At the site of the graves in the town of Jaltipan, southeast of Veracruz, archaeologists also found clay figurines, jade beads, mirrors and animal remains, according to the National Anthropology and History Institute, or INAH.

Researchers believe the settlement was occupied from around the first century A.D. until A.D. 600 or 700. Little is known about the people who lived there. The skeletons are set to be analyzed so that researchers can learn about how they were treated for burial. []

"All that is known so far is that of the 30 burials, two at least belong to infants," explained archaeologist Alfredo Delgado in a statement from INAH.

Deer antlers and bones that may belong to dogs, coyotes, deer, fish and birds were buried with the bodies, perhaps as animal companions for the underworld, the researchers said. There's also evidence that the inhabitants of the site were fossil collectors; among the numerous prehistoric remains were the fossilized teeth of a long extinct -type shark.

The artifacts found at the site represent more than one culture. Some figurines and brickwork look Mayan, while there was also pottery that looks like it came from ancient city of , the researchers say.

"Analyses will enable us to see whether this site was multicultural, as is indicated by the materials found, or whether the inhabitants were all of the same genetic type," Delgado said.

Thefound on a hill near the burials is made of stone slabs and stretches 39 feet (12 meters) tall and looks Mayan or Tajin in style, the researchers believe. While pre-Columbian stone monuments have been found in Los Tuxtlas and the Sierra de Santa Marta, archaeologists say this type of ancient stone architecture has rarely been found in the southern part of the state of Veracruz.

The team says they also discovered bricks in Jaltipan resembling those found at Comacalco, a Mayan city 74 miles (120 kilometers) away in the Tabasco region.

Follow Megan Gannon onandFollow us ,& . Original article on .

LONDON (Reuters) - The Rolling Stones blasted through the past into the present on Saturday with a rip-roaring show in London's Hyde Park that paid homage to their last concert here 44 years ago.

Frontman Mick Jagger strutted, howled and belted his way through a two-hour set that gave a nod to founding member Brian Jones, whose death in 1969 turned their last appearance at the royal park into a tribute.

"Anybody out there who was here in 1969?" Jagger called out to applause from a sea of grey hair after opening with "Start Me Up" and "Its only Rock and Roll".

"Well welcome back, it's nice to see you again."

Jones had already left the Stones the last time Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards and drummer Charlie Watts played the park at a gig meant to introduce his replacement, Mick Taylor. Guitarist Ronnie Wood joined in 1975.

But two days before their appearance, the 27-year-old Jones drowned in his swimming pool under the influence of drugs and alcohol, turning that concert into a commemoration.

Now the band with an average age of 69 stormed through the classics from "Brown Sugar" and "Honky Tonk Woman" to "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Sympathy for the Devil" - with rubber-lipped Jagger strumming the guitar for the latest single "Doom and Gloom".

The Stones bounded across the stage and along a catwalk stretching into the sea of 65,000 fans gathered on a sultry summer evening in 21st century central London, sipping beer. The unmistakable aroma of marijuana wafted in the air.

The night belonged to the reconciliation of past and present for a crowd of old and young steeped in Stones lore, watching the band on stage with images of past concerts occasionally flashing past on big screens rising up behind the band.

Jagger donned a white smock-like outfit similar to the one he wore in 1969, played the harmonica and quoted a piece of poetry. The references to Jones and the old days were unmistakable even if his name was never mentioned.

MICK TAYLOR TAKES A BRIEF TURN

Taylor - who left the Stones in 1974 - appeared on stage for a rollicking version of "Midnight Rambler," where he delivered a masterclass in the guitar solo before jamming in front of Watts with Wood and Richards.

"Mick's very first show was with us here," Jagger told the crowd. "We found him in a pub and put him in front of 250,000 people."

The crowd reflected the longevity of the band and their continued popularity across the generations.

"This is my birthday present from my dad," said 34-year-old Dan Kemsley, who had been waiting in front of the stage alongside his Stones-mad father John since noon.

Nostalgia has played a major part in the Rolling Stones' activities the past year as they celebrated 50 years in the music business and embarked on a North American tour.

The Rolling Stones lived up to their reputation as one of the greatest rock and roll bands when they played to more than 100,000 revelers at last weekend's Glastonbury festival.

The band emerged alongside the Beatles in the early 1960s to become one of the most successful groups in rock and roll history with hits such as "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "Satisfaction", which rounded off the show amid fireworks.

