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বুধবার, ১৯ জুন, ২০১৩

MGM, AEG to develop 20K seat Las Vegas Strip arena

The New York-New York hotel-casino, left, is seen from the Monte Carlo parking garage west of The Strip Tuesday, June 18, 2013, in Las Vegas. Casino giant MGM Resorts International and entertainment company AEG announced Tuesday, June 18, 2013 that they've inked a deal to build a 20,000-seat Las Vegas Strip arena. Groundbreaking for the $350 million arena, in an area from Las Vegas Boulevard to Frank Sinatra Drive between the New York-New York and Monte Carlo resorts, is expected next summer, with completion by spring 2016. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

The New York-New York hotel-casino is seen from the Monte Carlo parking garage west of The Strip Tuesday, June 18, 2013, in Las Vegas. Casino giant MGM Resorts International and entertainment company AEG announced Tuesday, June 18, 2013 that they've inked a deal to build a 20,000-seat Las Vegas Strip arena. Groundbreaking for the $350 million arena, in an area from Las Vegas Boulevard to Frank Sinatra Drive between the New York-New York and Monte Carlo resorts, is expected next summer, with completion by spring 2016. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? Years of talk about building an arena capable of hosting professional sports and big-name concerts yielded an announcement Tuesday that casino giant MGM Resorts International and entertainment company AEG will build a privately financed 20,000-seat indoor venue on the Las Vegas Strip.

Construction on the $350 million arena should start next summer on land that MGM Resorts owns between the New York-New York and Monte Carlo resorts, the two companies said in a joint announcement. Completion is expected by spring 2016.

The international design firm Populous will draw up plans for premium seating and hospitality areas for entertainment and sports events, the statement said. Populous designed London's O2 arena, Berlin's O2 World arena and Kansas City's Sprint Center, among other projects.

"Finalizing our agreement with AEG and selecting Populous ... are both important milestones in this process," said Jim Murren, MGM Resorts International chairman and chief financial officer.

Las Vegas-based MGM Resorts and Los Angeles-based AEG expect their equity contributions will be augmented by private third-party financing from as-yet unnamed sources. Naming rights are on the table. No professional sports teams have committed to the deal.

The arena is expected to be a centerpiece of an outdoor pedestrian mall featuring restaurants and retail shops stretching from Las Vegas Boulevard to Frank Sinatra Drive, visible from Interstate 15.

Dan Beckerman, AEG president and chief executive, noted that his company spent years talking with potential arena developers in Las Vegas before signing with MGM Resorts.

"Bringing together the knowledge, experience and assets of our respective organizations, we will create an arena that offers fans the best live entertainment experience," he said.

Tuesday's announcement signaled an end to an arena proposal by casino company Caesars Entertainment Corp. for a similarly-sized arena on land it owns on the other side of Las Vegas Boulevard.

"Once you've got spectators going through the turnstiles the race will be over," said David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "But this definitely looks promising. Not only is MGM buying into it, but an outside company that knows arena management."

AEG had been in talks with Caesars about building a $500 million arena funded by a 1 percent sales tax on purchases within a 3-mile radius. A ballot measure failed to make it to a statewide vote last November.

AEG also produces shows at the 4,300-seat Colosseum at Caesars Palace, home venue for singer Celine Dion.

Ted Fikre, AEG vice chairman, said Tuesday that the arena on MGM Resorts property proved the most attractive of several his company explored over the years in Las Vegas ? without the "risks and challenges that have doomed prior projects relying on public funding."

Former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman tried for years to entice a developer to build an arena downtown that would be newer and larger than the Thomas & Mack center at UNLV. Goodman often said he wanted to attract a pro hockey or basketball franchise.

The Thomas & Mack opened in 1983 and hosts events such as the NCAA Mountain West Conference men's basketball tournament and National Finals Rodeo. It has a capacity of about 19,500 spectators for boxing events, and under 19,000 for basketball.

Three casinos have other large arenas around town, including MGM Resorts' Mandalay Bay Events Center. It can seat 12,000.

The parent company's MGM Grand Garden Arena opened in 1993 with a capacity of just under 17,000 spectators. It hosted the Pac 12 men's basketball tournament last March.

