Singer Kelly Clarkson has paired up with Microsoft to promote their store openings offering to perform free concerts to bring customers in.
The ?American Idol? alum was at the Fashion Mall at Keystone in Indianapolis on Saturday night, where fans lined up for hours to get free tickets.
Clarkson's free outdoor concert in Troy, Mich., on Friday was unfortunately canceled after she performed five songs, due to a downpour.
Kelly tried to tough it out, saying ?I?ll stand out here in the rain with you! Well, at least we?re not sweating,? but then had to exit the stage when the conditions became unsafe. Five minutes later, an official told the crowd the event was canceled.
In move to appease marketers, Facebook will no longer show ads with offensive content.?
By Alexei Oreskovic,?Reuters / June 28, 2013
Advertising makes up 85 precent of revenue at Facebook, the world's largest social network with 1.1 billion users.
AP Photo/Paul Sakuma
Enlarge
Facebook said it will no longer allow ads to appear on pages with sexual or violent content, as the online social network moves to appease marketers being associated with objectionable material.
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The moves come a month after several businesses pulled their ads from Facebook?amid reports of pages on Facebook?that promoted violence against women.
Facebook?said at the time that it needed to improve its system for flagging and removing content that violated its community standards, which forbid users from posting content about hate-speech, threats and pornography, among other things.
Ads account for roughly 85 percent of revenue at Facebook, the world's largest social network with 1.1 billion users.?Facebook?said the changes would not have a meaningful impact on its business.
On Friday,?Facebook?said it also needed to do more to prevent situations in which ads are displayed alongside material that may not run afoul of its community standards but are deemed controversial nonetheless.
A?Facebook?page for a business that sells adult products, for example, will no longer feature ads. Previously such a page could feature ads along the right-hand side of the page so long as the page did not violate?Facebook's prohibition on depicting nudity.
The move underscores the delicate balance for social media companies, which features a variety of unpredictable and sometimes unsavory content shared by users, but which rely on advertising to underpin their business.
"Our goal is to both preserve the freedoms of sharing on Facebook?but also protect people and brands from certain types of content,"?Facebook?said in a post on its website on Friday.
Facebook?said on Friday that it would expand the scope of pages and groups on its website that should be ad-restricted and promised to remove ads from the flagged areas of the website by the end of the coming week.
Pages and groups that reference violence will also be off limits to ads, the company said. A Facebook?spokeswoman noted that the policy would not apply to the pages of news organizations on?Facebook.
Facebook?said the process of flagging objectionable pages and removing ads would initially be done manually, but that the company will build an automated system to do the job in the coming weeks.
The genome of the endophytic bacterium H. frisingense GSF30T identifies diverse strategies in the Herbaspirillum genus to interact with plants
Microbes whose habitat is inside other organisms, such as so-called "endophytic" bacteria that live inside plants, have evolved genes that enable them to overcome their host's defensive mechanisms. But once they have entered the host tissue, such microbes may actually benefit their host, for example, by activating genes that capture atmospheric nitrogen and turn it into natural fertilizer to promote plant growth. Daniel Straub and colleagues from the University of Hohenheim and the Helmholtz Zentrum Mnchen, Germany, found that the genomic "toolbox" of the endophytic bacterium H. frisingense, which lives inside grasses, is very different from the toolbox of its closest relatives: unlike other Herbaspirillum species, H. frisingense can fix atmospheric nitrogen to benefits its host, and also uses very different molecular pathways and metabolic modules to enter and survive in host cells. These results can help to identity endophytic bacteria that can be added to soil to improve the yield of crops, without posing a risk to human health or to the environment.
