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| E*Trade to give clients access to IPOs from Jefferies Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 03:32 PM PST E*Trade Financial Corp said Thursday it formed a "retail alliance" giving its customers access to initial public offerings and follow-on offerings underwritten by middle-market investment bank Jefferies LLC. Jefferies is not Wall Street's biggest underwriter of newly public companies, but E*Trade is betting that it can score points with investors by guaranteeing access to IPOs that brokerage firms normally reserve for their best customers. However, many so-called retail investors are frustrated when they cannot get access to popular new issues that their brokerage firm is doling out to favored institutions and wealthy clients. E*Trade President Navtej Nandra said in a prepared statement that any client, regardless of account size or length of relationship with the broker, can participate in a Jefferies offering if they meet suitability criteria and submit bids to buy at the offering price or higher. The discount brokerage firm, which is recovering from a near-fatal venture into mortgage lending in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, said customers can monitor offerings through customized alerts and make offers through its on-line New Issue Center. Full Story | Top |
| In double legal trouble, Bieber tests positive for pot, meds Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 02:42 PM PST  By Cameron French and Zachary Fagenson TORONTO/MIAMI BEACH (Reuters) - Teen pop star Justin Bieber, facing charges in the United States and Canada, had pot and anti-anxiety medication in his system when arrested in Florida last week but told police his mother "takes care" of his prescriptions, according to official reports released Thursday. Bieber was charged late on Wednesday with assaulting a limousine driver in Toronto and the Toronto Star newspaper reported Thursday that the driver in the alleged assault in December quit his job "in shock" following the incident. The charges over the last week now put Bieber at risk of serving jail time. On Thursday, a report by the Miami-Dade Office of the State Attorney said Bieber had marijuana and prescription medication for anxiety in his system when he was arrested in Miami Beach. Full Story | Top |
| Jewish leader says German museums turn blind eye to Nazi-looted art Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 01:09 PM PST  By Monica Raymunt BERLIN (Reuters) - German museums are wilfully ignoring their duty to come clean about works they hold that were looted from Jews by the Nazis, the head of the World Jewish Congress said on Thursday, and the government must do more to force them to act. Germany has faced heavy criticism over its handling of the discovery of 1,407 Nazi-plundered works in the flat of Cornelius Gurlitt, an elderly recluse whose father took orders from Hitler to buy and sell so-called 'degenerate art' to fund Nazi activities. Since a magazine broke the story last November, debate over the rightful ownership of works stashed in the Munich apartment - including by masters such as Duerer, Delacroix, Picasso and Matisse - has grown into a wider controversy over thousands of paintings on open display in museums. "They know what's been stolen," WJC President Ronald Lauder told Reuters in an interview during a visit to Berlin. Full Story | Top |
| Editor of Spain's El Mundo exits after clash with government Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 12:52 PM PST  By Elisabeth O'Leary and Claudia Cristoferi MADRID/MILAN (Reuters) - The influential founding editor of Spain's second-biggest newspaper, El Mundo, stepped down on Thursday after a decline in circulation and a series of revelations of alleged corruption in the ruling party. Pedro Jose Ramirez, known as Pedro J (pronounced "Hota"), has been sharply critical of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, even though El Mundo, part of the Italian RCS group, is considered broadly sympathetic to the ruling conservative People's Party. Ramirez, who often appears to court controversy, is known for breaking some of Spain's biggest political scandals of the last 25 years, including uncovering death squads backed by the Socialist government in the 1990s and, more recently, allegations of PP corruption. "Editorship of El Mundo will be assigned to Casimiro Garcia-Abadillo, currently deputy editor, with the objective of relaunching its hard copy circulation and further strengthening its digital leadership," RCS said in a statement. Full Story | Top |
| Actress Johansson-Oxfam rift puts spotlight on West Bank Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 12:14 PM PST  By Noah Browning and Michael Roddy JERUSALEM/LONDON (Reuters) - Actress Scarlett Johansson's very public rift with the charity Oxfam over her endorsement of an Israeli firm operating in the West Bank has thrown a Hollywood spotlight on one of the thorniest issues in Middle East peace talks. Johansson announced on Thursday she had quit her role as an ambassador for Oxfam, shortly before the airing during Sunday's Super Bowl of an advert in which she fronts for the Israeli soda maker SodaStream. The multi-million-dollar sponsorship deal has caused a backlash among activists and humanitarian groups because SodaStream's largest factory stands in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, which Oxfam said was "incompatible" with Johansson's role. Full Story | Top |
