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| Michael Jackson's family to seek new trial in wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 06:40 PM PST  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The family of late singer Michael Jackson has filed court documents indicating they plan to seek a new trial in a wrongful death lawsuit against concert promoter AEG, after a Los Angeles jury cleared the company of liability in October. Attorneys for Jackson's mother Katherine, 83, and his three children filed court documents in citing misconduct of the jury and insufficient evidence among the reasons for the pending request for a new trial. ... Full Story | Top |
| Canada panel urges better response plan for oil spills Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 03:54 PM PST By Julie Gordon VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Canada must be better prepared to respond to major oil spills if more crude starts to flow in pipelines to the country's Pacific Coast, a government panel said on Tuesday, as fears of a major marine disaster grow. The report, by the federal transport department, makes 45 recommendations, including ensuring companies are prepared for a worst-case scenario and new guarantees that taxpayers will not be liable for costs related to spills in Canadian waters. Regulators are currently weighing separate proposals from Enbridge and Kinder Morgan to build new pipelines to carry oil from Alberta to the British Columbia coast, which could bring an additional 600 tankers to the region each year. The review of Canada's ship-source oil spill regime is a key part of the federal government's push to reassure Canadians that it has prepared for that additional traffic and has a policy in place to respond if there is a major spill. Full Story | Top |
| 'Curb Appeal' co-host killed in San Francisco motorcycle crash Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 02:57 PM PST By Ronnie Cohen SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Bill Beckwith, a carpenter and co-host of the hit HGTV home improvement show "Curb Appeal," has died after a motorcycle accident in San Francisco, the medical examiner's office said on Tuesday. Beckwith, 38, died at a local hospital after his motorcycle collided with another vehicle in San Francisco's Lower Haight neighborhood on Monday night, authorities said. The driver of the car, who was not injured, was cooperating with police, said San Francisco police spokesman Gordon Shyy. Full Story | Top |
| Miley Cyrus, Arias murder trial top Yahoo's 2013 searches Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 02:42 PM PST  Pop singer Miley Cyrus and the trial of boyfriend-killer Jodi Arias dominated Yahoo's online searches in 2013, the web search engine said on Tuesday, while rapper-producer duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis dominated music streams on Spotify. Cyrus, 21, generated the most overall searches on Yahoo this year, overtaking reality television personality Kim Kardashian, who topped the list last year. Cyrus has had an attention-filled 2013, in which she grabbed headlines for her breakup with actor-fiance Liam Hemsworth, danced provocatively on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards in August, and released her new album "Bangerz" in October. Full Story | Top |
| Casting conundrum solved, Coen brothers go 'Inside Llewyn Davis' Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 02:24 PM PST  By Mary Milliken BEVERLY HILLS, California (Reuters) - Leave it to the prolific filmmaking pair Joel and Ethan Coen to create their own movie conundrum, and engineer (or maybe luck) their way out of it. For their new film, "Inside Llewyn Davis," the brothers Coen painted themselves into this corner: They needed an actor for the title role of a struggling folk singer in the early 1960s who could carry an entire movie, be in every scene, convince the audience he was a musician and play songs live in their entirety multiple times. "We thought the movie might have been unmakeable," said Joel Coen in a recent interview with his younger brother by his side. Oscar coming in, that was a big thing." Oscar Isaac, 33, a Guatemala-born, Miami-raised actor and musician trained at the Juilliard School, turned out to be the ticket. Full Story | Top |
| Farrah Fawcett passport, red swimsuit up for auction in Dallas Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 01:32 PM PST  By Marice Richter DALLAS (Reuters) - A driver's license, film scripts, and a skimpy red swimsuit that once belonged to 1970s icon Farrah Fawcett will go up for auction in Dallas on Friday. The dozen or so items come from a collection owned by Fawcett's nephew Greg S. Walls and are expected to fetch tens of thousands of dollars, according to Heritage Auctions. "Though Farrah Fawcett will forever be associated with the 1970s and that famous, famous hairdo of hers, she remains a beloved, respected instantly recognizable Hollywood star just as much today," said Margaret Barrett, Heritage director of entertainment and music auctions. Texas-born Fawcett was one of the best-known celebrities in the United States nearly 40 years ago, thanks to her role in the TV show "Charlie's Angels" and an iconic poster of her in a red swimsuit that sold millions of copies. Full Story | Top |