The Orleans Arena opened in 2003 adjacent to Boyd Gaming Corp.'s Orleans casino-hotel. It can seat about 9,500 for boxing, and just under 8,000 for hockey and basketball. It plays home to the professional minor-league Las Vegas Wranglers hockey team, and hosted Western Athletic Conference and West Coast Conference basketball tournaments.

_____

Find Ken Ritter on Twitter: http://twitter.com/krttr

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-06-18-Vegas%20Strip%20Arena-MGM/id-1665810a1c3a4e86b262c5beb0cac490

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These Five Old-School Printers Show Off the History of Graphic Design

Last week we brought you inside the Common Press, a letterpress studio where printing methods of yore are reinvigorated in the name of art. As much as the Press is engaged in making new things, the technological history being preserved there is vast.

Legal updates: UFC expects positive outcome in Boston, but no MMA in NY this year

Because MMA was once outlawed in several states, a patchwork of laws govern the sport across the country. This week has been a big one for the UFC to wade through legal red tape as it works on Boston and New York.

-- In Boston, there is an issue with the documentation foreign-born fighters must have to work in Massachusetts for the first UFC on Fox Sports 1 show. Basically, the law won't necessarily keep fighters off the card, but it will create a whole lot more work for the UFC. The UFC is expecting a "positive outcome" with this issue.

-- MMA won't have such a positive outcome in a state a short drive from Boston. The UFC has been lobbying to legalize MMA in New York for years, and for a while, it seemed like this year could be the year MMA would finally break through. Unfortunately, the New York legislature failed to bring the MMA bill to a vote, meaning the sport has to wait until next year.

Understandably, the UFC is disappointed. Here's what UFC chairman Lorenzo Fertitta had to say about it.

This year?s new, absurd, offensive, and completely erroneous charge used to justify the defeat of MMA legislation was that MMA is anti-woman and leads to domestic violence. This is a deception fabricated by a Las Vegas union that is recklessly and callously trying to use an important societal issue to try and punish the UFC. It isn?t honest and doesn?t work.

Fertitta pointed out that one of the fighters the union in Las Vegas has been most upset about is Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. This union, which has a problem with Fertitta's Station Casinos non-union status, didn't protest when Jackson signed with Bellator. If they truly thought MMA -- and not the Fertitta-owned UFC -- was the problem, wouldn't they send press releases and fill up Twitter decrying Bellator and World Series of Fighting and every other promotion out there?

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/legal-updates-ufc-expects-positive-outcome-boston-no-105708691.html

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মঙ্গলবার, ১৮ জুন, ২০১৩

People attribute minds to robots, corpses that are targets of harm

Public release date: 17-Jun-2013
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Contact: Anna Mikulak
amikulak@psychologicalscience.org
202-293-9300
Association for Psychological Science

As Descartes famously noted, there's no way to really know that another person has a mind every mind we observe is, in a sense, a mind we create. Now, new research suggests that victimization may be one condition that leads us to perceive minds in others, even in entities we don't normally think of as having minds.

This research, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, shows that people attribute minds to entities they perceive as being targets of harm, even when the entity in question is a robot or a corpse.

"People seem to believe that having a mind allows an entity to be part of a moral interaction to do good and bad things, or to have good and bad things done to them," says psychological scientist Adrian Ward, who conducted the research at Harvard University.

"This research suggests that the relationship may actually work the other way around: Minds don't create morality, morality creates minds."

Ward, together with Daniel Wegner of Harvard University and Andrew Olsen of the University of Pennsylvania, conducted five studies that investigated the relationship between morality and mind. The results consistently revealed that participants attributed 'more' mind to entities portrayed as targets of intentional harm.

For example, participants who read a story about a nurse who intentionally unplugged the food supply to a patient in a persistent vegetative state attributed more mind to the patient than those who read that the nurse performed her job satisfactorily. Participants also attributed more mind to a corpse when they read that it had been the target of harm.

Participants even attributed more mind to a George, a "highly complex social robot," when they read that George had been stabbed with a scalpel by a research scientist.

