Sun Jan 13, 2013 1:08pm EST (Reuters) - "Zero Dark Thirty," Hollywood's re-telling of the decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden, captured the No. 1 spot on movie box office charts over the weekend with $24 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales. The movie starring Jessica Chastain as a dogged CIA agent edged out horror movie spoof "A Haunted House," which fi...

Sun Jan 13, 2013 10:10am EST (Reuters) - The 70th annual Golden Globe Awards for film and television will be handed out on Sunday by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Presidential drama "Lincoln" goes into Sunday's ceremony with seven nominations, followed by Iran hostage movie "Argo" and Quentin Tarantino's slavery-era "Django Unchained" with five apiece....

Sun Jan 13, 2013 1:31am EST (Reuters) - Miss New York won the 2013 Miss America crown on Saturday at the annual pageant which tapped into the reality TV format by incorporating fan participation that pulled one contestant into the semifinals. Mallory Hytes Hagan, 23, scored in the talent competition with a tap dance to James Brown's "Get Up Offa That Thing," and ...

LOS ANGELES | Fri Jan 11, 2013 10:56pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sony Pictures executive Amy Pascal lashed out on Friday at a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) who accused Osama bin Laden film "Zero Dark Thirty" of promoting torture and urged fellow Academy members not to vote for it in the Oscars race. In a strongly wor...

LOS ANGELES | Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:45pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop star Britney Spears on Friday called it quits with both fiancé Jason Trawick and as a celebrity judge on "The X Factor" talent show. Spears, 31, and Trawick, 41 - her former agent - got engaged in December 2011."Jason and I have decided to call off our engagement," Spears said in a sta...

WASHINGTON | Fri Jan 11, 2013 5:15pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - R&B singer Alicia Keys, country guitar slinger Brad Paisley and pop star Katy Perry are some of the A-list performers who will entertain partygoers at President Barack Obama's inaugural celebration, organizers said on Friday. Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder, two prominent elder statesm...

Fri Jan 11, 2013 4:26pm EST (Reuters) - Hollywood's landmark Grauman's Chinese Theatre has a new name after a Chinese company purchased naming rights to the famous movie house and tourist destination. The one-time site of the Academy awards will now be called the TCL Chinese Theatre following a 10-year deal with Chinese TV maker TCL Corp, its owners said on Frida...

LOS ANGELES | Fri Jan 11, 2013 1:34pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Evan Rachel Wood said on Friday that she and her husband, British actor Jamie Bell, are expecting their first child. "Thanks for all your warm wishes," Wood, 25, wrote on her Twitter account. "We are very happy. I'm gonna be a mama!"Moments earlier, Wood posted a picture of the pre...

By Zorianna Kit LOS ANGELES | Fri Jan 11, 2013 1:32pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - As one of the entertainment industry's most sought-after photographers, Kevin Mazur is training his lens on fellow photographers who traffic in the high-stakes game of capturing images of Hollywood stars as they go about their everyday lives. Mazur, a Rolling Stone ...

By Mike Collett-White LONDON | Fri Jan 11, 2013 7:53am EST LONDON (Reuters) - The first official portrait of Britain's Duchess of Cambridge, popularly known by her former name Kate Middleton, was unveiled in London on Friday, and opinion was sharply divided over an image many deemed unflattering. The 31-year-old, who as a glamorous future queen i...

By Katharina Bart and Tom Miles ZURICH | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:10am EST ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS admitted fraud and accepted a $1.5 billion fine on Wednesday for its role in manipulating global benchmark interest rates. Dozens of UBS staff rigged the Libor rate, which is used to price trillions of dollars worth of loans, in collusion with b...

By Christine Kearney NEW YORK | Wed Dec 19, 2012 10:22am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jessica Chastain carries the weight of starring in one of the year's most anticipated films, "Zero Dark Thirty," about the decade-long hunt and eventual killing of Osama bin Laden. Critics say Chastain pulls it off s...