| New York critics name 'American Hustle' best film of year Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 01:28 PM PST  By Patricia Reaney NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Film Critics Circle named "American Hustle," a film about 1970s con artists forced to work with the FBI, as best film of 2013 on Tuesday and gave its top acting prizes to Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett in the first major movie honors in the run-up to the Oscars. British director Steve McQueen won the best director prize for "12 Years a Slave," the historical drama about a free black man sold into slavery and based on the 1853 memoir of Solomon Northup. Tuesday's awards pit director David O. Russell's "American Hustle," which will be released in U.S. theaters later this month, and "12 Year a Slave," the winner of the top prize at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, as early contenders in the race for the Academy Awards. Redford picked up the best actor award for his solo performance in the survival drama "All is Lost," and Blanchett was named best actress for her portrayal of a pill-popping former socialite forced to deal with reduced circumstances in Woody Allen's film "Blue Jasmine." Actor Jared Leto won the best supporting actor prize for his role in "Dallas Buyers Club" as an HIV-positive transgender woman who helps smuggle medication not approved in the United States to AIDS patients. Full Story | Top |
| British news staff may face terrorism charges over Snowden leaks Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 01:07 PM PST  By William James and Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - British police are examining whether Guardian newspaper staff should be investigated for terrorism offenses over their handling of data leaked by Edward Snowden, Britain's senior counter-terrorism officer said on Tuesday. The disclosure came after Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, summoned to give evidence at a parliamentary inquiry, was accused by lawmakers of helping terrorists by making top secret information public and sharing it with other news organizations. The Guardian was among several newspapers which published leaks from U.S. spy agency contractor Snowden about mass surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain's eavesdropping agency GCHQ. Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick, who heads London's Specialist Operations unit, told lawmakers the police were looking to see whether any offenses had been committed, following the brief detention in August of a man carrying data on behalf of a Guardian journalist. Full Story | Top |
| Author Suri wins Britain's bad sex award for 'quarks' and 'superheroes' scene Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 12:03 PM PST Manil Suri has won the annual Bad Sex in Fiction award for a scene in his novel "The City of Devi" describing a sexual encounter in terms of exploding supernovas and streaking superheroes, Britain's Literary Review said on Tuesday. Suri, a dual American and Indian citizen, joins an illustrious list of past winners including John Updike, Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe and Sebastian Faulks. "We streak like superheroes past suns and solar systems, we dive through shoals of quarks and atomic nuclei. Full Story | Top |
| World Chefs-For Southerner James Villas, fried is where the heart is Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 10:21 AM PST By Dorene Internicola NEW YORK (Reuters) - Veteran food writer James Villas likes to say he was raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a cast-iron skillet in his hand. In "Southern Fried: More than 150 recipes for crab cakes, fried chicken, hush puppies and more," Villas, who was food and wine editor of Town & Country magazine for 27 years, pays homage to the cuisine he learned at his mother's knee. "There's no food that people love more than fried food," said Villas, "and we Southerners do it right: beautiful and dry and crispy and wonderful." Villas is the author of some 17 cookbooks, including the James Beard award-winning "Pig: King of the Southern Table." The 75-year-old spoke from his home in East Hampton, Long Island, about the do's and don'ts of frying, why it is close to a religion in the South, and how Southern comfort foods are turning up in the swankiest New York restaurants. A: The style of cooking that typifies Southern cuisine like nothing else is fried food ... The type of food that we're condemned for, the type of food that people say is going to cause the end of the earth, but the type of food that we love the most and that we were all raised on. Full Story | Top |
