonight started on its journey to Earth in 1996, and the light from Vega started on its way toward Earth back in 1988. But brilliant Vega actually pales in comparison with Deneb, one of the greatest supergiant stars known.

Deneb's distance measures 1,467 light-years from Earth with a luminosity computed to be more than 60,000 times that of the sun. Because its light takes nearly 15 centuries to reach us, Deneb merely appears as a fairly conspicuous but by no means particularly notable star.

See the Milky Way

With the moon arriving at new phase on Monday (July 8), and then waxing to just a thin crescent phase by week's end, there is no better time than now to observe the beautiful summer Milky Way.

Under a dark sky with a good pair of binoculars or ayou can now observe millions of sparkling little stars that make up this glowing, irregular belt of luminosity.

It appears to arch from the north-northeast to the south-southeast, with its brightest and most spectacular region running across the summer triangle and beyond toward the south-southeast horizon.

There appears to be a great black rift dividing it into two streams (called the "dark bifurcation"), beginning with Cygnus and extending down toward the south. Also in Cygnus is the black void known as the "northern coal stack." The coal stack and the rift are not holes in the , but rather are vast clouds of dust "floating" out in interstellar space which present a solid and impenetrable curtain between us and the more distant stars.

Star-crossed lovers

There have been many stories, myths and legends told about the Milky Way in many different cultures.

In a Japanese legend involving the galaxy, the starrepresented Orihime, the weaving princess, who produced brilliantly colored fabrics. Across the "heavenly river" (the Milky Way), Altair represented the cow herder Hikoboshi, who was also known as Kengyu.

After meeting each other, they received divine permission to marry, whereupon both abandoned their occupations. This angered the gods who consequently separate them and send them back to their original jobs on opposite sides of the heavenly river.

The couple, however, received permission from the gods to get together for one night each year. That special night is July 7 but only if the sky is clear.

As a result, the evening of July 7 has evolved into a young-peoples holiday in Japan called Tanabata, meaning "evening of the seventh." Prayers are offered for clear skies so that Orihime and Hikoboshi, the star-crossed lovers can be reunited.

Popular customs relating to the festival vary by region, but generally, girls wished for better sewing and craftsmanship, and boys wished for better handwriting by writing wishes on strips of paper. The date of Tanabata also varies by region, but the first festivities begin on July 7 of the Gregorian calendar.

The original Tanabata date was based on the Japanese lunisolar calendar, which is about a month behind the . As a result, some festivals are held on July 7, some are held on a few days around August 7, while the others are still held on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the traditional Japanese lunisolar calendar, which is usually in August in the Gregorian calendar.

This year, the Gregorian date of "the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the Japanese lunisolar calendar" will fall on Aug. 13.

Editor's note: If you snap an amazing picture of the night sky that you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery send photos, comments and your name and location to Managing Editor Tariq Malik at .

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for "Natural History" magazine, the "Farmer's Almanac" and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York. Follow us on ,and . Original article on SPACE.com.

Officials say they conducted an inventory of art, books, furniture and documents belonging to the late Alfredo Guevara, and three valuable paintings were determined to be missing.

His family members accuse authorities of carrying out an unjustified and intrusive weekend raid, breaking down doors, hauling away various items in trucks and refusing to explain their actions.

"We are very taken aback," granddaughter Claudia Guevara, an actress and model who lives in Mexico, told The Associated Press late Wednesday. "They entered our house without giving us prior warning, for no reason whatever and without us being in the country."

Alfredo Guevara was a filmmaker and longtime devoted communist with ties to Fidel and Raul Castro dating back to the brothers' days as young bearded rebels. He was a major figure in Cuba's cultural world following the 1959 Cuban Revolution until his death April 19 of a heart attack, at the age of 87.

Gladys Collazo, president of Cuba's National Council of Cultural Heritage, said authorities became concerned last week when neighbors reported that people were coming and going from Guevara's home at night, and deployed police to secure it.

"The family ... is not in the country and we were very worried about the possible loss or removal of important objects," Collazo was quoted as saying by the official magazine La Jiribilla, after word of the search got out. "Our position from the very beginning has been to protect our heritage."

But relatives were indignant.

