In the mountains of northeastern Mexico, archaeologists have unearthed thousands of ancient paintings on the walls of caves and ravines from a time before Spanish rule.
The rock art offers rare evidence from native cultures living in the area around the Sierra de San Carlos, a mountain range in Mexico's state of Tamaulipas, researchers say.
Almost 5,000 of these paintings were found across 11 different sites in the region, the researchers said. Created with red, yellow, black and white pigments, the images show animals from deer to lizards to centipedes, as well as people. Depictions of tents, hunting, fishing and possibly astronomical charts also offer a glimpse into the life of this mysterious culture.
The findings document the presence of pre-Hispanic groups, "where before it was said that there was nothing, when in fact it was inhabited by one or more cultures," archaeologist Gustavo Ramirez, of the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History, said in a statement.
The ancient people who once inhabited the mountains of Tamaulipas left very little behind for modern archaeologists to pore over. There is little known of their languages, rituals and customs, besides references to them by conquistadors and friars who colonized and Christianized the region.
Another archaeologist, Martha Garcia Sanchez, said these people were able to resist Spanish rule by living in the mountains, "where they had water, plants and animals to feed themselves."
The rock art was rediscovered in 2006, and archaeologists first started studying the site two years ago. Researchers have not yet been able to precisely date the paintings but further testing on samples of the pigments could reveal the age of the rock art.
"We have not found any ancient objects linked to the context, and because the paintings are on ravine walls and in the rainy season the sediments are washed away, all we have is gravel," said Ramirez.
The findings were presented during the Second Conference of Archaeological History in Mexico City.
Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
Gallery: Europe's Oldest Rock Art Amazing Caves: Pictures of the Earth's Innards In Photos: Enormous Ancient Mexican Temple Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Monday, May 20, 2013
Besieged Mexican town cheers arrival of soldiers
LA RUANA, Mexico (AP) Residents of a western Mexico area who endured months besieged by a drug cartel cheered the arrival of hundreds of Mexican soldiers Monday.
People in La Ruana in Michoacan state lined the main road to greet more than a dozen troop transports and heavily armed Humvees with applause and shouts of joy.
The town's supplies had been blocked after the Knights Templars cartel declared war on the hamlet. The cartel dominates much of the state, demanding extortion payments from businessmen and storeowners, and even low-wage workers.
In February, the town formed self-defense squads to kick the cartel out, drawing the wrath of the gang. Convoys of cartel gunmen attacked the town, which was forced to throw up stone barricades and build guard posts.
Supplies like gasoline, milk and cooking gas began to run low as cartel gunmen threatened to burn any trucks bringing in goods.
On Monday, hundreds of soldiers moved in, erecting checkpoints on the highway leading into La Ruana and setting up an operating base in the town.
"This war has been won!" Hipolito Mora, leader of the self-defense movement, told hundreds of cheering townspeople gathered along the main road, including dozens of self-defense patrol members wearing white T-shirts and carrying shotguns.
Mora said the town had agreed to stop community patrols and let the army take over security in La Ruana. But he said the community would keep its weapons and would start patrols again if the army left.
The idea that troops might come in and seize a town's weapons, or stay only a few weeks, worried people throughout the crime-ridden area. So in town after town along the main highway through Michoacan's hot lowlands known as the Tierra Caliente, self-defense squads welcomed the army's arrival, but vowed to keep their guns.
The highway is littered with the charred hulks of supply trucks, the smoking remains of burned-out sawmills and the fire-blackened walls of fruit warehouses set afire by the Knights Templars cartel in retaliation for the towns' rebellion.
In the nearby town of Buenavista, many of the masked, lightly armed self-defense patrol members manning a highway checkpoint said they welcomed the army but vowed to resist any attempts to take their guns.
They hung a banner beside the roadway: "Gentlemen of the federal police and the Mexican army, we would prefer to die at your hands, than at those of these stupid, stinking scum," it said, referring to the cartel.
A healthy dose of skepticism remained about the chances of success for sending the army into Michoacan a tactic that then-President Felipe Calderon used to launch his offensive against drug cartels in 2006.
The Michoacan-based Knights Templar is, by all accounts, at least as strong today as its predecessor cartel, the La Familia gang, was in 2006. Instead of attacking the cartel's strongholds in nearby cities like Apatzingan, the troops are fighting a sort of rear-guard action, protecting towns outside the main urban areas without going to the root of the problem.
Rafael Garcia Zamora, mayor of Coalcoman, a town largely cut off from the outside world after it formed its own self-defense force last week, said residents welcomed the arrival of troops, but worried the force might soon leave again and expose the town to the cartel's wrath.
