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| Daft Punk's 'Get Lucky' wins record of the year Grammy Award Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 08:06 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Daft Punk's song "Get Lucky," featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers, won the record of the year Grammy Award on Sunday, one of the annual award show's top honors. "Honestly, I bet France is really proud of these guys right now," said Williams, speaking for the French DJ duo who wear masked helmets and do not speak as part of their act. The award, handed out by the Recording Academy in a televised ceremony from Los Angeles, honors the total production of a song, which includes the artist, producer, sound engineers, sound mixers and mastering engineers. ... Full Story | Top |
| As 'African' Chinese park money in Hong Kong, Beijing targets 'naked' officials Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 08:02 PM PST By Yimou Lee HONG KONG (Reuters) - Step by step, Chinese authorities are making life tougher for officials looking to spirit assets and family members out of the country to avoid close scrutiny and strict currency controls. As part of President Xi Jinping's crackdown on pervasive corruption, China's so-called "naked officials", those who have moved their spouses, children and assets overseas while they remain at home, will not be considered for promotion, state media reported. Also, China's anti-graft body has asked newly promoted officials to disclose their assets and any foreign residency, while late last month, some 2,000 village chiefs in Guangzhou had to hand over their passports to stop corrupt officials from fleeing, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported. Many officials have been taking advantage of a Hong Kong investment scheme to squirrel away more than $1 million each, which includes buying 'residency' in faraway African nations, since the scheme is not open to mainland Chinese residents. Full Story | Top |
| Lorde's 'Royals' wins song of the year Grammy Award Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 07:48 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - New Zealand teenager Lorde's "Royals" won the song of the year Grammy Award on Sunday, one of the annual award show's top prizes. "Thank you to everyone who has let this song explode because it has been mental," Lorde said when accepting the award. The prize handed out by the Recording Academy in a televised ceremony from Los Angeles honors the writers of the song - Lorde, whose real name is Ella Yelich O'Connor, and Joel Little. (Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Sandra Maler) Full Story | Top |
| Beatles come together at Grammys, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis lead wins Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 07:34 PM PST  By Mary Milliken and Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, came together at the Grammy Awards on Sunday for a rare joint performance coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the British group's breakthrough on American television. While the music industry celebrated some of the biggest stars of the past, it anointed newcomer rapper-producer duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis with the Grammy for best new artist and gave them the opportunity to preside over a mass wedding to celebrate same-sex equality later in the show. The 56th Grammy Awards, the music industry's top honors handed out by the Recording Academy across 82 categories, may be remembered more for its performances and unscripted moments than the awards that are bestowed. John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and son Sean Lennon were in the crowd dancing along on Sunday. Full Story | Top |
| Foxconn eyes factories in U.S., Indonesia in ambitious growth plans Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 06:47 PM PST  By Faith Hung TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, the major supplier of Apple Inc's iPhone and iPad products, said it's considering expanding manufacturing to the United States in a move that could open up new prospects for business with Apple. Chairman Terry Gou also said Indonesia will be a top priority for investment this year. That would tie in with Foxconn's deal to design and market phones in the country with BlackBerry Ltd as the Canadian company seeks to reverse its decline in the smartphone business. He said many customers and partners hope Foxconn, the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronic goods, will set up manufacturing facilities in the U.S. Foxconn's ambitious growth plans could see it lift annual revenue to T$10 trillion ($333 billion) a decade from now, from T$4 trillion in 2013. Full Story | Top |
| South Korea expands poultry cull on bird flu fears Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 06:37 PM PST By Jane Chung SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea is expanding a poultry cull in a bid to contain the spread of bird flu that has been found on an increasing number of farms around the country and in migratory birds. The country's agriculture ministry said the H5N8 strain of bird flu had been detected on six poultry farms and that there had been 13 cases in migratory birds since the first outbreak earlier this month. No human infection has been reported, while the ministry is looking into four additional reports from poultry farms and more than 50 other suspected cases in migratory birds, it said in a statement on Monday. Asia's fourth-largest economy has had four bird flu outbreaks in the past 10 years, without any cases of human infection reported. Full Story | Top |
| Google to buy artificial intelligence company DeepMind Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 06:21 PM PST  (Reuters) - Google Inc said on Sunday it had agreed to acquire privately held artificial intelligence company DeepMind Technologies Ltd. Technology news website Re/code, which reported news of the deal earlier, said the price was $400 million, without disclosing where it got the information. A Google spokesman declined to comment on the price. Founded in London in 2012 by Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman, DeepMind uses general-purpose learning algorithms for applications such as simulations, e-commerce and games, according to its website. Google, which is working on projects including self-driving cars and robots, has become increasingly focused on artificial intelligence in recent years. Full Story | Top |
| Asian shares tumble, yen soars on emerging market anxiety Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 06:07 PM PST  By Lisa Twaronite TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares took a beating and the yen raced to a seven-week high against the dollar on Monday, as emerging markets remained under pressure with the U.S. Federal Reserve poised to continue tapering its stimulus and tighter credit conditions in China raising fears of a slowdown. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan tumbled 1.6 percent to nearly a five-month low, on track for its worst one-day performance since August after losing more than 1.0 percent on Friday. Japan's Nikkei share average gave up the 15,000-level and dropped 2.7 percent. Expectations of continued stimulus withdrawal by the U.S. Federal Reserve added to the market's gloom. Full Story | Top |