Family members said more than 20 cultural officials and police carried out the search Saturday and Sunday and were still inside the home. The granddaughter said friends witnessed state agents removing various items in two trucks, and the family had tried unsuccessfully to reach Cuban cultural officials.

"I would love for somebody to contact me and say what my brother and I, who are the legitimate owners and inheritors along with my parents, have done to cause them to remove all our belongings and even change the locks on the doors," Claudia Guevara said.

In an online exchange, she said she was positive nobody had been removing valuables before the raid because the house was under lock and key.

Authorities denied breaking down doors, saying the home's caretaker let them in and cooperated with their inventory. Collazo also said the family had been informed that they had 60 days to register any belongings that qualify as objects of cultural heritage.

Cuban law allows individuals to inherit and own such items, but they must be entered into a special registry and may not be taken out of the country.

A man who answered the door at the Guevara home Wednesday night declined to comment.

Guevara was the founder of the Cuban Art and Cinematography Institute and the Festival of New Latin American Cinema, and a number of envelope-pushing films, such as "Strawberry and Chocolate," were made on his watch.

Many credited him with nurturing filmmakers, directors, writers, artists and musicians and sheltering them from criticism by Communist authorities. However some criticized his close ties to the Castros and said he did not do enough to defend artistic freedom.

Collazo said three unidentified "masterpieces" of Cuban painting were unaccounted for at Guevara's house, and a police investigation is ongoing.

"We are conducting an exhaustive review of the items of various types," she told La Jiribilla. "In the home there are paintings, works of art, documents, photographs, furniture and other objects of cultural interest."

"What we are doing is rescuing (Guevara's) extraordinary legacy," Collazo said. "The work of Alfredo Guevara is essential for our political and cultural history, and his tremendous contributions to cinema and Latin American and world culture should be permanently preserved."

Claudia Guevara argued that his will should be respected.

"My grandfather Alfredo's will makes clear that absolutely all his belongings and documents belong to his son, his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren," she said.

___

Andrea Rodriguez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP

Thomas, who is black, was part of a 5-4 majority that invalidated part of the Voting Rights Act meant to deter racial discrimination in elections. The ruling makes it tougher for federal officials to prevent states and localities, primarily in the South, from adopting policies that add barriers to voting.

In response, state Rep. Ryan Winkler tweeted: "#SCOTUS VRA majority is four accomplices to race discrimination and one Uncle Thomas. Marriage decision may blur Court's backsliding."

"Uncle Tom" is a connotation to describe someone subservient to another and has its roots in Harriet Beecher Stowe's pre-Civil War novel about slavery, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The latter part of the tweet refers to the high court's expected decision on gay marriage.

Winkler, who is white, deleted the tweet and told followers in his feed that he didn't understand the phrase to be a racist term. He later told The Associated Press that he was trying to make a point about institutional racism resulting from the ruling.

"I used a term that was too hot for the issue, but I didn't intend for it to be derogatory," said Winkler, who holds a history degree from Harvard.

Chris Fields, secretary of the Minnesota Republican Party, said Winkler's comments were "beyond the pale" and his apology wasn't enough. "If he had any personal integrity, he'd resign," said Fields, who is black.

Winkler, of Golden Valley, had been weighing a run for Minnesota secretary of state, whose office oversees elections. He said he ruled that out several days ago but hadn't announced it.

The four-term lawmaker represents a district that covers western Minneapolis suburbs and is an attorney. He is known for rhetorical clashes with Republicans while on the House floor and on Twitter.

Starting with books, movies and TV shows video products, Amazon will include mobile phones and cameras in the coming weeks, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

Under the marketplace model, the U.S. company will offer a platform for third parties and consumers to sell and buy products. Foreign companies are currently not allowed to directly offer online retailing in India.

Amazon already runs a price comparison portal, junglee.com, in India.

(Writing by Ranjit Gangadharan in Mumbai; Editing by Anand Basu)

Rivers joins the Clippers after nine NBA seasons in Boston where he amassed a record of 416-305 in the regular season and 59-47 in the postseason, including an NBA championship in 2008.

The 51-year-old, one of only four active NBA coaches to win an NBA title, takes over a Clippers team that finished fourth in the 15-team Western Conference last season but lost in the opening round of the playoffs.

Rivers replaces Vinny Del Negro, who was not given a new contract following the team's early playoff exit, and will also serve as the team's senior vice president of basketball operations.