"We don't doubt their ability," he said of the army. "But we need them to help us" root out the criminals and not let the cartel continue to grow.
"The government should have mobilized the army to do this 10 or 12 years ago," Garcia Zamora said.
"We have had temporary raids, with three or four thousand soldiers, but they come and they leave. And you know what? Every time after there is a raid, severed heads show up," he said, referring to drug cartel retaliation against those who help the army.
"People have the courage to speak up, but that has its consequences," he said.
Guatemala top court overturns genocide conviction
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) Guatemala's top court has thrown another curve into the genocide case of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, overturning his conviction and ordering that the trial be taken back to the middle of the proceedings.
The ruling late Monday threw into disarray a process that had been hailed as historic for delivering the first guilty verdict for genocide against a former Latin American leader.
Constitutional Court secretary Martin Guzman said the trial needs to go back to where it stood on April 19 to solve several appeal issues.
The ruling came 10 days after a three-judge panel convicted the 86-year-old Rios Montt of genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in massacres of Mayans during Guatemala's bloody, 36-year civil war. The panel found after two months of testimony that Rios Montt knew about the slaughter of at least 1,771 Ixil Mayans in the western highlands and didn't stop it.
The tribunal sentenced the 86-year-old former general to 80 years in prison, drawing cheers from many Guatemalans. It was the first time a former Latin American leader was convicted of such crimes in his home country and the first official acknowledgment that genocide occurred during the war something the current president, retired Gen. Otto Perez Molina, has denied.
Rios Montt's lawyers immediately filed an appeal, and he spent three days in prison before he was moved to a military hospital, where he remains.
The top court on Monday said it threw out his conviction because the trial should have been stopped while appeals filed by the defense were resolved.
Defense lawyer Francisco Garcia Gudiel told The Associated Press by telephone that he would seek the former dictator's freedom on Tuesday.
"There is no alternative," Garcia said. "The court has made a legal resolution after many flaws in the process. Tomorrow we will ask that they liberate the general, who is being imprisoned unjustly."
Representatives of the victims who testified against Rios Montt couldn't be immediately reached for comment.
The proceedings, which started in March, had been whipped back and forth ever since April 18, when a Guatemalan judge ordered that the trial should be restarted just as it was nearing closing arguments.
Judge Carol Patricia Flores had been recently reinstated by the Constitutional Court after being recused in February 2012. She ruled that all actions taken in the case since she was first asked to step down were null, sending the trial back to square one.
The next day, April 19, the tribunal hearing the oral part of the trial asked the Constitutional Court to decide if the proceedings should continue.
The trial was suspended for 12 days amid appeals and at times appeared headed for annulment. But it resumed April 30, and on May 10 the three-judge tribunal found Rios Montt guilty after more than 100 witnesses and experts testified about mass rapes and the killings of women and children and other atrocities committed by government troops. Rios Montt ruled Guatemala in 1982-83 following a military coup.
Survivors and relatives of victims had sought for 30 years to bring punishment for Rios Montt. For international observers and Guatemalans on both sides of the war, the trial was seen as a turning point in a nation still wrestling with the trauma of a conflict that killed some 200,000 people.
The defense constantly claimed flaws and miscarriages of justice.
Courts solved more than 100 complaints and injunctions filed by the defense before the trial even started.
Rios Montt's defense team walked out on April 18, arguing that they couldn't continue to be part of such a bad proceeding. When the three-judge tribunal resumed the trial, it ordered two public defenders to represent Rios Montt and his co-defendant, Jose Rodriguez Sanchez.
Rios Montt rejected his public defender and instead brought in Garcia, who was expelled earlier by the tribunal but reinstated by an appeals court.
Garcia had earlier been ordered off the case after he called for the three judges on the tribunal to be removed from the proceedings. He kept trying to have the judges dismissed. And the Constitutional Court ruled Monday that the trial should have been suspended while his appeal was heard.
The trial "was unlawfully reopened," Garcia said at the time.
Obama to meet with China's Xi in California June 7-8
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold their first meeting since Xi became president in March when they sit down for a June 7-8 summit in Rancho Mirage, California, the White House announced on Monday.
The two leaders are likely to discuss ways to apply pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program after a period of bellicose rhetoric and threats from Pyongyang.
The United States also has concerns about cyber attacks it says are emanating from China. Washington would also like China to allow its currency to rise against the dollar to improve U.S. trade.
American concerns about tensions in the South China Sea due to conflicting territorial claims are also a possible topic of discussion.
"President Obama and President Xi will hold in-depth discussions on a wide range of bilateral, regional and global issues," the White House said in a statement.
"They will review progress and challenges in U.S.-China relations over the past four years and discuss ways to enhance cooperation, while constructively managing our differences, in the years ahead," it said.