Surprisingly, people attributed "full" minds to entities when they were the targets of moral harm minds capable not just of experiencing harm, but also capable of experiencing emotions, feeling hunger, exerting self-control, and planning for the future.

Ward believes that the findings may help to explain how two people can look at the same entity for example, a fetus, a comatose patient, a gorilla, or a lab rat and see completely different capacities for thinking, feeling, and general consciousness:

"When these entities are thought of in moral terms, they're attributed more mind it seems that people have the sense that something wrong is happening, so someone must be there to receive that wrong."

Importantly, the results of the final study suggest that the effects of harm may depend on the preexisting mental status of the victim in question.

Participants who read that Sharon, a fully conscious adult human, was physically abused by her boss attributed less mind to Sharon than participants who read that her boss behaved normally. They attributed less ability to experience pain and less mind overall to Sharon, falling in line with previous research on dehumanization.

"Victimization may cause people to dehumanize other entities but only when these entities have a mind to begin with; entities with absent or liminal minds, in contrast, seem to gain minds as a result of victimization," the researchers write.

The research may have implications for hot-button issues centered on morality and mind, including issues surrounding animal rights, abortion, and end-of-life decisions. If moral intuitions lead to subjective perceptions of minds, investigating the objective realities of mental capacities is unlikely to resolve moral disagreements over what the 'right' course of action is.

Ward hopes to further explore how the so-called harm-made mind might influence actual decision making:

"Exploring this relationship will allow us to understand how different ways of presenting and discussing information about minds and morality may help people see eye-to-eye on contentious issues, and potentially come to a place of mutual understanding."

###

For more information about this study, please contact: Adrian F. Ward at award@fas.harvard.edu.

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "The Harm-Made Mind: Observing Victimization Augments Attribution of Minds to Vegetative Patients, Robots, and the Dead" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.

[ | E-mail | Share ]
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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.

People attribute minds to robots, corpses that are targets of harm Public release date: 17-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Anna Mikulak
amikulak@psychologicalscience.org
202-293-9300
Association for Psychological Science

As Descartes famously noted, there's no way to really know that another person has a mind every mind we observe is, in a sense, a mind we create. Now, new research suggests that victimization may be one condition that leads us to perceive minds in others, even in entities we don't normally think of as having minds.

This research, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, shows that people attribute minds to entities they perceive as being targets of harm, even when the entity in question is a robot or a corpse.

"People seem to believe that having a mind allows an entity to be part of a moral interaction to do good and bad things, or to have good and bad things done to them," says psychological scientist Adrian Ward, who conducted the research at Harvard University.

"This research suggests that the relationship may actually work the other way around: Minds don't create morality, morality creates minds."

Ward, together with Daniel Wegner of Harvard University and Andrew Olsen of the University of Pennsylvania, conducted five studies that investigated the relationship between morality and mind. The results consistently revealed that participants attributed 'more' mind to entities portrayed as targets of intentional harm.

For example, participants who read a story about a nurse who intentionally unplugged the food supply to a patient in a persistent vegetative state attributed more mind to the patient than those who read that the nurse performed her job satisfactorily. Participants also attributed more mind to a corpse when they read that it had been the target of harm.

Participants even attributed more mind to a George, a "highly complex social robot," when they read that George had been stabbed with a scalpel by a research scientist.

Surprisingly, people attributed "full" minds to entities when they were the targets of moral harm minds capable not just of experiencing harm, but also capable of experiencing emotions, feeling hunger, exerting self-control, and planning for the future.

Ward believes that the findings may help to explain how two people can look at the same entity for example, a fetus, a comatose patient, a gorilla, or a lab rat and see completely different capacities for thinking, feeling, and general consciousness:

"When these entities are thought of in moral terms, they're attributed more mind it seems that people have the sense that something wrong is happening, so someone must be there to receive that wrong."

Importantly, the results of the final study suggest that the effects of harm may depend on the preexisting mental status of the victim in question.

Participants who read that Sharon, a fully conscious adult human, was physically abused by her boss attributed less mind to Sharon than participants who read that her boss behaved normally. They attributed less ability to experience pain and less mind overall to Sharon, falling in line with previous research on dehumanization.