They last went on the road for their "A Bigger Bang" tour from 2005 to 2007, playing 144 shows around the world and grossing more than $550 million, making it one of the world's most lucrative rock tours.

They play another concert in Hyde Park on July 13.

Live performances have emerged as the major money earner in the music business as record sales go digital, with growing numbers of veteran acts returning to the stage and attracting well-heeled, aging fans willing to pay high ticket prices.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)

LONDON (Reuters) - Debenhams , Britain's No. 2 department store group, said on Thursday a volatile trading climate and unhelpful spring weather contributed to a slowdown in third quarter sales growth, which fell-short of analysts' forecasts.

The company, like many other British retailers, is finding the going tough as consumers, whose spending generates about two thirds of Britain's gross domestic product, fret over job security and a squeeze on incomes.

Debenhams' sales at stores open over a year were flat in the 16 weeks to June 22 - a period which includes its fiscal third quarter. That compares with a first-half like-for-like sales rise of 3.1 percent and analyst forecasts for growth of about 2 percent.

"Any retailer that you speak to will tell you that it's not easy out there ... I think in the context of the market backdrop these are robust results," CEO Michael Sharp told reporters.

The 200-year-old department store group, which trails rival John Lewisby annual sales, said it had coped well with the conditions and was comfortable with market expectations for pretax profit in 2013-14, thanks to control over gross margins and more cost savings.

Shares in the firm, down 23 percent since the start of the year, were up 1.75 pence at 92.6 pence at 0912 GMT, valuing the business at 1.13 billion pounds ($1.73 billion).

"This is not a high quality update, but we think that the market had been expecting another warning," said Sanjay Vidyarthi, analyst at Espirito Santo Investment Bank.

Forecasts had been cut after a profit warning in March that was blamed on January snow.

Analysts' consensus forecast is a pretax profit of around 153 million pounds, down from 158.3 million pounds in 2012-13.

Debenhams published a graph to illustrate the volatile trading conditions in Britain, which showed like-for-like sales swinging wildly from one week to another. They were down more than 20 percent in the second week of March, the coldest March since 1962, but up over 15 percent in the last week of April.

Sharp highlighted market share gains in clothing, beauty and home and a 40 percent rise in online sales, saying that was a clear manifestation of the strength of the group's offer.

Across Europe fashion retailers have suffered so far this year as the economic downturn has been exacerbated by unusually cold weather in spring and early summer.

Earlier this month, global fashion retail leader Spain's Inditex , which owns the Zara chain, posted its weakest quarterly growth in net profit in four years, while No. 2 Sweden's H&Mmissed forecasts for second quarter net sales.

But there are still strong performers in Britain despite the tough trading conditions. John Lewis's total sales were up 7.9 percent in the 20 weeks to June 15, while online fashion retailer ASOSrecently reported a 45 percent jump in third quarter sales.

Debenhams is spending 25 million pounds on a refurbishment of its flagship Oxford Street store in central London. The company said this was on track for completion in December, and would create 430 new jobs.

In line with previous guidance, Debenhams also said gross margin would be flat for the full 2013-14 year, while cost savings had been eked out from, for example, the UK online business. ($1 = 0.6520 British pounds)

(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Neil Maidment and Jane Merriman)

The Harvard University researchers stressed it was too early to say the men have been cured, but said it was an encouraging sign that the virus hasn't rebounded in their blood months after drug treatment ended.

The first person reported to be cured of HIV, American Timothy Ray Brown, underwent a stem cell transplant in 2007 to treat his leukemia. He was reported by his German doctors to have been cured of HIV two years later.

Brown's doctors used a donor who had a rare genetic mutation that provides resistance against HIV. So far, no one has observed similar results using ordinary donor cells such as those given to the two patients by the Harvard University researchers.

The researchers, Timothy Henrich and Daniel Kuritzkes of the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, announced last year that blood samples taken from the men who both had blood cancers showed no traces of the HIV virus eight months after they received bone marrow transplants to replace cancerous blood cells with healthy donor cells. The men were still on anti-HIV drugs at the time.

The men have both since stopped anti-retroviral therapy one 15 weeks ago and the other seven weeks ago and show no signs of the virus, Henrich told an international AIDS conference in Malaysia on Wednesday.

"They are doing very well," Henrich said. "While these results are exciting, they do not yet indicate that the men have been cured. Only time will tell."

The HIV virus may be hiding in other organs such as the liver, spleen or brain and could return months later, he warned.