Researcher contact:
Dr. Daniel Straub
Crop Science Institute,
University of Hohenheim, Germany
Email: d.straub@uni-hohenheim.de
Flying fruit flies correct for visual sideslip depending on relative speed of forward optic flow
Flies are spectacular in flight, executing precise maneuvers at high speed. But because they are small, they are easily blown off course, and must correct their heading using tiny brains with limited neural resources. When moving forward, images of distant objects travel across the retina more slowly than nearby ones. This geometrical effect, called motion parallax, informs us if we run through the forest that the hovering moon is far off, and that the tree branches whizzing by are near and must be dodged. To determine if flies use motion parallax for corrective flight maneuvers, Stephanie Cabrera and Jamie Theobald, of Florida International University, used a cube with images on the sides to simulate three dimensional forward flight for a fruitfly that was held in place in the cube's center. They found that fruitflies responded more strongly to images that, by virtue of speed, appeared closer. But the crucial variable wasn't absolute speed; it was that some images moved faster than others. These results suggest that tiny fly brains use geometrical clues to identify the closest objects during flight.
Researcher contact:
Prof. Jamie Theobald
Department of Biological Sciences
Florida International University, USA
E-mail: theobald@fiu.edu
Clustering the lexicon in the brain: a meta?analysis of the neurofunctional evidence on noun and verb processing
Virtually every known human language features two different classes of words, one for "calling" things like dogs, clouds, or rumours and one for saying something about how they are or what they do dogs bark, clouds are coming, rumours spread. These classes are called nouns and verbs in Western languages, and sits at the very heart of human communication. It was widely believed that separate areas in the brain subserve the production and comprehension of nouns and verbs, based on the outcome of individual studies using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Davide Crepaldi, Manuela Berlingeri and colleagues from the University of Milan Bicocca and the University of Milan have put together the evidence coming from those individual studies through a hierarchical clustering technique, and have found that, once results from different experiments are considered as a whole, evidence shows instead that the brain areas deputed to nouns and verbs are mostly overlapping, and the difference in the neural circuitries deputed to either grammatical class scale down to spatial and temporal resolutions that are far out of the grasp of current brain-snapshot techniques. According to the researchers, these results impact deeply on how functional specialization of individual brain areas is currently conceived.
Researcher contact:
Dr. Davide Crepaldi
Department of Psychology
University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
E-mail: davide.crepaldi1@unimib.it
A double-edged sword: how oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes can contribute to chromosomal instability
Cells rely on an intricate network of signaling pathways to govern a number of processes ranging from tissue repair to programmed cell death. De-regulation of signaling pathways is a hallmark of cancer and responsible for driving tumor formation. Aneuploidy, defined as an abnormal chromosome number, is a distinct feature commonly observed in most solid tumors that arises from errors in cell division during mitosis. While some tumors maintain a stably aneuploid genome, many cancer cells persistently mis-segregate their chromosomes during mitosis, a phenomenon known as chromosomal instability (CIN). CIN is thought to drive the genomic re-shuffling that enables cells to acquire new phenotypes such as drug resistance and is intimately associated with loss of mitotic fidelity. Emerging data show that CIN and de-regulated cell signaling pathways are closely interrelated suggesting the roles that signaling pathways play in the accuracy of mitosis may be underappreciated. These results imply that the induction of CIN can no longer be thought of as a separate event from the cancer-associated driver mutations found in cell signaling pathways. In the context of tumorigenesis this may turn out to be a double-edged sword that combines de-regulated cell cycle progression with the disruption of mitosis to generate the highly complex genomic rearrangements typical of solid tumors. These results change the way we think about how to intervene therapeutically in cancer patients and provide insights on the molecular targets that may contribute significantly to improve patient prognosis.
Researcher contact:
Prof. Duane A. Compton
Department of Biochemistry
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, USA
Email: duane.a.compton@dartmouth.edu
For copies of embargoed papers, please contact: Gozde Zorlu, Communications Officer: Tel: +41 (0) 21 693 9203. Interview requests should be directed to the corresponding author and appropriate contact details are provided above.
For online articles, please cite "Frontiers in xxx" followed by the name of the field as the publisher and include a link to the paper; active URLs for each paper are listed.
About Frontiers
Frontiers is a community driven open-access publisher and research networking platform. Launched and run by scientists since 2007, and based in Switzerland, Frontiers empowers researchers to advance the way science is evaluated, communicated and shared in the digital era. Frontiers joined the Nature Publishing Group family in 2013.