"Victimization may cause people to dehumanize other entities but only when these entities have a mind to begin with; entities with absent or liminal minds, in contrast, seem to gain minds as a result of victimization," the researchers write.

The research may have implications for hot-button issues centered on morality and mind, including issues surrounding animal rights, abortion, and end-of-life decisions. If moral intuitions lead to subjective perceptions of minds, investigating the objective realities of mental capacities is unlikely to resolve moral disagreements over what the 'right' course of action is.

Ward hopes to further explore how the so-called harm-made mind might influence actual decision making:

"Exploring this relationship will allow us to understand how different ways of presenting and discussing information about minds and morality may help people see eye-to-eye on contentious issues, and potentially come to a place of mutual understanding."

###

For more information about this study, please contact: Adrian F. Ward at award@fas.harvard.edu.

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "The Harm-Made Mind: Observing Victimization Augments Attribution of Minds to Vegetative Patients, Robots, and the Dead" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.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.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/afps-pam061713.php
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সোমবার, ১৭ জুন, ২০১৩

Ryan Hunter-Reay wins at Milwaukee again

WEST ALLIS, Wis. (AP) ? When Ryan Hunter-Reay picked up his first win of the season in Alabama, he regretted that his wife and newborn son weren't on hand for Victory Lane photographs.

He made up for it Saturday with an early Father's Day celebration at his favorite track, no less.

Hunter-Reay continued Andretti Autosport's domination at the Milwaukee Mile, winning the IndyCar event for the second year in a row and third time in his career. He became the first driver to win back-to-back races at the Mile since Tony Kanaan in 2006 and 2007 when he was driving for ... you guessed it, Michael Andretti, himself a five-time winner at Milwaukee.

"At Barber, that was one of the races that Beccy and our son didn't come to and I felt bad because we didn't have the pictures of him in Victory Lane, so this is even better," Hunter-Reay said. "To do it on Father's Day, to do back-to-back at Milwaukee, I love this place. Every driver, you ask them, they respect this oval the most."

Andretti drivers have won five of the last nine races at the mile oval and nearly had a perfect day Saturday in a race that was promoted for the second year by Michael Andretti's marketing company. Hunter-Reay got the win, E.J. Viso finished fourth and James Hinchcliffe was fifth.

The only blemish was pole-sitter Marco Andretti, who led the first 62 laps before his day fell apart with an electrical issue.

"He let me down," joked father Michael Andretti. "I really feel bad for Marco. He was running really strong, really strong all weekend."

But it was still a huge success for Andretti, who is in negotiations with IndyCar to promote the race next year but makes winning at Milwaukee a priority for his organization.

"We come here with a philosophy of what I had back when I was driving, and we just carry that on, try to stress that to the engineering and the drivers on the way we used to do it then," Andretti said. "There's things we used to do that really used to work. Seem to still be working."

For Hunter-Reay, it was the second win of the season for the defending IndyCar Series champion. And it came at the site of the track he used to jump-start last year's title run ? Hunter-Reay reeled off three consecutive wins starting with Milwaukee last season to climb into the championship race.

He wasn't thinking championship in the closing laps, though. His focus was on Father's Day and son Ryden.

"Those last few laps I was thinking, 'Man, I've got to do this for him,'" Hunter-Reay said. "It's so special, he's 6 months old, getting to have my little guy here in Victory Lane is the best Father's Day gift."

IndyCar Series points leader Helio Castroneves was second and followed by Penske Racing teammate Will Power as Chevrolet swept the podium. It was the first podium finish this season for Power, who hasn't won a race since Brazil last year.

He made a bold attempt to pass Castroneves for second in the closing laps before cautiously backing off a touch. Power said after the race he had to consider the big picture and that his teammate is the current points leader while racing for position.

"That was close, I wanted to race him very cleanly because he's leading the championship," Power said. "I was like 'Man, I don't want to take you out.' Helio continues to get good points, and it's cool to get (my) car up on the podium. We've just got to keep chipping away and in the meantime, I'm going to help out Helio as much as I can. If I can beat him I will, and make some hay on the championship."