Further testing of the men's cells, plasma and tissue for at least a year will help give a clearer picture on the full impact of the transplant on HIV persistence, he said.

Kuritzkes said the patients will be put back on the drugs if there is a viral rebound.

A rebound will show that other sites are important reservoirs of infectious virus and new approaches to measuring these reservoirs will be needed in developing a cure, Henrich said.

"These findings clearly provide important new information that might well alter the current thinking about HIV and gene therapy," Kevin Robert Frost, chief executive of The Foundation of AIDS Research, said in a statement. "While stem cell transplantation is not a viable option for people with HIV on a broad scale because of its costs and complexity, these new cases could lead us to new approaches to treating, and ultimately even eradicating, HIV."

NEW YORK (AP) -- Pluristem Therapeutics Inc. said Tuesday the Food and Drug Administration suspended a clinical trial of one of its stem cell therapies, sending the company's shares lower.

Pluristem said one patient in a mid-stage clinical trial suffered a severe allergic reaction to treatment and was hospitalized. The company said a total of 74 patients have been treated in its studies and this is the first serious allergic reaction. Pluristem said the patient had "multiple diseases" which may have made her allergic reaction worse. The patient was discharged from the hospital the next day, after all of her symptoms had cleared up.

The Israeli company said the FDA will send it a list of questions and requests for information within 30 days. Pluristem said it will work with the FDA to resolve those issues and restart the trial.

Shares of Pluristem lost 46 cents, or 13.8 percent, to $2.88 in midday trading. The shares have traded between $2.26 and $5 in the last year.

Pluristem is studying a placenta-based stem cell therapy called PLX as a treatment for conditions including peripheral artery disease, or the narrowing of large arteries that supply blood to the extremities. The suspended trial is intended to study the cells as a treatment for a symptom of peripheral artery disease called intermittent claudication, or pain in the calves following exercise.

Pluristem said about 15 percent of patients with the condition eventually develop critical limb ischemia, or blockages in the leg arteries.

Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Notre Dame became members of the ACC at 12:01 ET Monday, giving the conference 15 members.

To celebrate the league's northern expansion, Commissioner John Swofford, North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams, Florida State football coach Jimbo Fisher and Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer are among the ACC dignitaries scheduled to be in New York City on Monday afternoon. After holding a news conference at the NASDAQ stock exchange in Times Square, Swofford and company will take part in the closing bell ceremony.

July 1 is moving day for schools switching conferences all over the country, including those relocating to the newly named American Athletic Conference.

The beginning of the American means the end of the Big East football after 31 years and the beginning of the new Big East. The new basketball-centric conference comprised mostly of the Catholic schools that didn't have FBS football programs in the old Big East opens for business Monday as well.

All this is a culmination of sorts of shuffling that began the weekend of Sept. 17, 2010. Amid speculation about the Big 12 falling apart, news broke that the ACC had invited Pittsburgh and Syracuse to leave the Big East. The move sent the Big East into a spiral that ultimately tore it apart.

Meanwhile, the ACC has emerged stronger than ever its members having agreed earlier this year to hand over media rights to the league through the 2026-27 school year and looking to gain footing in the largest media market in the country.

The ACC will send a team to the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium for six years, starting in 2014. Part of the deal will be ACC signage at Yankee Stadium year-round. Swofford has openly talked about the possibility of playing the ACC men's basketball tournament in the New York area, maybe Madison Square Garden or the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Syracuse has been branding itself as New York's college team for several years, and Notre Dame has a huge following in the Big Apple, despite being located about 700 miles away in South Bend, Ind. The Fighting Irish, which agreed to leave the Big East last fall, are joining the ACC for all sports except football and hockey.

"We want to make sure that we're progressive and creative and doing things that take advantage of the opportunities that come with that," Swofford said last week after the Pinstripe Bowl announcement in the Bronx. "In a lot of ways, it's about meshing the history and tradition of the league and its past, with a progressive approach to what the league can be in the future based on our footprint."

The league that Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame leave behind bears only some resemblance to the one they had been part of for decades.

The Big East officially becomes the American Athletic Conference on Monday, too, with Central Florida, Memphis, SMU and Houston joining.

The American's Twitter feed posted a link to its new website Sunday night with a message to visitors that ended with, "We are Proudly American. And we can't wait to get started."

Though it will get started with two lame duck members. Rutgers will leave for the Big Ten in 2014 and Louisville will be the latest departure to the ACC after this season, too. Louisville replaces Maryland, which will head to the Big Ten along with Rutgers.