The "Frontiers in" series of journals publish around 500 peer-reviewed articles every month, which receive 5 million monthly views and are supported by over 25,000 editors and reviewers around the world. Frontiers has formed partnerships with international organizations such as the Max Planck Society and the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). For more information, please visit: http://www.frontiersin.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
The genome of the endophytic bacterium H. frisingense GSF30T identifies diverse strategies in the Herbaspirillum genus to interact with plants
Microbes whose habitat is inside other organisms, such as so-called "endophytic" bacteria that live inside plants, have evolved genes that enable them to overcome their host's defensive mechanisms. But once they have entered the host tissue, such microbes may actually benefit their host, for example, by activating genes that capture atmospheric nitrogen and turn it into natural fertilizer to promote plant growth. Daniel Straub and colleagues from the University of Hohenheim and the Helmholtz Zentrum Mnchen, Germany, found that the genomic "toolbox" of the endophytic bacterium H. frisingense, which lives inside grasses, is very different from the toolbox of its closest relatives: unlike other Herbaspirillum species, H. frisingense can fix atmospheric nitrogen to benefits its host, and also uses very different molecular pathways and metabolic modules to enter and survive in host cells. These results can help to identity endophytic bacteria that can be added to soil to improve the yield of crops, without posing a risk to human health or to the environment.
Researcher contact:
Dr. Daniel Straub
Crop Science Institute,
University of Hohenheim, Germany
Email: d.straub@uni-hohenheim.de
Flying fruit flies correct for visual sideslip depending on relative speed of forward optic flow
Flies are spectacular in flight, executing precise maneuvers at high speed. But because they are small, they are easily blown off course, and must correct their heading using tiny brains with limited neural resources. When moving forward, images of distant objects travel across the retina more slowly than nearby ones. This geometrical effect, called motion parallax, informs us if we run through the forest that the hovering moon is far off, and that the tree branches whizzing by are near and must be dodged. To determine if flies use motion parallax for corrective flight maneuvers, Stephanie Cabrera and Jamie Theobald, of Florida International University, used a cube with images on the sides to simulate three dimensional forward flight for a fruitfly that was held in place in the cube's center. They found that fruitflies responded more strongly to images that, by virtue of speed, appeared closer. But the crucial variable wasn't absolute speed; it was that some images moved faster than others. These results suggest that tiny fly brains use geometrical clues to identify the closest objects during flight.
Researcher contact:
Prof. Jamie Theobald
Department of Biological Sciences
Florida International University, USA
E-mail: theobald@fiu.edu
Clustering the lexicon in the brain: a meta?analysis of the neurofunctional evidence on noun and verb processing
Virtually every known human language features two different classes of words, one for "calling" things like dogs, clouds, or rumours and one for saying something about how they are or what they do dogs bark, clouds are coming, rumours spread. These classes are called nouns and verbs in Western languages, and sits at the very heart of human communication. It was widely believed that separate areas in the brain subserve the production and comprehension of nouns and verbs, based on the outcome of individual studies using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Davide Crepaldi, Manuela Berlingeri and colleagues from the University of Milan Bicocca and the University of Milan have put together the evidence coming from those individual studies through a hierarchical clustering technique, and have found that, once results from different experiments are considered as a whole, evidence shows instead that the brain areas deputed to nouns and verbs are mostly overlapping, and the difference in the neural circuitries deputed to either grammatical class scale down to spatial and temporal resolutions that are far out of the grasp of current brain-snapshot techniques. According to the researchers, these results impact deeply on how functional specialization of individual brain areas is currently conceived.