The meeting will be the first between the two leaders since Xi took over as China's president in March.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China was willing to work with the United States to strengthen dialogue and cooperation in relations, which he said were "at a new historical period".
"Of course, some differences exist between China and the United States, which require proper and active management by both sides," Hong said. "This year, Sino-U.S. relations have got off to a good start and are facing an important opportunity for development."
Hong said the two leaders would have "comprehensive and in-depth discussions" on a range of issues.
The leaders will meet at Sunnylands, a 200-acre (80-hectare) estate on Bob Hope Drive in Rancho Mirage, California. Sunnylands is the former estate of the late philanthropist Walter Annenberg, who frequently hosted President Ronald Reagan there.
The fact that they will devote two days to the talks shows an intent by the two leaders to build a closer relationship. White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon will travel to Beijing to meet Chinese officials May 26-28 to prepare for the Xi visit.
As part of his trip to the Americas, Xi will also make state visits to Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago and Costa Rica, China's Foreign Ministry said.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland in Washington; Additional reporting by Adam Jourdan in Shanghai and Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing; Editing by Eric Beech and Robert Birsel)
Apple, Congress spar over taxes ahead of Tuesday hearing
By Patrick Temple-West and Poornima Gupta
WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Using an unusual global tax structure, Apple Inc has kept billions of dollars in profits in Irish subsidiaries to pay little or no taxes to any government, a Senate report on the company's offshore tax structure said on Monday.
In a 40-page memorandum released a day before Apple CEO Tim Cook is scheduled to testify before Congress, the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations identified three subsidiaries that have no "tax residency" in Ireland, where they are incorporated, or in the United States, where company executives manage those companies.
The main subsidiary, a holding company that includes Apple's retail stores throughout Europe, has not paid any corporate income tax in the last five years.
The subsidiary, which has a Cork, Ireland, mailing address, received $29.9 billion in dividends from lower-tiered offshore Apple affiliates from 2009 to 2012, comprising 30 percent of Apple's total worldwide net profits, the report said.
"Apple has exploited a difference between Irish and U.S. tax residency rules," the report said.
Apple said in a comment posted online on Monday it does not use "tax gimmicks." It said the existence of its subsidiary "Apple Operations International" in Ireland does not reduce Apple's U.S. tax liability and the company will pay more than $7 billion in U.S. taxes in fiscal 2013.
Subcommittee staffers said on Monday that Apple was not breaking any laws and had cooperated fully with the investigation.
CODE OVERHAUL SOUGHT
Tuesday's hearing is the second to be held by Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the subcommittee, to shed light on the weaknesses of the U.S. corporate tax code. Levin has sought to overhaul the code in Congress.
Lawmakers globally are closely scrutinizing the taxes paid by multinational companies. In Britain, Google faces regulatory inquiries over its own tax policies, while Hewlett-Packard Co and Microsoft Corp have been called to Capitol Hill to answer questions about their own practices.
Corporations must pay the top U.S. 35-percent corporate tax on foreign profits, but not until those profits are brought into the United States from abroad. This exception is known as corporate offshore income deferral.
In submitted testimony ahead of Tuesday's hearing, Apple said any tax reform should favor lower corporate income tax rates regardless of revenue, eliminate tax expenditures and implement a "reasonable tax on foreign earnings that allows free movement of capital back to the US."
"Apple recognizes these and other improvements in the U.S. corporate tax system may increase the company's taxes," it said.
Large U.S. companies boosted their offshore earnings by 15 percent last year to a record $1.9 trillion, avoiding hefty tax bills by keeping the profits abroad, according to research firm Audit Analytics.
TAX SCRUTINY
Apple also uses two conventional offshore tax practices typical of multinational companies' tax-avoidance strategies, the report said.
Multinational corporations value goods and services moving across international borders from one corporate unit to another. Known as "transfer pricing," these moves are frequently managed to reduce corporations' global tax costs.
Apple's tax structure highlights flaws in the U.S. corporate tax code so that Congress "can effectively close the loopholes used by many U.S. multinational companies," Arizona Senator John McCain, the subcommittee's top Republican, said in a statement on Monday.
Levin, who announced he will retire at the end of 2014, introduced legislation in February to close tax loopholes. At a news conference on Monday, Levin said his bill should pass independent of any broader tax reform push in Congress.
McCain, the top Republican on the subcommittee, told the joint news conference he would co-sponsor Levin's bill, the first Republican to support the bill. He called Apple's tax practices "egregious, and (a) really outrageous scheme."
Similar legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives.
