BEIRUT (AP) — An international aid organization is appealing for more funds to help Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, saying warmer weather will increase health risks due to lack of shelter, water and basic sanitation. The two countries host the bulk of 1.5 million Syrians who have fled the civil war at home, seeking shelter in neighboring countries.

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — The federal government is moving ahead with plans to sell a tiny island east of New York City, where experiments on dangerous animal diseases have been conducted since the 1950s. No one really knows what the island may sell for, but one Hamptons real estate expert says precluding development there could mean a loss of tens of millions of dollars.

Lin Haiyan was convicted of "illegal fundraising" for collecting 640 million yuan ($100 million) from investors by promising high returns and low risk, according to a statement by the Intermediate People's Court of Wenzhou, a center for private sector business. The case highlighted potential abuses in largely unregulated informal lending that supports entrepreneurs who generate China's new jobs and wealth but often cannot get loans from the state-owned banking industry. Communist leaders have promised more bank lending for entrepreneurs and announced a pilot project in 2012 in Wenzhou to allow closely supervised private sector lending. Many households provide money for private lending in an effort to get a better return than the low deposit rates paid by Chinese banks, which effectively force depositors to subsidize low-interest loans to state industry. The court took the unusual step of issuing a second statement to support sentencing Lin to death after a Chinese blogger questioned the penalty in a comment that included the phrase "killing the witness." Protests erupted in 2011 and early 2012 in cities and towns throughout central China and along the southeast coast, areas with large concentrations of small private businesses, after the downturn in global trade triggered a wave of defaults.

BEIJING (AP) — China is urging North Korea to release a Chinese fishing boat whose owner says it was seized by gun-toting North Koreans earlier this month and held for ransom, in the latest irritant in relations between the neighboring allies. The seizure of the Liaoning-based boat adds to China's frustration with North Korea over its recent tests of nuclear and rocket technologies in defiance of international efforts to curb the country's nuclear ambitions. The official Xinhua News Agency, in its first report of the incident late Sunday, said diplomats in the North Korean capital had received a request for help from Yu as early as May 10, and that they had demanded at the time that North Korea release the boat. Xinhua, citing Chinese Embassy official Jiang Yaxian, said the embassy had contacted the North Korean Foreign Ministry's Bureau of Consular Affairs, "asking (North Korea) to release the boat and the fishermen as soon as possible." Yu was quoted the Southern Metropolis as saying the North Korean side had first asked for the ransom to be paid by noon Sunday to a company in Dandong, a city in northeastern China on the North Korean border, or that they would confiscate the boat and repatriate the crew.

Into Darkness has warped its way to a $70.6 million domestic launch from Friday to Sunday, though it's not setting any light-speed records with a debut that's lower than the studio's expectations. The latest voyage of the starship Enterprise fell short of its predecessor, 2009's "Star Trek," which opened with $75.2 million. Since premiering Wednesday in huge-screen IMAX theaters and expanding Thursday to general cinemas, "Into Darkness" has pulled in $84.1 million, well below distributor Paramount's initial forecast of $100 million. The "Star Trek" sequel bumped "Iron Man 3" down to second place after two weekends on top. Robert Downey Jr.'s superhero saga took in $35.2 million domestically to lift its receipts to $337.1 million. While "Iron Man 3" and "Into Darkness" did well overseas, they were outmatched by the debut of Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby," which followed its domestic debut a week earlier with a wide rollout internationally. In today's Hollywood of bigger, better sequels, follow-up films often outdo the box office of their predecessors, as each "Iron Man" sequel has done. While "Into Darkness" earned good reviews and is getting strong word-of-mouth from fans, the film did not quite measure up to the opening weekend of director J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" reboot from four years ago, at least domestically. Paramount points out that overseas business is up in many markets, though, so worldwide, the sequel is off to a better start. Because of the nature of the franchise, because of how many movies have been made and the various forms of the TV shows, I'm not sure that 'Star Trek' goes by the rules of normal sequels. [...] it's a solid starting place for the movie to live long and prosper at theaters, with Paramount hoping "Into Darkness" can surpass the $385 million worldwide total of "Star Trek." Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak: Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.