| Canadian limo driver allegedly assaulted by Bieber quit his job: report Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 11:48 AM PST By Cameron French TORONTO (Reuters) - The limousine driver alleged to have been assaulted by teen popstar Justin Bieber quit his job following the December incident, the manager of the limo company told the Toronto Star in an article published on Thursday. Something like this does not happen in Toronto," Tony Albert, manager of Park Lane Livery limousines, told the newspaper. "We do club runs every weekend in Toronto - even with the drunkies we never faced this kind of problem, the driver getting physically assaulted in the head," he said. Canadian police charged Bieber on Wednesday with assault following the incident in the early hours of December 30 when Bieber and five others were picked up outside a Toronto nightclub. Full Story | Top |
| Toronto mayor defends Bieber after new charge, but not his music Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 10:26 AM PST  Justin Bieber has run afoul of police in both Canada and the United States in just one week, but the teenage pop star has at least one defender who knows something about negative attention: fellow Canadian and Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. Ford, who has become a staple of late-night punch lines since he admitted in November that he had smoked crack cocaine while in a "drunken stupor", defended Bieber on Thursday during an interview on a Washington, D.C., radio show called Sports Junkies. Think back to when you were 19." Ford made the comment after one of the hosts call Bieber "Canada's worst export." Asked if he was a fan of Bieber's music, Ford said his tastes leaned more toward classic rock acts such as Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, and the Eagles. Bieber was charged on Wednesday with assaulting a limousine driver in Toronto in December. Full Story | Top |
| France's ex-first lady 'fell off skyscraper' on hearing of affair Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 09:47 AM PST  The former first lady of France, Valerie Trierweiler, said she felt as if she had plunged from a skyscraper when President Francois Hollande told her of his affair with an actress. Trierweiler, from whom Hollande announced his separation on Saturday, told the glossy magazine Paris Match that she had been aware of rumours about an affair, but that having them confirmed by her partner of seven years was a shock. "I had heard rumours, obviously, but you hear them about everyone," said Trierweiler, saying she paid them little heed. "When I found out, it's like I fell off a skyscraper." Trierweiler gave the interview to Paris Match, for which she works as a columnist, during a humanitarian visit this week to Mumbai with the charity Action Against Hunger. Full Story | Top |
| Defense casts doubt on claim ex-Murdoch editor heard hacking tape Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 08:32 AM PST  By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - Andy Coulson, former editor of Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid the News of the World, was not in the office at the time he is alleged to have listened to a recording of a hacked phone voicemail message, a London court heard on Thursday. Coulson, editor of the mass-selling tabloid until 2007 and then Prime Minister David Cameron's head of communications up to early 2011, is on trial accused of conspiracy to illegally intercept messages on mobile phones, a charge he denies. Dan Evans, a former reporter who has admitted carrying out hacking while working for the paper, told the Old Bailey court earlier this week that Coulson had listened to a hacked voicemail revealing an affair between two leading actors in October 2005 and expressed his delight. Evans had told the jury he had come into the office on a Tuesday, the first working day for staff on the Sunday tabloid, with a message left by the actress Sienna Miller on the phone of James Bond actor Daniel Craig. Full Story | Top |
| Time Warner Cable charts path while rebuffing Charter Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 08:29 AM PST  Time Warner Cable Inc, trying to fend off a takeover bid, posted better-than-expected quarterly results on Thursday and said it aims to increase the company's sales while also investing more in its technology over the next three years. "We are geared up to manage this company for the long haul," said CEO Rob Marcus, in his first conference call since he took over on January 1. When asked about Charter's $132.50 rejected bid earlier in January, Marcus reiterated that Time Warner Cable is only interested in an offer above $160 per share, and would be "willing to engage" if a deal drives more shareholder value than the company can create on its own. "We said the price it would take to transact would be $160 and this is specific to Charter, $100 in cash, $60 in Charter stock," Marcus added. Full Story | Top |