Government tax officials from the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department also are scheduled to testify before the subcommittee on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Patrick Temple-West in Washington and Poornima Gupta in San Francisco; Editing by Howard Goller, Bernard Orr)
Singer George Michael gets medical treatment after car crash
LONDON (Reuters) - British singer George Michael has received medical treatment after a car crash on Thursday, his publicist said.
The 49-year-old former Wham! frontman was being treated for "minor cuts and bruises" after the accident, Michael's spokeswoman said.
"George Michael was a passenger in a vehicle involved in a traffic accident yesterday evening, no third party was involved," a spokeswoman said on Friday. "He is being treated for superficial cuts and bruises but is fine."
British media reported that the accident occurred just outside London on a motorway during rush hour.
The "Careless Whisper" singer has suffered a string of accidents and health scares recently.
Last year he canceled his tour of Australia due to "major anxiety" brought on by a 2011 battle with severe pneumonia in Vienna, where he was treated in intensive care for a month for a life-threatening illness.
Michael has sold an estimated 100 million records over his career, but has hit headlines in recent years for his personal life more often than for his music.
In 1998 he was arrested in California for "engaging in a lewd act" in a public toilet and also had a number of run-ins with British police for possession of narcotics. He served a term in jail for driving under the influence of cannabis.
(Reporting by Paul Casciato; editing by Mike Collett-White)
Marks & Spencer says investment to hold back profits
By James Davey
LONDON (Reuters) - British retailer Marks & Spencer posted its lowest annual profit since 2009 on Tuesday, hit by a drop in clothing sales, and said growth this financial year would be held back by investments online and in logistics.
The 129-year-old firm, battling to reverse seven straight quarters of falling underlying sales in clothing and homewares, said it expected a stronger performance next fiscal year, when new fashion ranges deliver results and capital spending falls.
At that point, it would look at improving returns for shareholders, it said on Tuesday.
Marks & Spencer (M&S) shares, up around 30 percent over the past year amid periodic bouts of bid speculation but still well down on their 2007 highs, rose over 4 percent in morning trade.
"Lower capex (capital spending) guidance for 2013-14 onwards ... could mean improved dividends, share buybacks or even a one-off payout," said Panmure Gordon analyst Jean Roche.
M&S is spending about 2.4 billion pounds ($3.7 billion) over three years on store revamps, logistics, IT and systems, as well as selective investment overseas, as it seeks to become an international multi-channel retailer, connecting with customers through stores, the internet and mobile devices.
But it has struggled in a faltering economy and lost market share in its core womenswear business. Chief executive Marc Bolland is pinning his hopes on autumn/winter ranges that were unveiled last week by his new general merchandise team to generally positive reviews.
"However many operational improvements it makes, it's all immaterial unless the retailer can rediscover its panache," said John Ibbotson, director of retail consultants Retail Vision.
Bolland, brought into M&S in 2010 on a multi-million pound pay and performance-related bonus scheme, acknowledged the challenge, but was confident of success.
"Two years into a three year plan, we've made strong progress on the transformation. We know we've got a job to do on general merchandise and womenswear," he told reporters.
Chief Financial Officer Alan Stewart said M&S's investors backed the board. "They agree with the strategy, they agree with the investments we're making. They're recognising that it is a process of transformation," he said.
M&S also said it had appointed Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne as its new marketing director. Bousquet-Chavanne, currently corporate director of strategy implementation and business development, will succeed Steven Sharp in July.
PROFIT FALL
M&S, which serves 21 million shoppers a week from over 700 UK stores, made a profit before tax and one-off items of 665.2 million pounds in the year to March 30, a second straight fall, on sales up 1.3 percent to 10.0 billion pounds.
The profit compared with analyst forecasts of 640-670 million pounds, with a consensus of 658 million, according to a poll published on the company's website, and is a 3.2 percent decline on the 687.2 million pounds made in 2011-12.
M&S kept its annual dividend at 17 pence a share.
The group forecast an "underlying profit improvement" in the 2013-14 year but cautioned it expected to incur about 30 million pounds of non-recurring dual-running costs as a result of the transition to a new web platform and the opening of a new distribution centre in Castle Donington, central England.
Many UK retailers are finding the going tough as consumers, whose spending generates about two-thirds of UK gross domestic product, fret over job security and a squeeze on incomes.
M&S's profit fall, which was cushioned by a rise in sales at its upmarket food business, will likely impact Bolland's performance-related annual bonus.
Shares in M&S hit a five-year high last week after the unveiling of its new autumn/winter clothing ranges. They were up 4.5 percent to 460.25 pence at 0915 GMT, valuing the firm at 7.5 billion pounds. The stock traded at over 750 pence in 2007.
