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| News Corp wins dismissal of U.S. lawsuit over phone hacking Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 10:19 AM PDT  By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - News Corp, its Chairman Rupert Murdoch and other top officials have won the dismissal of a U.S. lawsuit accusing them of defrauding shareholders by concealing widespread, illegal phone hacking at two of its British newspapers. In a decision made public on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe in Manhattan said the defendants could not be held liable over statements predating the period for which shareholders sought to recoup alleged losses. The case was based on statements by Murdoch, former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks and others in the years after the 2006 arrest of reporter Clive Goodman and investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who were both later imprisoned for allegedly hacking the phones of Britain's royal family. Shareholders led by Britain's Avon Pension Fund accused the defendants of making statements in press releases, interviews, conference calls, testimony to Parliament and elsewhere suggesting that the incident was isolated. Full Story | Top |
| YouTube sees money in gaming-video eyeballs Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 10:18 AM PDT  By Malathi Nayak SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - To imagine how YouTube might one day become a money-spinner for content producers, consider the power of the irreverent video gamer and online star PewDiePie over his young, free-spending audience. Each time the wildly popular YouTube impresario has donned Razer headphones in one of the many zany videos that feature him playing games, the product has sold out. "It's incredible that YouTube personalities are coming up ... and I think it can only grow." PewDiePie's uncanny trendsetting talent highlights the potential that content related to video games holds for Google Inc as it looks for ways to build its YouTube video platform into a powerful new revenue stream. Just last week Walt Disney Co agreed to fork over as much as $950 million to buy Maker Studios, one of YouTube's largest production and distribution networks. Full Story | Top |
| Germany's Kiefer says Jewish collectors boosted career Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 09:41 AM PDT  By Michael Roddy LONDON (Reuters) - German artist Anselm Kiefer, many of whose huge canvases examine the legacy of the Third Reich, attributes much of his success to Jewish collectors in New York who latched onto his art early in his career when his fellow Germans were not all that interested. Kiefer spoke on Tuesday at London's Royal Academy of Arts, which will mount the first British retrospective of the 69-year-old artist's work in an exhibition opening at the end of September. "These were the first big collectors, who admired and made my career, it wasn't in Germany," Kiefer said at a news conference to announce the works that will be in the exhibition. Kiefer said that at the time he had thought it was important to show such scenes, because no one else in Germany was doing so, but to paint them today "would be redundant" because Germany is constantly re-examining what happened during the Nazi times. Full Story | Top |
| Jude Law explodes as hot-headed safecracker in 'Dom Hemingway' Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 07:38 AM PDT  By Patricia Reaney NEW YORK (Reuters) - With an extra 20 pounds, an impressive paunch and bad teeth, actor Jude Law, best known for his golden boy roles, transforms himself into a sleazy, ranting southeast London safecracker in the film "Dom Hemingway." It is Law, Oscar nominated for "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Cold Mountain," as he hasn't been seen before - unfit, unkempt and with a penchant for delivering expletive-filled speeches. In the film, which opens in select U.S. theaters on Wednesday, Law plays Dom Hemingway, a damaged, hot-headed crook released from prison after a 12-year stint for not ratting on his crime boss. The role enabled Law, 41, to mine the southeast London streets of his childhood for the character and to discard any lingering remnants of his matinee idol image. From the opening scene when he pontificates about his manhood, through drinking binges and brawls, Law holds nothing back as Hemingway, who is the complete opposite of the tightly coiled Russian aristocrat Karenin he played in the 2012 drama "Anna Karenina," based on Leo Tolstoy's 1877 novel. Full Story | Top |
| Is New York ready for an ugly Baroque swamp nymph? Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 07:04 AM PDT By Michael Roddy PARIS (Reuters) - German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld is a household name; But the two have been doing quite well together in a European opera now heading briefly to New York. Two hundred and fifty years after Rameau's death, a revival of his 1745 opera "Platee" about an unsightly swamp nymph who falls for the god Jupiter - dressed in Lagerfeld-like black and cradling a white cat resembling the designer's prized "Choupette" - is to have a one-night stand in the Big Apple this week after successful runs in Vienna and Paris. "The theatre of the 17th and 18th century has a real harmony with our period, it's very edgy," Canadian director Robert Carsen, who dreamt up the fashionista-themed production of "Platee", said in a telephone interview from Zurich. Full Story | Top |
| 'The Unknown Known' looks for meaning in Rumsfeld's 'sea of words' Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 04:12 AM PDT  By Eric Kelsey LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After 11 days of interviews, Oscar-winning filmmaker Errol Morris felt he was hardly closer to understanding Donald Rumsfeld than when he first began to work on the documentary "The Unknown Known." The film, which gets its title from the former U.S. defense secretary's famous answer about "known knowns" and "known unknowns" to a reporter's straightforward question, offers the architect of the 2003 Iraq war and its troubled occupation the platform to explain his worldview and rationale. But Morris, best known for documentaries "The Thin Blue Line" and "The Fog of War," said he found that when given the chance, Rumsfeld was able to do little more than articulating shallow maxims and self-fulfilling generalizations, what Morris termed "principles you might find in a Chinese fortune cookie." "Absence of evidence is an evidence of absence," the 81-year-old, who served as secretary of defense for Republican Presidents Gerald Ford and George W. Bush, repeats in the documentary. Full Story | Top |