Researcher contact:
Dr. Davide Crepaldi
Department of Psychology
University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
E-mail: davide.crepaldi1@unimib.it
A double-edged sword: how oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes can contribute to chromosomal instability
Cells rely on an intricate network of signaling pathways to govern a number of processes ranging from tissue repair to programmed cell death. De-regulation of signaling pathways is a hallmark of cancer and responsible for driving tumor formation. Aneuploidy, defined as an abnormal chromosome number, is a distinct feature commonly observed in most solid tumors that arises from errors in cell division during mitosis. While some tumors maintain a stably aneuploid genome, many cancer cells persistently mis-segregate their chromosomes during mitosis, a phenomenon known as chromosomal instability (CIN). CIN is thought to drive the genomic re-shuffling that enables cells to acquire new phenotypes such as drug resistance and is intimately associated with loss of mitotic fidelity. Emerging data show that CIN and de-regulated cell signaling pathways are closely interrelated suggesting the roles that signaling pathways play in the accuracy of mitosis may be underappreciated. These results imply that the induction of CIN can no longer be thought of as a separate event from the cancer-associated driver mutations found in cell signaling pathways. In the context of tumorigenesis this may turn out to be a double-edged sword that combines de-regulated cell cycle progression with the disruption of mitosis to generate the highly complex genomic rearrangements typical of solid tumors. These results change the way we think about how to intervene therapeutically in cancer patients and provide insights on the molecular targets that may contribute significantly to improve patient prognosis.
Researcher contact:
Prof. Duane A. Compton
Department of Biochemistry
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, USA
Email: duane.a.compton@dartmouth.edu
For copies of embargoed papers, please contact: Gozde Zorlu, Communications Officer: Tel: +41 (0) 21 693 9203. Interview requests should be directed to the corresponding author and appropriate contact details are provided above.
For online articles, please cite "Frontiers in xxx" followed by the name of the field as the publisher and include a link to the paper; active URLs for each paper are listed.
About Frontiers
Frontiers is a community driven open-access publisher and research networking platform. Launched and run by scientists since 2007, and based in Switzerland, Frontiers empowers researchers to advance the way science is evaluated, communicated and shared in the digital era. Frontiers joined the Nature Publishing Group family in 2013.
The "Frontiers in" series of journals publish around 500 peer-reviewed articles every month, which receive 5 million monthly views and are supported by over 25,000 editors and reviewers around the world. Frontiers has formed partnerships with international organizations such as the Max Planck Society and the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). For more information, please visit: http://www.frontiersin.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? With a solemnity reserved for momentous occasions, the Senate passed historic legislation Thursday offering the priceless hope of citizenship to millions of immigrants living illegally in America's shadows. The bill also promises a military-style effort to secure the long-porous border with Mexico.
The bipartisan vote was 68-32 on a measure that sits atop President Barack Obama's second-term domestic agenda. But the bill's prospects are highly uncertain in the Republican-controlled House, where party leaders are jockeying for position in advance of expected action next month.
Spectators in galleries that overlook the Senate floor watched expectantly as senators voted one by one from their desks. Some onlookers erupted in chants of "Yes, we can" after Vice President Joe Biden announced the vote result.
After three weeks of debate, there was no doubt about the outcome. Fourteen Republicans joined all 52 Democrats and two independents to support the bill.
In a written statement, Obama coupled praise for the Senate's action with a plea for resolve by supporters as the House works on the issue. "Now is the time when opponents will try their hardest to pull this bipartisan effort apart so they can stop commonsense reform from becoming a reality. We cannot let that happen," said the president, who was traveling in Africa.
In the final hours of debate, members of the so-called Gang of 8, the group that drafted the measure, frequently spoke in personal terms while extolling the bill's virtues, rebutting its critics ? and appealing to the House members who turn comes next.
"Do the right thing for America and for your party," said Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who said his mother emigrated to the United States from Cuba. "Find common ground. Lean away from the extremes. Opt for reason and govern with us."
Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake said those seeking legal status after living in the United States illegally must "pass a background check, make good on any tax liability and pay a fee and a fine." There are other requirements before citizenship can be obtained, he noted.
He, too, spoke from personal experience, recalling time he spent as a youth working alongside family members and "undocumented migrant labor, largely from Mexico, who worked harder than we did under conditions much more difficult than we endured."
Since then, he said, "I have harbored a feeling of admiration and respect for those who have come to risk life and limb and sacrifice so much to provide a better life for themselves and their families."
The bill's opponents were unrelenting, if outnumbered.