M&S forecast capital spending would be 775 million pounds in 2013-14, down from previous guidance of 850 million, and around 550 million in 2014-15, down from 600 million previously.
(Editing by Mark Potter)
After a decade, global AIDS program looks ahead
WASHINGTON (AP) The decade-old law that transformed the battle against HIV and AIDS in developing countries is at a crossroads. The dream of future generations freed from epidemic is running up against an era of economic recovery and harsh budget cuts.
The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief grew out of an unlikely partnership between President George W. Bush and lawmakers led by the Congressional Black Caucus. It has come to represent what Washington can do when it puts politics aside and what America can do to make the world a better place.
President Barack Obama, speaking at the recent dedication of Bush's presidential library, praised the compassion Bush showed in "helping to save millions of lives and reminding people in some of the poorest corners of the globe that America cares."
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said of Bush in a statement that "while many events may distinguish his presidency, his devotion to combatting the scourge of HIV/AIDS will certainly define his legacy."
The AIDS program's future, however, is uncertain. Obama has upped the stakes, speaking in his State of the Union address this year of "realizing the promise of an AIDS-free generation." But funding for the relief plan's bilateral efforts has dipped in recent years and it's doubtful that Congress, in its current budget-cutting mood, will reverse that trend when the current five-year program expires later this year.
The AIDS program is also trying to find a balance between its goals of reaching more people with its prevention and treatment programs and turning over more responsibility to the host nations where it operates.
"This has been an incredible achievement," said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., a senior Congressional Black Caucus member who played major roles both in passing the original 2003 act and its 2008 renewal that significantly increased funding for AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis treatment in Africa and other areas of the developing world. She spoke of the more than 5 million people now receiving life-saving antiretroviral treatment and 11 million pregnant women who received HIV testing and counseling last year. "But I'm worried that with any type of level-funding or cuts we'll go backward," she said.
The 2008 act more than tripled funding from the 2003 measure, approving $48 billion over five years for bilateral and global AIDS programs, malaria and tuberculosis. It also ended U.S. policy making it almost impossible for HIV-positive people to get visas to enter the country.
The AIDS program was the largest commitment ever by a nation to combat a single disease internationally. According to the U.N.'s UNAIDS and the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2011 the United States provided nearly 60 percent of all international AIDS assistance.
A decade ago, almost no one in sub-Saharan Africa was receiving antiretroviral treatment. By 2008, the AIDS program had boosted that number to 1.7 million. As of last year it was 5.1 million.
The State Department says the program last year also helped provide treatment to some 750,000 HIV-positive pregnant women, allowing about 230,000 infants to be born HIV-free, supported 2 million male circumcisions and directly supported HIV testing and counseling for 46.5 million.
"This is a remarkable story that the American people should know about," Kimberly Scott of the Institute of Medicine, which recently completed an evaluation of the AIDS program, said at a forum sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the CSIS Global Health Policy Center.
According to UNAIDS, the number of people living with HIV has leveled off, standing at about 34 million at the end of 2011. New infections that year reached 2.5 million, down 20 percent from 2001. AIDS-related deaths were 1.7 million, down from 2.3 million in 2005.
Jennifer Kates, director of global health and HIV policy at Kaiser, said most countries where the program operates have yet to reach the "tipping point," where new infections occurring in a year are less than the increase in people receiving treatment. Among the success stories were Ethiopia, where the 40,000 going on treatment in 2011 was almost four times the new infections. Still with a long way to go was Nigeria, which that year had 270,000 new HIV infections and a 57,000 increase in those getting treatment.
Chris Collins, director of public policy at amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, also warned of potential repercussions as the AIDS program shifts from being an emergency response to the AIDS epidemic to a more supportive role for country-based health programs.
"The countries themselves largely are avoiding the important role that key populations play in epidemics," he said, referring to gay men, those injecting drugs and sex workers. These groups face discrimination and criminal charges in many cases, and 90 percent of the money to help them now comes from external sources.
Collins also spoke of the "huge mismatch" between the positive science and rhetoric on fighting AIDS and the money available. Since 2009 the funding for bilateral and global HIV and AIDS programs has largely stalled.
Kaiser's Kates said that while there's still bipartisan support for the AIDS program in Congress, "the big question is will the financing be there to reach the goals" of treating more people and advancing toward that AIDS-free generation. "The challenge right now is that the global economic climate is different, the U.S. climate is different, but the need is still great."
Powerball jackpot could go higher than $600 million
By Karen Brooks
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Powerball jackpot Saturday night could exceed the $600 million figure being advertised, possibly rivaling the largest lottery payoff in U.S. history, a Texas Lottery official said on Saturday.