Scott Dixon was sixth in the highest finishing Honda and was followed by Takuma Sato, who dominated the middle section of the race but was shuffled out of contention when Ana Beatriz brought out the final caution and pit cycles dropped him deep into the field. Still, it was the best finish for an A.J. Foyt Racing entry at Milwaukee since Foyt himself was fifth in 1988.

"The yellow came out and that was very bad timing for us because it put us behind those who hadn't pitted yet," Sato said. "They were able to pit and get ahead of us which is why we lined up in seventh. Then they had fresher tires, too, so it was really tough to pass them back. It was still a great race, but it was so disappointing in the end. Really a shame."

Dario Franchitti, Justin Wilson and Kanaan rounded out the top 10.

Marco Andretti wound up 20th and was passed by teammate Hunter-Reay for second in the IndyCar standings.

"It's unfortunate, we came here for a win and had a car to do it," said Andretti, who was slowed before the electrical issue by a poor pit stop. "The voltage went straight down and I lost all kinds of power. I couldn't shift, the clutch didn't work. We came back for all the points we could."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ryan-hunter-reay-wins-milwaukee-again-224100378.html

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রবিবার, ১৬ জুন, ২০১৩

Moderate cleric wins Iran's presidential vote

A female supporter of Iranian presidential candidate Hasan Rowhani flashes a victory sign as she holds his poster during a celebration gathering in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 15, 2013. Moderate cleric Hasan Rowhani was declared the winner of Iran's presidential vote on Saturday after gaining support among many reform-minded Iranians looking to claw back a bit of ground after years of crackdowns. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Supporter of the Iranian presidential candidate Hasan Rowhani celebrate outside his campaign headquarters in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 15, 2013. Moderate cleric Hasan Rowhani was declared the winner of Iran's presidential vote on Saturday after gaining support among many reform-minded Iranians looking to claw back a bit of ground after years of crackdowns. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

FILE -- In front of a portrait of the late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, presidential candidate Hasan Rowhani, a former top nuclear negotiator, center, gestures to his supporters at a rally in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 1, 2013. Iran's reformist-backed presidential candidate surged to a wide lead in early vote counting Saturday, June 15, 2013, a top official said, suggesting a flurry of late support could have swayed a race that once appeared solidly in the hands of Tehran's ruling clerics. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

A female supporter of Iranian presidential candidate Hasan Rowhani, flashes a victory sign as she holds his poster during a celebration gathering in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 15, 2013. Moderate cleric Hasan Rowhani was declared the winner of Iran's presidential vote on Saturday after gaining support among many reform-minded Iranians looking to claw back a bit of ground after years of crackdowns. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

A man places his ballot in a box as Iranians outside their country of origin cast ballots in Iran's presidential election, in a hotel meeting room in Los Angeles Friday, June 14, 2013. Iranian-Americans and expatriates cast ballots Friday in polling places across the United States, joining their countrymen half a world away in selecting the next Iranian president (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Moderate cleric Hasan Rowhani was declared the winner of Iran's presidential vote on Saturday after gaining support among many reform-minded Iranians looking to claw back a bit of ground after years of crackdowns and now resets the country's political order.

The stunning surge behind Rowhani, a former nuclear negotiator, was seen by his supports as a rebuke of uncompromising policies that have left Iran increasingly isolated and under biting sanctions from the West over Tehran's nuclear program. It also demonstrated the strength of opposition sentiment even in a system that is largely organized against it.

The ruling clerics barred from the race reform candidates seen as too prominent, allowing a list of hopefuls who were mainly staunch loyalists of the supreme leader and the Islamic establishment. But the opposition settled on the 64-year-old Rowhani as the least objectionable of the bunch, making him a de facto reform candidate with backers inspired by his message of outreach rather than confrontation.

Celebrations broke out across Tehran and other cities. Thousands of Rowhani supporters took to the streets leading to his campaign headquarters in Tehran before the final results were announced despite a statement from Rowhani urging his supporters to avoid street gatherings. There were no immediate reports of unrest or attempts by security forces to rein in the crowds ? another sign of the sweeping scope of Rowhani's victory with more than three times as many votes as his nearest rival.