"We will admit dramatically more people than we ever have in our country's history at a time when unemployment is high and the Congressional Budget Office has told us that average wages will go down for 12 years, that gross national product per capita will decline for 25-plus years, that unemployment will go up," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
"The amnesty will occur, but the enforcement is not going to occur, and the policies for future immigration are not serving the national interest."
But with a weeklong July 4 congressional vacation looming, the bill's foes agreed to permit the final vote one day before Senate rules mandated it.
In the Senate, at least, the developments marked an end to years of gridlock on immigration. The shift began taking shape quickly after the 2012 presidential election, when numerous Republican leaders concluded the party must show a more welcoming face to Hispanic voters who had given Obama more than 70 percent of their support.
Even so, division among Republicans was evident as potential 2016 presidential contenders split. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida was one of the Gang of 8, while Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas were opposed to the bill.
The legislation's chief provisions includes numerous steps to prevent future illegal immigration ? some added in a late compromise that swelled Republican support for the bill ? and to check on the legal status of job applicants already living in the United States. At the same time, it offers a 13-year path to citizenship to as many as 11 million immigrants now living in the country unlawfully.
Under the deal brokered last week by Republican Sens. John Hoeven of North Dakota and Bob Corker of Tennessee and the Gang of 8, the measure requires 20,000 new Border Patrol agents, the completion of 700 miles of fencing and deployment of an array of high-tech devices along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Those living in the country illegally could gain legal status while the border security plan was being implemented, but would not be granted permanent resident green cards or citizenship.
A plan requiring businesses to check on the legal status of prospective employees would be phased in over four years.
Other provisions would expand the number of visas available for highly skilled workers relied upon by the technology industry. A separate program would be established for lower-skilled workers, and farm workers would be admitted under a temporary program. In addition, the system of legal immigration that has been in effect for decades would be changed, making family ties less of a factor and elevating the importance of education, job skills and relative youth.
With the details of the Senate bill well-known, House Speaker John Boehner said at a news conference the separate legislation the House considers will have majority support among Republicans. He also said he hopes the bill will be bipartisan, and he encouraged a group of four Democrats and three Republicans trying to forge a compromise to continue their efforts.
He offered no details on how a House bill could be both bipartisan and supported by more than half of his own rank and file, given that most of the bills that have moved through the House Judiciary Committee recently did so on party line votes over the protests of Democrats. None envisions legal status for immigrants now in the country illegally.
Boehner declined to say if there were circumstances under which he could support a pathway to citizenship, but he made clear that securing the border was a priority.
"People have to have confidence that the border is secure before anything else is really going to work. Otherwise, we repeat the mistakes of 1986," he said, referring to the last time Congress overhauled the immigration system.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, also said he favors a bipartisan approach. At the same time, she noted that Democratic principles for immigration include "secure our borders, protect our workers, unite families, a path to legalization and now citizenship for those" without legal status.
___
Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this story.
Governor-General Quentin Bryce, left, poses with newly commissioned Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, second from left, his wife Therese Rein, right, and his granddaughter Josephine Tse, at Government House in Canberra, Australia, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Rudd was sworn in as prime minister three years and three days after he was ousted from the same job in an internal government showdown. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Governor-General Quentin Bryce, left, poses with newly commissioned Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, second from left, his wife Therese Rein, right, and his granddaughter Josephine Tse, at Government House in Canberra, Australia, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Rudd was sworn in as prime minister three years and three days after he was ousted from the same job in an internal government showdown. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, right, with her former deputy Wayne Swan, arrive in chambers at parliament for question time for what is likely to be its last day before elections, in Canberra, Australia, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Gillard was dumped in a party ballot and Kevin Rudd was sworn in as Australian prime minister three years and three days after he was ousted from the same job in an internal government showdown. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Governor-General Quentin Bryce, right, commissions Kevin Rudd with in half an hour of Parliament resuming for what is likely to be its last day before elections, in Canberra, Australia, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Rudd is sworn in as Australian prime minister three years and three days after he was ousted from the same job in an internal government showdown. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Kevin Rudd signs his commission at Government House within half an hour of Parliament resuming for what is likely to be its last day before elections, in Canberra, Australia, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Rudd is sworn in as Australian prime minister three years and three days after he was ousted from the same job in an internal government showdown. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, second from left, is congratulated by opposition leader Tony Abbott, left, deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop, right, and shadow treasurer Joe Hockey just before Rudd addresses Parliament for what is likely to be its last day before elections, in Canberra, Australia, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Rudd was sworn in as Australian prime minister three years and three days after he was ousted from the same job in an internal government showdown. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) ? Dubbed "Recycled Rudd" in newspaper headlines, Kevin Rudd returned as Australia's prime minister Thursday, reviving his party's hopes of avoiding an election massacre but giving voters few clues where he plans to take the country.