By Simon Evans MIAMI | Wed Dec 19, 2012 10:20am EST MIAMI (Reuters) - LeBron James says he is engaged in a "vendetta" against himself as he pushes himself to reach his physical peak and win a second straight NBA championship with the Miami Heat. On Tuesday, James, last season's Most Valuable Playe...

WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 19, 2012 10:17am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama would veto the House Republican "Plan B" tax proposal designed to avert January 1 tax hikes, the White House said on Wednesday, saying the plan does not meet Obama's test that spending cuts not fall overwhelmingly on the middle class. "The President urges the Republic...

By Ryan Vlastelica NEW YORK | Wed Dec 19, 2012 10:16am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Wednesday as investors found scant reason to continue buying following the best two-day rally for the S&P in a month. The Nasdaq notched slight gains, helped by technology shares following strong results at Oracle Corp (ORCL.O).The S&...

By Adrian Krajewski and Christian Lowe WARSAW | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:56am EST WARSAW (Reuters) - The European Commission is investigating why Poland's government is refusing to pay dozens of foreign contractors for work carried out under a road-building program worth billions of euros and backed by ...

By Jibran Ahmad PESHAWAR, Pakistan | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:56am EST PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Three workers in a polio eradication campaign were shot in Pakistan on Wednesday, and two of them were killed, the latest in an unprecedented string of attacks over the past three days that has partially halted the U.N.-backed campaign. The United Nati...

By Jane Chung and Jack Kim SEOUL | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:52am EST SEOUL (Reuters) - The daughter of a former military ruler took a commanding lead in South Korea's presidential election on Wednesday, putting her on track to become the country's first woman head of state. A win for 60-year old conservative Park Geun-hye would see her return to the pr...

PARIS | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:44am EST PARIS (Reuters) - More journalists were killed doing their job in 2012 than in any year since monitoring started 17 years ago, with Syria and Somalia seeing a particularly heavy toll, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Wednesday. Eighty-eight journalists were killed, a ...

MOSCOW | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:43am EST MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian state technology firm Rusnano, alongside a group of investors, is investing $93 million in three U.S.-based pharmaceutical firms to develop drugs to treat illnesses such as epilepsy, the investors said on Wednesday. Rusnano is making the investment with U.S. venture capital fund Domain Assoc...

By David French DUBAI | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:40am EST DUBAI (Reuters) - The private equity consortium which owns half of Abu Dhabi healthcare provider Al Noor Medical is reviving plans to sell its stake through a stock market listing in 2013, four sources aware of the matter said. The group, including Dubai-based Ithmar Capital and Qatar First Inve...

By Mette Fraende COPENHAGEN | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:39am EST COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Shares in Danish drugs firm Lundbeck fell to their lowest level in over 12 years on Wednesday after it cut its profits forecast for the next two years as European sales slow and spending on new products rise to combat generic competition. The company has already warn...

GENEVA | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:38am EST GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations appealed on Wednesday for $1.5 billion to provide life-saving aid to Syrians suffering from a "dramatically deteriorating" humanitarian situation. The twin appeals, $519.6 million for aid within Syria and $1 billion to meet the needs of up to 1 million Syrian refugees in five coun...

By Ben Klayman Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:34am EST (Reuters) - General Motors Co (GM.N) said on Wednesday it will buy back 200 million of its shares from the U.S. Treasury, which intends to sell the rest of its GM stake over the next 15 months, bringing to an end ownership that led to the nickname "Government Motors." Chief Financial Officer Dan Ammann said GM wi...

By Patrick Markey BAGHDAD | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:34am EST BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was responding to treatment on Wednesday after suffering a stroke that raised fears of a messy succession battle to replace the Kurd leader who has mediated among Iraq's competing factions. "He is showing clear signs of improvement," Najmald...

By Matthew Goldstein and Emily Flitter and Jennifer Ablan NEW YORK | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:25am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. authorities are examining trading by one of SAC Capital Advisors' most successful portfolio managers, Gabriel Plotkin, as part of a probe into the $14 billion hedge fund firm's investment in Weight Watchers International Inc ...