| BSkyB strengthens pay-TV defence with HBO deal Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 07:49 AM PST  By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) - BSkyB has signed a new deal with U.S. producer HBO to secure exclusive access to blockbuster shows such as "Game of Thrones" until 2020 and strengthen its defence against an increasingly competitive BT. BT snatched the rights to European Champions League soccer, one of Sky's most prized sports assets, for 2015-2018 last year. The investment in products, marketing and increasingly expensive rights to televise English Premier League soccer squeezed operating profit in Sky's first half but drove a 7.6 percent rise in revenue, the company said on Thursday. The 8 percent drop in operating profit was less than the market expected and Chief Executive Jeremy Darroch, while acknowledging that the consumer environment remains challenging, said that more people were joining Sky and taking more products, such as high-definition (HD) television, on-demand movies and broadband. Full Story | Top |
| Mozart museum seeks to debunk evil Salieri poison myth Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 07:46 AM PST  By Michael Shields VIENNA (Reuters) - It's one of the great mysteries of music - did composer Antonio Salieri poison his onetime protege Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with arsenic? The famous 1984 Milos Forman film "Amadeus", based on Peter Shaffer's play, leaves little doubt he did. But now the Vienna museum dedicated to Mozart's legacy has launched a campaign to burnish Salieri's reputation as a supporter of the younger Austrian genius - and not a jealous villain. A new exhibit at the Mozarthaus where Mozart lived and worked in the late 18th century portrays Salieri as a good-humored, talented and generous man who praised and honored pupils including Ludwig von Beethoven and Franz Schubert. Full Story | Top |
| Viacom expects pick up in advertiser demand Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 07:19 AM PST  Viacom Inc said on Thursday it expects advertising revenue from its cable networks like MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon to improve this quarter, sending shares up 2.4 percent. The media company, which also owns movie studio Paramount Pictures, said higher ratings for its television shows are also helping coax money from advertisers. Viacom is the first of the big media conglomerates to shed light on the U.S. advertising environment this year. "It is positive news and that is why the stock is up," said Evercore analyst Alan Gould about the advertising forecast. Full Story | Top |
| Turkish stripper who inspired La Dolce Vita dies Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 04:07 AM PST  Aiche Nana, the Turkish belly dancer and stripper whose story inspired the late Italian director Federico Fellini to make his classic film La Dolce Vita, has died at the age of 78, her lawyer said. Nana, whose real name was Kiash Nanah and who died on Wednesday night at a hospital in Rome, shot to fame when she performed a strip-tease at a restaurant in Rome in 1958. The sequence was shot by Tazio Secchiaroli, the legendary street photographer who was the model for the character Paparazzo in the 1960 film that starred Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni. The Oscar-winning director re-created the strip scene in the film, with actress Nadia Gray playing Nana. Full Story | Top |
| Time Warner Cable's quarterly profit rises 5 percent Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 03:18 AM PST (Reuters) - Time Warner Cable Inc, the second largest U.S. cable operator, posted a 5 percent rise in quarterly profit as its residential subscriber trends improved through the quarter. Net income attributable to the company rose to $540 million, or $1.89 per share, in the fourth quarter, from $513 million, or $1.68 per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose about 2 percent to $5.58 billion. The company said it lost 217,000 residential video customers in the quarter. (Reporting by Neha Alawadhi in Bangalore; Editing by Savio D'Souza) Full Story | Top |
| Joyce on your iPad - bringing 'The Dead' to life Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 03:16 AM PST  By Sam Cage DUBLIN (Reuters) - "Snow was general all over Ireland," the noted Irish stage actor Barry McGovern intones while reading the famous line from James Joyce's "The Dead" in a free app for iPads that seeks to bring the heart-rending story to life for the high-tech age. In some quarters technology is seen as the death-knell of literature, but the Joyce app developed by University College Dublin (UCD) is a runaway hit. It was downloaded 5,000 times in 48 hours - five times the sales of Ireland's best-selling work of fiction that week, Donal Ryan's "The Spinning Heart". "He's our boy, he went to UCD, so we've always had this special relationship with the Joyce tradition," said Gerardine Meaney, leader of the project and director of the humanities institute at UCD. Full Story | Top |
| Elton John, Lady Gaga, 'Dallas Buyers Club' get GLAAD nominations Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 03:04 AM PST  Pop stars Elton John and Lady Gaga, award-winning films "Dallas Buyers Club" and "Blue is the Warmest Color" and the hit TV series "Modern Family" received nominations on Thursday from the GLAAD Media Awards. The 25th annual GLAAD Media Awards ceremonies are scheduled to be held in Los Angeles on April 12 and New York on May 3. Best picture Oscar nominees "Dallas Buyers Club" and "Philomena" will compete against 2013's Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner "Blue is the Warmest Color" for best wide-release film, along with the drama "Kill Your Darlings" and PG-13 rated "The Moral Instrument: City of Bones," which is based on a series of novels for young adults. Full Story | Top |
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