Rudd was sworn in a day after wrenching the job back from Julia Gillard, his former deputy, who took over through her own internal coup three years ago but had a strained relationship with Australian voters from the start.
He is seen as more charismatic than Gillard, though his abrasiveness toward his fellow lawmakers helped lead to his 2010 downfall. In Parliament on Thursday, he urged lawmakers to be "a little kinder and gentler" toward each other following Gillard's ouster.
With Gillard as leader, the ruling center-left Labor Party had appeared headed for an overwhelming election defeat at the hands of the conservative coalition opposition, but Rudd's supporters said they now have a chance to win.
"What this fundamentally does is put us in a position where we can win the next election, and no one would have been talking about that even at the beginning of this week," said Richard Marles, a Rudd supporter who quit as a junior minister in March after an aborted leadership challenge by Rudd.
"We were looking at a very bad defeat. We were not in the contest," he added.
Gillard had set elections for Sept. 14, though Rudd can now decide to hold them as early as Aug. 3. Rudd on Thursday refused to commit to a date but said "there's not going to be a huge variation" from Sept. 14.
Rudd has said he will perform with renewed "energy and purpose," but has yet to spell out what will be different under his leadership. His government remains in a state of confusion, with a Cabinet yet to be named.
Marles said he expects Rudd will "reset some policies" in the next two weeks, including on the unpopular carbon tax levied on Australia's largest polluters and on how Australia deals with a growing number of asylum seekers reaching the country by boat.
"He's the best communicator that exists in Australian politics today," Marles said. "People just love him; they really relate to him and react to him and there is part of that I think is an intangible."
Successive opinion polls have suggested that the government would be more popular with Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat, at the helm than Gillard, a former lawyer and political staffer who was Australia's first female prime minister.
A poll by market researcher Nielsen published last week in Fairfax Media newspapers found that Labor under Rudd would be on equal pegging with the opposition at 50 percent voter support. Under Gillard, Labor trailed with only 43 percent of voter support, compared to 57 percent support for the opposition.
The poll was based on a random nationwide telephone survey of 1,400 voters on June 13-15 and had a 2.6 percent margin of error.
Nielsen director John Stirton was skeptical that the poll would translate to an election victory for Labor, saying that would assume a smooth leadership transition to Rudd, the party uniting behind him and his public popularity enduring until the election.
Under Gillard, polls had suggested that Labor could lose between 30 and 35 of their 71 lawmakers in the 150-seat House of Representatives, where parties form government.
Rudd forced Gillard out in nearly the same way she ousted him in 2010. Each faced a party leadership vote in the face of a revolt from Labor lawmakers, but while Rudd did not contest Gillard's earlier challenge, she went ahead with a vote that she lost 57-45.
Gillard tendered her resignation Wednesday night, and Governor-General Quentin Bryce commissioned Rudd as prime minister on Thursday.
Anthony Albanese was sworn in as deputy prime minister and Chris Bowen was sworn in as treasurer during the same ceremony. Rudd has yet to say when he will announce his complete Cabinet after seven ministers resigned following Gillard's ouster.
Since it holds fewer than half of the seats in Parliament, the Labor Party has required support from independent lawmakers and the minor Greens party to hang on to power. Those lawmakers were not obliged to support Rudd, though at least some of them did.
The opposition could have challenged Rudd's control of the government with a no-confidence motion, but it did not. Parliament was adjourned Thursday and it will not reconvene until after the elections.