MADRID | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:23am EST MADRID (Reuters) - Barcelona coach Tito Vilanova has suffered a relapse on the cancer in his saliva glands, Spanish daily El Pais reported on Wednesday citing sources at the club. The 44-year-old Vilanova, who underwent surgery on a tumor in his glands in November last year, stepped up from his role as assistant to re...

By Keith Weir LONDON | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:22am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Germany's Schalke 04 became the latest top European soccer club to go into partnership with online ticket vendor Viagogo on Wednesday, embracing a business that other sports argue is pricing fans out of stadiums. Once the preserve of shady figures in sidestreets, the sale of sp...

By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:19am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Permits for future home construction touched their highest level in nearly 4-1/2 years in November, pointing to underlying strength in the housing market, even though starts dropped after three straight months of strong gains. The Commerce Department said on Wednesd...

By Fredrik Dahl VIENNA | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:17am EST VIENNA (Reuters) - The United Nations nuclear watchdog and Iran may have made headway in talks on Tehran's disputed atomic activities but important points remain to be settled before a deal can be clinched, diplomats said on Wednesday. Both the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran said p...

By Charlie Dunmore BRUSSELS | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:14am EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union proposed drastic restrictions on tobacco branding on Wednesday, saying cigarette packs should reflect the deadly threat posed by smoking. If approved by EU member states and the European Parliament, the law will mean graphic visual and written warnin...

By Mark Felsenthal WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:13am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Joe Biden will lead an effort to craft policies to reduce gun violence in a plan President Barack Obama was to lay out Wednesday amid calls for action after the massacre of 26 people including 20 children in a Connecticut elementary school. Obama was...

By Gerry Shih SAN FRANCISCO | Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:09am EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Tubular, a small San Francisco start-up that provides analytics for YouTube content creators, has raised $2.5 million in venture capital in the latest sign of how far the business ecosystem has evolved around the Google-owned video repository. YouTube was once kno...

ALMATY | Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:58am EST ALMATY (Reuters) - A Soyuz spacecraft carrying a Russian, an American and a Canadian blasted off on Wednesday to the International Space Station (ISS), where the men are to spend half a year in orbit. The Russian-built Soyuz TMA-07M lifted off on time, at 1212 GMT, from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.On th...

Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:53am EST (Reuters) - Bankrupt camera maker Eastman Kodak Co agreed to sell its digital imaging patents for about $525 million to a consortium led by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corp, a key step to ending its bankruptcy. The photography pioneer said a portion of the payment will come from 12 intellectual property licensees organized by Intelle...

ISTRES, France | Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:47am EST ISTRES, France (Reuters) - French defense electronics group Thales will name former Vivendi chief executive Jean-Bernard Levy as its new chief executive on Thursday, the head of key shareholder Dassault Aviation said. The French state and jet maker Dassault Aviation, which own 27 and 26 percent of Thales respe...

Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:46am EST (Reuters) - Shares of Oracle Corp, the world's No. 3 software maker, looked set to open about 3 percent higher on Wednesday after it forecast strong sales for next year, prompting several brokerages to raise their price targets on the stock. The company's results often set the tone for smaller software makers, and analysts said the 17 ...

By Oliver Holmes BEIRUT | Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:32am EST BEIRUT (Reuters) - The amber light of the street lamp illuminates the boy, wrapped in a thin blanket, his legs exposed to the December cold as he sleeps by a kerbside in a wealthy district of Damascus. The child - barely in his teens, if that - was said by the opposition activist who posted hi...

LONDON | Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:23am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Mario Balotelli has accepted a fine of two weeks' wages from Manchester City after withdrawing his appeal against disciplinary action taken by the Premier League champions, the club said on Wednesday. The volatile Italian striker, who was fined by City after a series of well-documented misdemeanors ...

MOSCOW | Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:04am EST MOSCOW (Reuters) - Sberbank, Russia's top lender, plans to buy Yandex.Dengi, an online payment service owned by Russian search engine Yandex, a source familiar with the matter said. Sberbank declined to comment. Yandex, which was not available to comment, was expected to hold a news conference on Wednesday.Sberbank, w...