As for the new Big East, it will look a lot like the old pre-football Big East: Villanova, Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's, DePaul, Marquette, Butler, Creighton and Xavier.

(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Thursday rejected a Christian university's challenge to President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare overhaul, which the school said unconstitutionally imposes costly burdens on large employers and infringes religious liberty.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, rejected Liberty University's argument that the law violated the constitution's Commerce Clause by forcing large employers to provide health insurance to full-time workers and violated First Amendment religious protections by subsidizing abortions.

The 3-0 panel decision addressed issues that the U.S. Supreme Court did not take up in June 2012, when by a 5-4 vote it upheld most of the healthcare law known as "Obamacare."

In that case, the court upheld the individual mandate requiring people to buy insurance or pay a tax. It said the mandate was a valid exercise of Congress' taxing power, though it exceeded Congress' power under the Commerce Clause.

Mathew Staver, the dean of Liberty's law school, said in a phone interview that the university plans to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court this month.

"It goes against the principle that the Supreme Court laid down that Congress cannot force individuals to buy an unwanted product," he said. "We believe the same principle applies to employers. If we win on the employer mandate, then the mandate would be gone for religious and non-religious employers."

The U.S. Department of Justice, which defended the law at the 4th Circuit, was not immediately available for comment.

Dozens of groups and individuals supported either Liberty or the federal government during the appeals process.

Liberty, based in Lynchburg, Virginia, was founded by the late U.S. evangelist Jerry Falwell. It had filed its lawsuit shortly after Obama signed the healthcare law in 2010.

EMPLOYER MANDATE NOT A "MONSTER"

In its decision, the 4th Circuit said the employer mandate does not require employers to buy a product they do not want, saying that employers are free to and often do self-insure.

It also said Congress had a rational basis for the mandate because it substantially affects how easily workers can move from state to state. The court also rejected the argument that the mandate imposes a penalty rather than a tax.

"The employer mandate is no monster; rather, it is simply another example of Congress's longstanding authority to regulate employee compensation offered and paid for by employers in interstate commerce," the panel said.

In finding that the law did not violate the right to freely exercise religion, the 4th Circuit said the law let individuals and employers use plans that do not cover abortion services except in cases of rape or incest or to protect a mother's life.

Circuit Judges Diana Gribbon Motz, Andre Davis and James Wynn, all appointed by Democratic presidents, co-wrote the decision. Most federal appeals court decisions are written by one judge or are unsigned.

"It is unusual," Staver said. "I think there was tension among the panel in terms of the direction it wanted to go, and it needed a joint decision to get a consensus."

The 4th Circuit had in 2011 dismissed Liberty's case, saying it lacked jurisdiction, but was ordered by the Supreme Court to revisit the matter.

Before the Supreme Court sent the case back, the Obama administration said Liberty's lawsuit lacked merit, but that it had no objection to letting the appeals court consider it.

Obamacare has spawned many other lawsuits. More than 60 oppose a requirement that employers provide birth control coverage, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit law firm.

The case is Liberty University Inc et al v. Lew et al, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 10-2347.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Paul Simao and Jim Loney)

[More from BGR: ]

[More from BGR: ]

The styling is much more rounded compared to BlackBerrys current smartphones, as we reported yesterday, and we are told the back of the device is going to feature something similar to the BlackBerry Q10. Below is a screenshot from the actual handset, and as always, thanks to daddygns.

This article was

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Republicans on Thursday unveiled draft legislation that would wind down mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over a five-year period and sharply reduce the government's role in the market.

The sweeping proposal aims to establish a new framework for the U.S. housing finance system, a group of Republicans on the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee told reporters. The bill would also revamp the Federal Housing Administration, partly by raising down payments on FHA-backed loans and limiting the pool of eligible buyers.

"We have to take a holistic approach," the panel's chairman, Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling, told reporters. He said his goal is to limit taxpayer risk and replace the current system where "the federal government has almost a virtual monopoly."

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee about half of all new U.S. home loans, were seized by the government in 2008 as souring loans pushed them to the brink of collapse.

The companies buy mortgages from lenders and repackage them into securities for investors, which they issue with a guarantee. They were propped up with $187.5 billion in taxpayer funds, but have since returned to profitability and have paid about $132 billion in dividends to taxpayers.