But the numbers don't translate directly into power in Iran's Islamic system. The ruling clerics and their protectors, the Revolutionary Guard, maintain control over all key decisions such as nuclear efforts, the military and foreign affairs.

What Rowhani's victory means, however, is that reformists and liberals will likely regain a greater voice and clout to try to shape the views of the theocracy, which cannot easily ignore the decisive outcome of Friday's election to success the combative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He was barred from seeking a third consecutive run.

Ahmadinejad congratulated Rowhani, adding "I hope ... opportunity will be provided more than before to serve and work for the establishment of justice and development of the country."

Rowhani won with 50.7 percent of the more than 36 million votes cast, the Interior Ministry reported, well ahead of Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf with about 16.5 percent. Hard-line nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili ? who said he was "100 percent" against detente with Iran's foes ? came in third with 11.3 percent followed by conservative Mohsen Rezaei with 10.6 percent.

Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said the turnout was 72.7 percent, suggesting that liberals and others abandoned a planned boycott as the election was transformed into a showdown across the Islamic Republic's political divide. Iran has more than 50 million eligible voters.

Rowhani just cleared the majority needed to seal victory and avoid a runoff. The Interior Ministry said Rowhani had 18,613,329 votes, followed by Qalibaf with 6,077,292, Jalili with 4,168,946 votes and Rezaei with 3,884,412. The other two candidates were far behind.

Rowhani, the only cleric in the race, led the influential Supreme National Security Council and was given the highly sensitive nuclear envoy role in 2003, a year after Iran's 20-year-old atomic program was revealed.

"Rowhani is not an outsider and any gains by him do not mean the system is weak or that there are serious cracks," said Rasool Nafisi, an Iranian affairs analyst at Strayer University in Virginia. "The ruling system has made sure that no one on the ballot is going to shake things up."

Yet the last campaign events for Rowhani carried chants that had been bottled up for years.

Some supporters called for the release of political prisoners including opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, both candidates in 2009 disputed election and now under house arrest. "Long live reforms," some cried at Rowhani's last rally. The rally was awash in purple banners and scarves ? the campaign's signature hue in a nod to the single-color identity of Mousavi's now-crushed Green Movement.

In the end, it appeared ideology overcame the economy as a deciding factor. Many voters had indicated they could favor Qalibaf because of his reputation as a competent fiscal steward who could help stabilize Iran's sanctions-battered economy.

Western sanctions over Iran's nuclear program have shrunk vital oil sales and are leaving the country isolated from international banking systems. New U.S. measures taking effect July 1 further target Iran's currency, the rial, which has lost half its foreign exchange value in the past year, driving prices of food and consumer goods sharply higher.

"I cordially congratulate your deserving election as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran and demand the God almighty to bestow you and your future government success in serving the honorable Iranian people," Qalibaf said in a message addressed to Rowhani.

Just a week ago, Rowhani was seen as overshadowed by candidates with far deeper ties to the current power structure: Jalili and Qalibaf.

Then a moderate rival of Rowhani bowed out of the presidential race to consolidate the pro-reform camp. That opened the way for high-profile endorsements including his political mentor, former President Akbar Heshmi Rafsanjani, who won admiration from opposition forces for denouncing the postelection crackdowns in 2009. This, too, may have led to Rafsanjani's being blackballed from the ballot this year by Iran's election overseers, which allowed just eight candidates among more than 680 hopefuls.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, did not publicly endorse a successor for Ahmadinejad following their falling out over the president's attempts to challenge Khamenei's near-absolute powers.

Khamenei praised Iranians for the high turnout, calling it an "epic and enthusiastic election" and a "dazzling test."

"After weeks of speaking and hearing, it's time to work. The president-elect, until formally taking office, has a precious opportunity ... to begin without hesitation the work that presidential responsibilities require," he said in his message broadcast on state TV.

Iran's stock exchange and currency markets reacted positively to early election results that showed Rowhani ahead.

The stock exchange index rose 2 percent while the rial strengthened by 9 percent against the U.S. dollar.

___

Murphy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran contributed to this report.