| French-born film artist Prouvost wins 2013 Turner Prize Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 10:06 AM PST  By Michael Roddy LONDONDERRY (Reuters) - French-born film installation artist Laure Prouvost won Britain's prestigious Turner Prize on Monday for a short film clip that in part tells the story of a fictional grandfather digging a hole to Africa and disappearing down it. An emotional and surprised Prouvost, who lives and works in London, told a crowd of hundreds at the awards ceremony: "I didn't expect this at all ... I was sure it was not me." After presenting the award, the Oscar-nominated Irish actress Saoirse Ronan brought Prouvost's baby onto the stage to a chorus of "aahs" from the audience. The ceremony was held in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, the first time the prize has been awarded outside England. Prouvost told reporters she felt Britain was her "adopted" home because "this is the country that let me grow". Full Story | Top |
| Russian dancer gets six years for Bolshoi acid attack Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 05:27 AM PST  By Maria Tsvetkova MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko was sentenced to six years in a high-security prison on Tuesday for ordering an acid attack that nearly blinded the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet and tarnished the reputation of the renowned theatre. A judge announced the sentence after convicting Dmitrichenko and two co-defendants of the attack on Sergei Filin last January, which exposed poisonous rivalries over roles, money and power at one of Russia's most prominent cultural institutions. Yuri Zarutsky, who admitted to being the masked attacker who threw acid in Filin's face in January, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Andrei Lipatov, who drove Zarutsky to the scene, was sentenced to four years. Full Story | Top |
| A Minute With: Carrie Underwood climbs 'Sound of Music' mountain Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 05:04 AM PST  By Jill Serjeant NEW YORK (Reuters) - Despite just a handful of acting roles to date, country singer and "American Idol" winner Carrie Underwood was the first choice to play the coveted lead role of Maria in a new live version of "The Sound of Music" for television. Since winning "Idol" in 2005, Underwood, 30, has taken the country music scene by storm with hits like "Before He Cheats," and "Jesus, Take the Wheel," winning six Grammys and more than 100 other music awards. Underwood spoke with Reuters ahead of the December 5 broadcast about taking on a challenge like Maria. Full Story | Top |
| Ahmed Fouad Negm dies at age 84 Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 04:41 AM PST  CAIRO (Reuters) - Prominent Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm, renowned for his witty criticism of authorities in Egypt, passed away on Tuesday at age 84, state media reported. Negm, who was born in the Sharqiya province in 1929, was imprisoned several times for his criticism of Egyptian leaders Gamal Abdel Nasser, his successor Anwar Sadat, and Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted by a popular uprising in 2011. Negm, who wrote in colloquial Arabic, was also critical of the country's first elected leader Mohamed Mursi, who was overthrown by the army in July after mass protests against his rule. ... Full Story | Top |
| Pearson buys Brazil's top English language school for $720 million Tuesday, Dec 03, 2013 02:20 AM PST By Silvia Antonioli LONDON (Reuters) - British media and education group Pearson has agreed to buy Grupo Multi, the largest provider of adult English language training in Brazil, as it invests more in its global education business. Pearson Chief Executive John Fallon is reorganizing the company to concentrate on fast-growing economies and digital services, rather than Europe and North America, where austerity measures have hit public spending. Brazil is the fourth-largest English language market in the world, worth 2 billion pounds per year. Demand for English speakers in the tourism and hospitality sectors is expected to rise as the country prepares to host the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. Full Story | Top |
| Autopsy results for 'Fast & Furious' star Walker may come Tuesday Monday, Dec 02, 2013 10:36 PM PST  By Eric Kelsey LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Autopsy results for "Fast & Furious" actor Paul Walker could be released as early as Tuesday, as medical examiners wait for dental records to formally identify the actor's body, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Coroner said on Monday. Walker, 40, who became a symbol of street-racing and car culture in his roles in the "Fast & Furious" film franchise, was a passenger in a fiery one-car crash on Saturday in Santa Clarita, California, about 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles. "The bodies are unidentifiable." Media reports identified the driver of the red 2005 Porsche Carrera GT that crashed into a utility pole and burst into flames as Roger Rodas, 38, a friend of Walker's who owned Always Evolving, an auto dealership and racing services company in Santa Clarita. Full Story | Top |
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