The Clippers sent a first round pick in the 2015 NBA Draft to the Celtics as compensation for releasing Rivers from his contract, which had three years and $21 million remaining. A replacement for Rivers was not named.

Prior to joining the Celtics, Rivers spent just over four seasons as head coach of the Orlando Magic, earning NBA Coach of the Year Honors in his first season when he led a team that was expected to finish last to a playoff berth in 2000.

Tuesday's announcement ended weeks of back-and-forth over a potential deal and allows Rivers to leave a franchise which has been gradually dismantled in recent seasons, and now needs to be rebuilt by his successor.

'BIG THREE'

Under Rivers, the Celtics enjoyed a long run of success after they assembled a 'Big Three' when they acquired center Kevin Garnett and shooting guard Ray Allen to join forward Paul Pierce.

However, Allen left Boston to join the NBA champion Miami Heat last season and the Celtics squad showed signs of age with a rebuilding period looming in the immediate future.

During the initial Rivers talks between Boston and Los Angeles, Garnett's name was also mentioned in a possible swap.

The Celtics finished third in the Atlantic Division last season with a 41-40 mark after winning the crown five years in a row and lost to the New York Knicks in the first round of the playoffs.

The Clippers won the Pacific Division with a 56-26 record but were eliminated in the opening round of the playoffs by the Memphis Grizzlies.

Last month, three weeks after their early exit from the playoffs, the Clippers announced they would not be renewing the contract of Del Negro whose deal was expiring.

The arrival of Rivers in Los Angeles should help ensure that the Clippers will re-sign six-times All-Star point guard Chris Paul, who will become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.

Paul, who has previously expressed his desire to work under Rivers, is expected to be offered a five-year contract worth $107.3 million.

Rivers played one season for the Clippers in 1991-92 during his 13-year NBA career as a point guard.

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Frank Pingue)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended higher on the first day of the third quarter on Monday, supported by signs of strength in manufacturing and construction sectors. But the major stock indexes pulled back from their session highs late in the day as investors sold some shares to book profits.

The S&P 500 , which rose as much as 1.27 percent earlier in the day, ended just 0.54 percent higher. But the gains followed the S&P's rally of 12.6 percent in the first six months of 2013. That marked the strongest first half of the year since 1998 for the benchmark S&P 500.

"We've had a couple days of pretty good moves, and on Friday and today, you've had some intraday profit-taking," said Rick Meckler, president of hedge fund, LibertyView Capital Management LLC, in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Wall Street has been showing signs of stabilization in the past week after a selloff that was triggered by concerns that the Federal Reserve's bond-buying policy, which has partly fueled this year's rally in equities, would end sooner than expected. June was the S&P 500's first negative month since October.

"Certainly people who were caught in the downdraft had a chance to buy either down there (when markets sold off) or recover and lighten up a little bit," Meckler said.

Among the S&P 500's 10 industrial sectors, the telecom and utilities sectors were the decliners of the day. The S&P telecom sector indexslipped 0.1 percent. The S&P utilities sector indexlost 1.3 percent.

The day's early rally was bolstered by data from the Institute for Supply Management that showed U.S. manufacturing activity grew in June, rebounding from an unexpected contraction in May. Construction spending neared a four-year high in May, according to the Commerce Department.

The Dow Jones industrial averagerose 65.36 points, or 0.44 percent, to end at 14,974.96. The Standard & Poor's 500 Indexadvanced 8.68 points, or 0.54 percent, to finish at 1,614.96. The Nasdaq Composite Indexgained 31.24 points, or 0.92 percent, to close at 3,434.49.

The S&P's best-performing sectors included non-cyclical consumer goods and services, industrials and technology. Shares of Procter & Gamble , the world's largest household products maker, rose 1.3 percent to $78.02.

The S&P financial indexgained 0.5 percent. Citigroupshares rose 0.6 percent to $48.25 after the bank said it agreed to pay $968 million to settle claims that it left U.S.-owned mortgage guarantor Fannie Maeon the hook for home loans the agency would not have knowingly guaranteed.

Netflix , up 6.3 percent at $224.28, and Apple , up 3.2 percent at $409.22, helped lift the Nasdaq. There was no obvious catalyst for the rally in Netflix shares although the company announced an exclusive multi-year streaming deal to provide "New Girl," a hit comedy on Fox, to its U.S. customers. Earlier on Monday, Raymond James raised its recommendation on Apple's stock to "strong buy" from "outperform."