| Elton John to marry partner as Britain legalizes gay marriage Monday, Mar 31, 2014 08:04 PM PDT  Singer Elton John will marry long-time partner David Furnish now that Britain's legalization of gay marriage has been put into effect, the singer said in an interview on Monday. John, 67, told NBC's "Today" host Matt Lauer that he and Furnish, who were one of the first couples to become united when Britain legalized the Civil Partnership Act in December 2005, will marry in a small ceremony this year, as early as May. "We'll do it very quietly," the singer said. The singer said he was "very proud of Britain" and the progress made to make gay marriage legal. Full Story | Top |
| Desire, ice, and fire: 'Game of Thrones' returns for fourth season Monday, Mar 31, 2014 05:47 PM PDT  By David Gaffen NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mystical ice creatures, fire-breathing dragons, and the people caught in between return to the small screen come April 6, when HBO's "Game of Thrones" unsheathes a fourth season that could see it crowned as the cable network's most watched series in history. The medieval fantasy drama's fan base has grown substantially over its first three seasons, with sizable followings among both men and women thanks to its wrenching interpersonal relationships, complex plotting, and, being HBO, plenty of sex and violence. The show is based on the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series of novels by George R.R. Martin, of which five of an expected seven have been published. It takes place in the fictional world of Westeros, following more than two dozen regular characters amid a war for dominion between noble houses. Full Story | Top |
| HBO's 'Silicon Valley' tackles tricky, quirky tech world for TV Monday, Mar 31, 2014 02:58 PM PDT  (Note explicit language in paragraph 17) By Mary Milliken LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - If Mike Judge's new tech-world television comedy "Silicon Valley" were a start-up, Google Inc Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt might be an angel investor. Schmidt appears briefly in the show's opening scene, a start-up's party where Kid Rock jams on stage and no one pays attention to the rock star. A newly minted tech millionaire tries to pump up the crowd shouting "I love Goolybib's integrated multi-platform functionality. ... Full Story | Top |
| Royal Opera sets accent on youth for cut-rate opening night Monday, Mar 31, 2014 02:53 PM PDT  By Michael Roddy LONDON (Reuters) - The Royal Opera will slash ticket prices to appeal to students and young people and will revive the racy modern opera "Anna Nicole" for its season opener in September in what management said was a bid to knock the stuffing out of galas. All tickets in the house, whose 2,200 seats can go for as much as 200 pounds ($330), will be priced from 1 pound to 25 pounds for the opening night on September 11 and will be sold through the opera's student standby scheme and in conjunction with a music venue that works with young people, the ROH said. "I think it's fantastic to have a season opening gala which is something that sounds stuffy and elitist to actually be a night where we celebrate new work ... and is celebrated by selling the whole house to students and young people," the ROH's Director of Opera Kasper Holten told Reuters on Monday. Music Director Antonio Pappano, whose contract the ROH announced was being extended until at least the end of 2017, will conduct English composer Mark-Anthony Turnage's opera based on the life of the Playboy centerfold who married an oil billionaire. Full Story | Top |
| Miami officials seek to end annual Ultra music fest, cite 'chaos' Monday, Mar 31, 2014 01:56 PM PDT By Zachary Fagenson MIAMI (Reuters) - The mayor and other Miami officials are calling for the end of the annual Ultra electronic dance music festival after a security guard was trampled and rushed to the hospital with brain injuries when gate-crashers broke through a security fence during the three-day event. "I think we should not have Ultra next year here," Miami mayor Tomas Regalado told the Miami Herald over the weekend. More than 160,000 people attended the festival, now in its 16th year, according to Ultra spokeswoman Alexandra Greenberg. Authorities are also investigating the death of a 21-year-old man who collapsed after attending the Ultra festival on Saturday, according to a Miami police spokesman. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. regulators restrict TV stations' joint ad sales Monday, Mar 31, 2014 01:50 PM PDT By Alina Selyukh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. communications regulators voted along party lines on Monday to prohibit broadcast companies from controlling two or more TV stations in a market by sharing advertising sales staff as the agency began its new review of media ownership rules. Two Democratic members of the Federal Communications Commission sided with Chairman Tom Wheeler on new rules that would count a broadcaster as having an ownership interest in any station where that owner sells 15 percent or more of weekly advertising time. Current FCC rules typically prohibit one broadcaster from owning two TV stations in one local market. The FCC pledged to review any waivers within 90 days. Full Story | Top |
| Singer-producer Pharrell Williams to join NBC show 'The Voice' Monday, Mar 31, 2014 01:23 PM PDT  Pharrell Williams, the R&B singer of the hit song "Happy" and a music producer, will join NBC's singing contest "The Voice" as a coach for its seventh season in the fall, the network said on Monday. Williams, 40, will join the show's fall jury panel replacing longtime judge Cee Lo Green, who left the show for other ventures with the Comcast Corp-owned network. Williams is expected to join country singer Blake Shelton, Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine and pop singer Christina Aguilera on the season seven panel. Full Story | Top |
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