"Oftentimes, the advertised amount is lower than what the actual jackpot ends up being," said Kelly Cripe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Lottery. "It's entirely possible this $600 million jackpot will end up being a bigger jackpot."
Chances of winning the Powerball on Saturday were one in 175 million, Cripe said, but that did not deter people from buying up tickets at staggering rates. California was selling $1 million in tickets every hour on Saturday, said Donna Cordova, a spokeswoman for the California Lottery, which has only been selling Powerball tickets since April 8.
Texas Lottery officials reported $1.2 million in hourly sales between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. local time, with ticket sales for the Saturday draw topping $18.4 million.
The ticket sale rate on Saturday was nearly double Friday's rate, Cripe said, and a jump of some 686 percent over last Saturday.
The Powerball lottery, which has not had a winner in two months, is offered in 43 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
A Powerball lottery record was set in November with a $587.5 million jackpot that topped the $550 million figure that was advertised, thanks to last-minute sales.
The largest jackpot in U.S. history was the $656 million in the Mega Millions lottery in March 2012. That prize was split between winners in Maryland, Kansas and Illinois.
If Saturday's Powerball drawing yields no winner, all records will be shattered as the jackpot for Wednesday's drawing would go to $925 million.
Many Americans were playing the "if I win" game ahead of Saturday's drawing.
"If I win, I'm going to spend a lot of it on liquor, women and gambling," said Austin lawyer Donald Dickson. "I'll likely squander the rest of it."
In New York City, talent acquisition agent Michelle Amici was more philanthropic.
"Not sure that I'd buy anything," she said. "Rather, I'd attempt to quench my wanderlust by traveling the world. I'd also donate a large portion to education reform."
Lottery players such as Austin marketing professional Becky Arreaga was not discouraged by the long odds.
"As long as the odds are 1 in anything, I'm in," said Arreaga, a partner at Mercury Mambo marketing firm. "I truly believe I could be the one."
"It's only a couple bucks for a small daydream," said Russell Williams, 35, a salesman in Austin, Texas.
Bonnie Carreno of El Paso, Texas, rarely plays but was taking a chance on this one. "I only ever buy a ticket when I see the amazing numbers in the headlines," she said.
The $2 tickets allow players pick five numbers from 1 to 59, and a Powerball number from 1 to 35. The numbers will be drawn Saturday at 10:59 p.m. EDT (0259 GMT on Sunday) in Tallahassee, Florida.
(Reporting by Karen Brooks; Editing by Greg McCune, Doina Chiacu and Bill Trott)
Dollar firms as Fed suspense builds, shares off highs
By Marc Jones
LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar edged up, gold steadied and European shares held near five-year highs on Tuesday as investors look out for U.S. Federal Reserve signals on the future of its stimulus program.
Upbeat comments from Chicago policymaker Charles Evans have made Wednesday's release of minutes of the U.S. central bank's last meeting and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony in Congress the same day the main focus for markets.
The usually dovish Evans said on Monday that as long as the recent pickup in the U.S. jobs market continued he was "open-minded" about slowing the Fed's $85 billion a month bond-buying program, and he even mentioned the idea of simply halting it.
The dollar was up 0.25 percent against a basket of major currencies as mid-morning approached in Europe, although that was comfortably below its recent three-year high.
Economists expect Fed Chairman Bernanke to deliver a steady message on the bank's policy when he speaks to U.S. Congress. But any hint that it plans to wind in its support in the coming months could unsettle markets used to a steady drip of stimulus.
Having hit a five-year high on Monday, top European shares were 0.3 percent lower by 0815 GMT (4.15 a.m. EDT) as investors took the pre-Fed uncertainty as a cue to cash in on some of the recent sharp gains.
"With the economic numbers being pretty good in the States, there may be an easing back of QE (quantitative easing bond-buying stimulus) sooner rather than later," said Berkeley Futures associate director Richard Griffiths.
"The DAX and Euro STOXX have moved ahead a lot more than the UK, so in the event of any profit-taking in the U.S., the European markets may drop just that little bit more."
It was a similar story in the bond market, where safe-haven German Bund futures lost ground. If the Fed does slow its bond-buying it will effectively be a tightening of monetary policy and thereby push up benchmark bond yields.
YEN, METALS YO-YO
Currency and stock markets across Asia were largely subdued, although Japan's Nikkei index managed to creep up to a fresh 5-1/2 year high and the yen gave back some of Monday's minor gains.
The yen's move came after Japan's economy minister said his comments the previous day that the government was now satisfied with the level of the currency had been misinterpreted.
"The Japanese yen story is still very much the same as it has been all along," said Societe Generale strategist Kit Juckes.