MORE VOLATILITY AHEAD

While investor fears that the Fed may take an early exit from its stimulus efforts have faded for now, analysts say the eventual transition to a no-stimulus environment is expected to result in more volatility.

"I still believe the market is trying to figure out how to price in slightly higher interest rates, even if rate increases from the Federal Reserve are still at least a year away," said Randy Frederick, managing director of active trading and derivatives at the Schwab Center for Financial Research in Austin, Texas.

Frederick added that since the monthly nonfarm payrolls data will coincide with the weekly jobless claims report this week, investors should "be prepared for a volatile move an hour before market open" on Friday.

In corporate news, Jefferies & Co raised its price target on Tesla Motors'stock to $130 from $70, saying the electric car maker was on track to deliver 21,000 Model S cars in 2013. Tesla's stock shot up 9.2 percent to $117.18.

Onyx Pharmaceuticals Incsurged 51.3 percent to $131.33 after the company said it was considering selling itself, though it had rejected a roughly $10 billion bid from Amgen Inc . Canaccord Genuity raised its price target on the stock to $140 from $105.

In other pharmaceutical-related news, Insmed Inctumbled 18.7 percent to $9.72 after its experimental lung infection drug fared no better than a competing one developed by Novartis AGin a lung function test.

Shares of games publisher Zynga Incsoared after a report by AllThingsD that the company could replace its Chief Executive Mark Pincus with Microsoft Corpexecutive Don Mattrick, possibly as early as late Monday. Zynga shares jumped 10.4 percent to $3.07.

Zynga said after the closing bell that Mattrick, who heads Microsoft's Xbox business, has been appointed to replace Pincus as CEO, effective July 8.

About 6 billion shares exchanged hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, slightly below the daily average so far this year of about 6.4 billion.

Advancing issues outpaced decliners by a ratio of about 7 to 3 on the NYSE. On the Nasdaq, about 18 stocks rose for every seven that fell.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A small NASA telescope was launched into orbit on Thursday on a mission to determine how the sun heats its atmosphere to millions of degrees, sending off rivers of particles that define the boundaries of the solar system.

The study is far from academic. Solar activity directly impacts Earth's climate and the space environment beyond the planet's atmosphere. Solar storms can knock out power grids, disrupt radio signals and interfere with communications, navigation and other satellites in orbit.

"We live in a very complex society and the sun has a role to play in it," said physicist Alan Title, with Lockheed Martin Space Systems Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, California, which designed and built the telescope.

Scientists have been trying to unravel the mechanisms that drive the sun for decades but one fundamental mystery endures: How it manages to release energy from its relatively cool, 10,000 degree Fahrenheit (5,500 degree Celsius) surface into an atmosphere that can reach up to 5 million degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 million Celsius).

At its core, the sun is essentially a giant fusion engine that melds hydrogen atoms into helium. As expected, temperatures cool as energy travels outward through the layers. But then in the lower atmosphere, known as the chromosphere, temperatures heat up again.

Pictures and data relayed by the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, telescope may finally provide some answers about how that happens.

The 4-foot (1.2-meter) long, 450-pound (204-kg) observatory will be watching the sun from a vantage point about 400 miles above Earth. It is designed to capture detailed images of light moving from the sun's surface, known as the photosphere, into the chromosphere. Temperatures peak in the sun's outer atmosphere, the corona.

All that energy fuels a continuous release of charged particles from the sun into what is known as the solar wind, a pressure bubble that fills and defines the boundaries of the solar system.

"Every time we look at the sun in more detail, it opens up a new window for us," said Jeffrey Newmark, IRIS program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The telescope was launched aboard an Orbital Sciences Corp Pegasus rocket at 10:27 p.m. EDT Thursday (0227 GMT Friday). Pegasus is an air-launched system that is carried aloft by a modified L-1011 aircraft that took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California about 57 minutes before launch.

The rocket was released from beneath the belly of the plane at an altitude of about 39,000 feet before it ignited to carry the telescope into orbit.

IRIS, which cost about $145 million including the launch service, is designed to last for two years.

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Eric Walsh)