The bitter rivalry and infighting between the Gillard and Rudd camps has damaged Labor's image. Rudd had tried twice previously to oust Gillard, last year and in February. Many took the fact that he never posed for a Parliament House portrait, as other former prime ministers had done, as a sign that he never gave up on returning.
"As we all know in this place, political life is a very hard life; a very hard life indeed," Rudd told Parliament before it adjourned. "Let us try ? just try ? to be a little kinder and gentler with each other in the further deliberations of this Parliament."
Opposition leader Tony Abbott demanded an explanation from Rudd of why Gillard was deposed with elections looming. Abbott also called for an election date to be confirmed.
"Politics is a tough business and sometimes it is far more brutal than it needs to be," Abbott said.
"This is a fraught moment in the life of our nation. A prime minister has been dragged down; her replacement owes the Australian people and the Australian Parliament an explanation," he added.
LONDON (AP) ? Disappointing U.S.economic growth figures failed to alter the mood in financial markets Wednesday, which has seen most stocks eke out solid gains for the second day running.
However, gold prices remained under pressure, falling to near three-year lows at one stage as the strength of the dollar continues to undermine the precious metal.
Over recent weeks, markets have been volatile amid concerns over U.S. monetary policy. Last week's confirmation from Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, that the central bank may start reining in its monetary stimulus this year prompted big falls in stock markets as well as a sharp appreciation in the dollar. The extra money provided by the stimulus in recent years has found its way back into financial markets, shoring up stock markets, but keeping a lid on the dollar.
However, U.S. economic growth figures for the first quarter suggested that the so-called tapering in asset purchases by the Fed may not happen as soon as many investors have predicted.
Instead of the previous 2.4 percent annualized increase estimated, the Commerce Department said the U.S. economy only grew at a 1.8 percent tick, with most components contributing less than thought.
Though the news may be positive for stocks in that it may ease tightening fears, investors were disappointed that the U.S. economy is not as strong as thought. As a result, stocks were largely unchanged from the levels they were before the release.
"Although the reading is strictly taper-negative, it is by now rather outdated with this Friday marking the end of the second quarter," said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co. "As such the stock market appears to be taking the revision in its stride."
In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 1 percent at 6,165 while Germany's DAX rose 1.6 percent to 7,940. The CAC-40 in France was 2.1 percent higher at 3,726.
In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.7 percent at 14,869 while the broader S&P 500 index rose the same rate to 1,599.
Despite signs that the recent correction in stock markets may have stabilized, investors remain cautious.
"It still feels as if markets are simply looking to catch their breath after all the excitement of the past week, and so it is perhaps unwise to suggest that two days of positive trading make a trend," said Chris Beauchamp, market analyst at IG.
Elsewhere, gold was in focus, as it fell over $50 at one stage to a near three-year low of $1,223 an ounce. However, it picked up slightly to trade $42.80, or 3.4 percent, down at $1,232. Many gold-watchers think the metal, which has shed around 20 percent of its value this year, has further to fall given the dollar's appreciation and the prospect of less Fed stimulus. Gold has advanced over the past few years as a store of value at a time central banks had opened the printing taps, as well as through its status as a safe haven for nervous investors.
Earlier, the mood in Asia was calmer as traders digested comments from the People's Bank of China that it would act to keep credit markets functioning, if needed.
China's central bank caused a global rout in markets on Monday after it moved to curb so-called shadow banking ? unregulated lending to companies starved of credit by traditional banks. Investors worried that would cause an increase in borrowing rates for companies, hurting business.
Mainland Chinese shares were mixed after enduring sharp losses earlier this week. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.4 percent to 1,951.50. But the smaller Shenzhen Composite Index jumped 2.5 percent to 901.72. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng surged 2.4 percent to 20,338.55.
Elsewhere, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1 percent to close at 12,834.01 as the yen recovered some of its recent losses against the dollar, which was trading 0.5 percent lower at $97.61 yen.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? For President Barack Obama, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden's globe-trotting evasion of U.S. authorities has dealt a startling setback to efforts to strengthen ties with China and raised the prospect of worsening tensions with Russia.
Indeed, Russia's foreign minister on Tuesday called U.S. demands for Snowden's extradition "ungrounded and unacceptable."