| 'No known relationship' between Maryland mall shooter, victims: police Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 06:00 PM PST There is "no known relationship" between the gunman and the two people he killed at a Maryland mall, police said on Sunday. "We are continuing to look for that motive," Howard County Police Chief Bill McMahon told a news conference the day after police said Darion Marcus Aguilar killed a young man and young woman at a mall in Columbia, Maryland, before apparently killing himself. "We have no known relationship between the victims and our shooter," McMahon said. Full Story | Top |
| Police name gunman in Maryland mall shooting; motive still unclear Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 06:00 PM PST  By Alice Popovici COLUMBIA, Maryland (Reuters) - A gunman who shot and killed two people at a Maryland mall was a 19-year-old who lived with his mother in a nearby Washington suburb and arrived at the shopping center in a taxi about an hour before opening fire, police said on Sunday. But a day after Saturday's shootings, police could provide no immediate insight into why Darion Marcus Aguilar killed a young man and a young woman at the mall in Columbia, Maryland, about 20 miles west of Baltimore, before apparently killing himself. Police have found no evidence that Aguilar, of College Park, Maryland, knew the two victims who worked at a clothing and skateboard shop at the mall, Howard County Police Chief Bill McMahon told a Sunday evening news conference. Aguilar fired six to eight shots from a 12-gauge shotgun, killing Brianna Benlolo, 21, also of College Park, and Tyler Johnson, 25, of Mount Airy, Maryland, police said. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. carries out air strike in Somalia targeting militant suspect Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 04:27 PM PST The U.S. military carried out a missile strike in Somalia on Sunday targeting a suspected militant leader with ties to al Qaeda and al Shabaab, a U.S. military official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The strike took place in southern Somalia, the official said, without offering further information, including the identity of the suspect or whether the strike was believed to have been successful. Another U.S. official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the operation took place in a remote area near Barawe, Somalia. Barawe, a militant stronghold on Somalia's southern coast, was the site of a failed raid by American commandos in October targeting a militant known as Ikrima. Full Story | Top |
| More than 300 fall ill on Royal Caribbean cruise ship Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 04:16 PM PST (Reuters) - More than 300 passengers and crew members fell ill aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, many with vomiting and diarrhea, the Centers for Disease Control said on Sunday. The CDC said in a statement that 281 passengers and 22 crew members aboard the Explorer of the Seas reported becoming sick during a voyage. The ship was carrying 3,050 passengers and a crew of 1,165. The CDC said the cause of the sickness was unknown but that an environmental safety officer and an epidemiologist would board the ship in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands to determine the cause of the outbreak and the proper response. Full Story | Top |
| Analysis: Emerging market pain not about to faze U.S.-focused Fed Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 04:14 PM PST  By Jonathan Spicer NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve, intent on cutting its stimulus again this week, is not about to blink in the face of a brutal selloff of emerging market assets that could yet gain steam in Turkey, Argentina and elsewhere. Though the central bank's 16-month-old bond-buying program is meant to boost the U.S. economy, in the past it has lifted currencies and stocks in emerging markets that have benefited from a rush of international investment and the resulting lower interest rates. Now that the Fed intends to wind down the unprecedented policy accommodation by later this year, those markets - especially in countries with large current account deficits - have dropped hard, prompting policy responses late last week from central banks around the world. But the turmoil would probably have to escalate dramatically and start to hurt the United States for the Fed, focused on domestic improvements in the world's largest economy, to back down from trimming the asset-purchase program known as quantitative easing, or QE. Full Story | Top |
| Cameron trumpets red tape cuts to woo business bosses Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 04:08 PM PST  By William James LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron will tell company owners on Monday that his government has exceeded its targets for cutting back over-zealous business regulations and will save firms millions of pounds per year. Cameron's appeal for support from the business world in the run-up to the 2015 election comes at a time when the opposition Labour party is facing heavy business criticism for planning to raise income taxes and shake up the energy and banking industries. Speaking at the Federation of Small Business, Cameron will say his government had beaten its target, set in late 2012, of finding 3,000 unnecessary regulations to cut or simplify, and had already implemented 800 changes. "We will be the first government in modern history to have reduced, rather than increased, domestic business regulation during our time in office," Cameron will say, according to extracts of his speech released by his office in advance. Full Story | Top |
| UK household job worries dip, inflation fears recede - survey Sunday, Jan 26, 2014 04:06 PM PST  British households have a growing sense of job security and declining fears that inflation is driving prices higher, a survey showed on Monday. The Markit Household Finance Index, which measures perceptions of financial well-being, continued its recent upward trend to hit 41.5 in January, matching the highest level in the poll's five-year history. The monthly survey showed that attitudes towards job security were at their least pessimistic in at least five years, although an index reading of 46.5 again meant sentiment was negative. "January's survey highlights some light at the end of the tunnel for UK households, with falling consumer price inflation and better labour market conditions helping to bring down the squeeze on finances after five years of gloom," said Tim Moore, senior economist at Markit. Full Story | Top |
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