"Any correction in the dollar yen has been shallower than people who wanted big dips to make money out of could look for. And those who think it is a turn are being repeatedly thwarted."
After a recent rollercoaster ride in precious metals, gold steadied around $1,390 an ounce, although the stronger dollar left it facing its eighth fall in nine sessions.
But silver fell as much as 2.2 percent to trade near the 2-1/2-year lows hit during a 6 percent slide on Monday, when an unidentified investor sold off a large holding.
The metal has fallen out of favor with investors recently as declining demand from the photovoltaic solar energy sector and a growth in mine supply tarnish the outlook.
Spot silver XAG= was down around 1.2 percent at $22.65 an ounce. It hit a session low earlier of $22.41, not far off the 2-1/2 year low of $20.84 on Monday.
(Editing by Hugh Lawson)
Crews dig through night after deadly Okla. twister
MOORE, Okla. (AP) Spotlights bore down on massive piles of shredded cinder block, insulation and metal as crews worked through the night early Tuesday lifting bricks and parts of collapsed walls where a monstrous tornado barreled through the Oklahoma City suburbs, demolishing an elementary school and reducing homes to piles of splintered wood. At least 51 people were killed, including at least 20 children, and those numbers were expected to climb, officials said.
The storm left scores of blocks in Moore barren and dark. Rescuers walked through neighborhoods where Monday's powerful twister flattened home after home and stripped leaves off of trees to see if they could hear any voices calling out from the rubble.
As Monday turned into Tuesday, the town of Moore, a community of 41,000 people 10 miles south of the city, braced for another harrowing, long day.
"As long as we are here ... we are going to hold out hope that we will find survivors," said Trooper Betsy Randolph, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
More than 120 people were being treated at hospitals, including about 50 children. Amy Elliott, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office, said Tuesday that there could be as many as 40 more fatalities from Monday's tornado.
Families anxiously waited at nearby churches to hear if their loved ones were OK. A man with a megaphone stood Monday evening near St. Andrews United Methodist Church and called out the names of surviving children. Parents waited nearby, hoping to hear their sons' and daughters' names.
While some parents and children hugged each other as they reunited, others were left to wait, fearing the worst as the night dragged on.
Crews continued their desperate search-and-rescue effort throughout the night at Plaza Towers Elementary, where the storm had ripped off the school's roof, knocked down walls and turned the playground into a mass of twisted plastic and metal as students and teachers huddled in hallways and bathrooms.
Children from the school were among the dead, but several students were pulled out alive earlier Monday from under a collapsed wall and other heaps of mangled debris. Rescue workers passed the survivors down a human chain of parents and neighborhood volunteers. Parents carried children in their arms to a triage center in the parking lot. Some of the students looked dazed while others appeared terrified.
James Rushing, who lives across the street from the school, heard reports of the approaching twister and ran to the school, where his 5-year-old foster son, Aiden, attends classes. Rushing believed he would be safer there.
"About two minutes after I got there, the school started coming apart," he said.
As dusk fell, heavy equipment rolled up to the school, and emergency workers wearing yellow crawled among the ruins, searching for survivors. Crews used jackhammers and sledgehammers to tear away concrete, and chunks were being thrown to the side as the workers dug.
Douglas Sherman drove two blocks from his home to help.
"Just having those kids trapped in that school, that really turns the table on a lot of things," he said.
Another school, Briarwood Elementary, was also damaged by the tornado, but not as extensively as Plaza Towers.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin deployed 80 National Guard members to assist with rescue operations and activated extra highway patrol officers.
Fallin also spoke Monday with President Barack Obama, who declared a major disaster and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts.
In video of the storm, the dark funnel cloud could be seen marching slowly across the green landscape. As it churned through the community, the twister scattered shards of wood, awnings and glass all over the streets.
The tornado also destroyed the community hospital and some retail stores. Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis watched it pass through from his jewelry shop.
"All of my employees were in the vault," Lewis said.
Chris Calvert saw the menacing cloud approaching from about a mile away.
"I was close enough to hear it," he said. "It was just a low roar, and you could see the debris, like pieces of shingles and insulation and stuff like that, rotating around it."
Even though his subdivision is a mile from the tornado's path, it was still covered with debris. He found a picture of a small girl on Santa Claus' lap in his yard.
A map provided by the National Weather Service showed that the storm began west of Newcastle and crossed the Canadian River into Oklahoma City's rural far southwestern side about 3 p.m. When it reached Moore, the twister cut a path through the center of town before lifting back into the sky at Lake Stanley Draper.
The National Weather Service issued an initial finding that the tornado was an EF-4 on the enhanced Fujita scale, the second most-powerful type of twister.
Monday's powerful tornado loosely followed the path of a killer twister that slammed the region in May 1999.