Relations with both China and Russia have been at the forefront of Obama's foreign policy agenda this month, underscoring the intertwined interests among these uneasy partners. Obama met just last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland and held an unusual two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in California earlier this month.
Obama has made no known phone calls to Xi since Snowden surfaced in Hong Kong earlier this month, nor has he talked to Putin since Snowden arrived in Russia.
Former Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said it wasn't clear that Obama's "charm offensive" with Xi and Putin would matter much on this issue. The U.S. has "very little leverage," she said, given the broad array of issues on which the Obama administration needs Chinese and Russian cooperation.
"This isn't happening in a vacuum, and obviously China and Russia know that," said Harman, who now runs the Woodrow Wilson International Center.
Both the U.S. and China had hailed the Obama-Xi summit as a fresh start to a complex relationship, with the leaders building personal bonds during an hour-long walk through the grounds of the Sunnylands estate. But any easing of tensions appeared to vanish Monday following China's apparent flouting of U.S. demands that Snowden be returned from semi-autonomous Hong Kong to face espionage charges.
White House spokesman Jay Carney, in unusually harsh language, said China had "unquestionably" damaged its relationship with Washington.
"The Chinese have emphasized the importance of building mutual trust," Carney said. "We think that they have dealt that effort a serious setback. If we cannot count on them to honor their legal extradition obligations, then there is a problem."
A similar problem may be looming with Russia, where Snowden arrived Sunday. He had been expected to leave Moscow for a third country, but the White House said Monday it believed the former government contractor was still in Russia.
While the U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, the White House publicly prodded the Kremlin to send Snowden back to the U.S., while officials privately negotiated with their Russian counterparts.
"We are expecting the Russians to examine the options available to them to expel Mr. Snowden for his return to the United States," Carney said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday bluntly rejected the U.S. request, saying Snowden hasn't crossed the Russian border, and angrily lashed out at the U.S. for warnings of negative consequences if Moscow fails to comply.
"We consider the attempts to accuse Russia of violation of U.S. laws and even some sort of conspiracy, which on top of all that are accompanied by threats, as absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable," Lavrov said.
The U.S. has deep economic ties with China and needs the Asian power's help in persuading North Korea to end its nuclear provocations. The Obama administration also needs Russia's cooperation in ending the bloodshed in Syria and reducing nuclear stockpiles held by the former Cold War foes.
Members of Congress so far have focused their anger on China and Russia, not on Obama's inability to get either country to abide by U.S. demands. However, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said in an interview with CNN on Monday that he was starting to wonder why the president hasn't been "more forceful in dealing with foreign leaders."
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton echoed the White House's frustration with China. "That kind of action is not only detrimental to the U.S.-China relationship but it sets a bad precedent that could unravel the intricate international agreements about how countries respect the laws ? and particularly the extradition treaties," the possible 2016 presidential contender told an audience in Los Angeles.
Snowden fled to Hong Kong after seizing highly classified documents disclosing U.S. surveillance programs that collect vast amounts of U.S. phone and Internet records. He shared the information with The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers. He also told the South China Morning Post that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." SMS, or short messaging service, generally means text messaging.
Snowden still has perhaps more than 200 sensitive documents, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said over the weekend.
Hong Kong, a former British colony with a degree of autonomy from mainland China, has an extradition treaty with the U.S. Officials in Hong Kong said a formal U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with its laws, a claim the Justice Department disputes.
The White House made clear it believes the final decision to let Snowden leave for Russia was made by Chinese officials in Beijing.
Russia's ultimate response to U.S. pressure remains unclear. Putin could still agree to return Snowden to the U.S. But he may also let him stay in Russia or head elsewhere, perhaps to Ecuador or Venezuela ? both options certain to earn the ire of the White House.
Fiona Hill, a Russia expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said she expected Putin to take advantage of a "golden opportunity" to publicly defy the White House.
"This is one of those opportunities to score points against the United States that I would be surprised if Russia passed up," Hill said.
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Follow Julie Pace on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
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Public release date: 27-Jun-2013
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