The new proposal would replace the companies with a non-profit, utility-like platform that investors would use to securitize mortgages without a government guarantee, essentially replacing the business model that has been a staple of the 30-year fixed rate mortgage.

The draft bill is an opening gambit in a fight with Democrats over the future of the nation's $10 trillion mortgage market that will likely be waged for years.

Republicans, who control the House, blame Fannie Mae and Freddie for helping to inflate the housing bubble, and they are eager to reduce the government's involvement and make sure taxpayers are never again on the hook for losses.

Democrats, who lead the Senate, agree Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be shuttered, but they want to maintain some sort of government backstop for the mortgage market.

Jaret Seiberg, a senior policy analyst at Guggenheim Securities, said removing the government guarantee would drive mortgage costs higher and lock some potential buyers out of the market.

"The odds are very much against this bill becoming law. Not only is the housing lobby influential, but voters care about their ability to get mortgages and purchase homes," he said.

Last month, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate introduced a bill that would abolish Fannie and Freddie within five years and replace them with a new "public guarantor." The bill would still maintain a federal role in the market.

FHA DOWNPAYMENTS WOULD RISE

In addition to the new securitization platform, the Republican measure would create a legislative framework and regulatory structure for so-called covered bonds, which would be backed by mortgages but which would remain on the issuer's balance sheet, unlike the mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The lawmakers also included language to repeal a requirement under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, known as the "qualified residential mortgage" rule that will set risk-retention standards. It would also delay the implementation of the so-called qualified mortgage rule, which requires lenders to verify borrowers' ability to repay their loans and offers legal shields for lenders who follow certain guidelines.

They also proposed several changes to reform the Federal Housing Administration. The FHA, which insures about a third of all U.S. mortgages, has faced mounting losses from defaults on mortgages it guaranteed from 2007-09 as the housing bubble deflated and may soon exhaust its cash reserves.

The bill, which the lawmakers plan to move through the House Financial Services Committee before the August recess, would increase down payment requirements for FHA loans from the current 3.5 percent minimum up to 5 percent for certain borrowers.

The FHA does not make loans itself, but offers private lenders guarantees against homeowner default.

Only first-time buyers and moderate-income borrowers would be eligible for FHA-backed loans under the bill. FHA loans are often taken out by those who cannot qualify under the stricter down-payment and credit-score requirements of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

Hensarling is shepherding the bill, which is cosponsored by Republican Representatives Scott Garrett of New Jersey, Randy Neugebauer of Texas, and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.

(Reporting by Margaret Chadbourn; Editing by Vicki Allen, Kenneth Barry and Chizu Nomiyama)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - NBCUniversal has closed its deal to partner with Thomas Tull's Legendary Pictures, sealing a pact-in-the-making first reported by TheWrap last month, according to an individual with knowledge of the deal.

Tull had been meeting with rival studios in the past weeks following months of tension with executives at Warner Bros. The move ends a highly lucrative, eight-year partnership with Warner Bros. and leaves the major studio without one of its leading financial and production partners.

The news was confirmed at an awkward time, as Tull was on the red carpet at the premiere of "Pacific Rim," a film Legendary produced and that Warner Bros. was distributing as part of their partnership.

NBCU CEO Steve Burke had been deeply involved in the negotiations to bring Tull to Universal, according to multiple individuals. Tull was seeking a partner who could leverage multiple media assets - not just a movie studio, but a theme park and a television and cable network. NBCU has all of those assets.

Lionsgate and Fox were the other lead studios in the running when TheWrap reported that NBCU was likely to close the deal last month. The deal was completed on Tuesday and expected to be announced first thing on Wednesday.

Legendary and Warner Bros.' eight-year partnership has been a Hollywood success story that has included major films such as the "Hangover" series and the blockbuster Batman franchise -- the crown jewel of their partnership. But the relationship soured largely over tension between Tull and then-studio-chief Jeff Robinov, a story that TheWrap broke in February of this year.

Ironically, Robinov has since exited the studio, but the damage had already been done. Tull felt slighted by the way he was treated on the lot, a situation that the new Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara had tried to repair, unsuccessfully.

On June 23, TheWrap reported that Universal was in lead position to take Tull's money and fanboy expertise.

Tull is expected not merely to cofinance movies with Universal, but to use the studio to distribute his fully-financed movies. In addition, Tull has recently launched a television business, and hired the former Warner Bros. television chief Bruce Rosenblum to run it. He will be able to funnel his television content through the NBC network and its huge cable properties, including USA and SyFy.