The weather service estimated that Monday's tornado was at least a half-mile wide. The 1999 storm had winds clocked at 300 mph.
Kelsey Angle, a weather service meteorologist in Kansas City, Mo., said it's unusual for two such powerful tornadoes to track roughly the same path.
It was the fourth tornado to hit Moore since 1998. A twister also struck in 2003.
Lewis, who was also mayor during the 1999 storm, said the city was already at work on the recovery.
"We've already started printing the street signs. It took 61 days to clean up after the 1999 tornado. We had a lot of help then. We've got a lot of help now."
Monday's devastation in Oklahoma came almost exactly two years after an enormous twister ripped through the city of Joplin, Mo., killing 158 people and injuring hundreds more.
That May 22, 2011, tornado was the deadliest in the United States since modern tornado record keeping began in 1950, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Before Joplin, the deadliest modern tornado was June 1953 in Flint, Mich., when 116 people died.
___
Associated Press writers Sean Murphy and Sue Ogrocki contributed to this report.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
UK first in EU to get Merck's new Schmallenberg vaccine
LONDON (Reuters) - British farmers will be the first in Europe to get a vaccine against Schmallenberg virus, a new livestock disease that hit the continent in 2011.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said on Tuesday that MSD Animal Health, a unit of Merck & Co, had been issued a licence for the new vaccine after an accelerated assessment to make it available this summer.
As a result, farmers will be able to vaccinate sheep and cattle before most of them become pregnant, which is important as exposure to the virus can cause damage to foetuses.
Schmallenberg virus - named after the German town where it was first detected - infected sheep and cows on at least 2,600 farms in eight EU countries in 2011.
It is particularly harmful to the offspring of animals infected during early pregnancy, resulting in stillbirths and malformations such as brain deformities, twisted spines and locked joints.
(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by David Cowell)
Marijuana waste helps turn pot-eating pigs into tasty pork roast
By Jonathan Kaminsky
OLYMPIA, Washington (Reuters) - With Washington state about to embark on a first-of-its-kind legal market for recreational marijuana, the budding ranks of new cannabis growers face a quandary over what to do with the excess stems, roots and leaves from their plants.
Susannah Gross, who owns a five-acre farm north of Seattle, is part of a group experimenting with a solution that seems to make the most of marijuana's appetite-enhancing properties - turning weed waste into pig food.
Four pigs whose feed was supplemented with potent plant leavings during the last four months of their lives ended up 20 to 30 pounds heavier than the half-dozen other pigs from the same litter when they were all sent to slaughter in March.
"They were eating more, as you can imagine," Gross said.
Giving farm animals the munchies is the latest outcome of a ballot measure passed by Washington voters in November making their state one of the first to legalize the recreational use of pot. The other was Colorado. Both were among about 20 states with medical marijuana laws already on their books.
The federal government still classifies cannabis as an illegal narcotic, and the Obama administration has not yet said what actions, if any, it will take in answer to the newly passed recreational weed statutes.
Matt McAlman, the medical marijuana grower who provided the pot leavings for Gross' pigs, says he hopes the idea expands with the likely impending expansion of Washington state's marijuana industry.
"We can have pot chickens, pot pigs, grass-fed beef," he said.
Draft regulations issued last week to govern the burgeoning recreational-use industry seem to leave open that possibility. The rules dictate that marijuana plant waste must be "rendered unusable prior to leaving a licensed producer or processor's facility," adding that mixing it with food waste would be acceptable.
Gross' pigs were butchered by William von Schneidau, who has a shop at the famous Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. In March, von Schneidau held a "Pot Pig Gig" at the market, serving up the marijuana-fed pork as part of a five-course meal.
He quickly sold out the remaining weed-fed meat at his shop but plans another pot-pig feast later this summer, he said.
"Some say the meat seems to taste more savory," he said.
The results beg the question of whether pot-fed pork contains any measurable traces of THC, the mind-altering chemical ingredient in cannabis.
The European Food Safety Authority reported in 2011 that "no studies concerning tolerance or effects of graded levels of THC in food-producing animals have been found in literature."
The agency also noted that "no data are available concerning the likely transfer of THC ... to animal tissues and eggs following repeated administration."
(Editing by Steve Gorman and Bob Burgdorfer)
Exclusive: U.S. Air Force to move forward target date for F-35 use
By Andrea Shalal-Esa
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force plans to start operational use of Lockheed Martin Corp.-built F-35 fighter jets in mid-2016, a year earlier than planned, using a similar software package as the Marine Corps, two sources familiar with the plans said on Monday.
The Air Force's decision to accelerate its introduction with a slightly less capable version of the F-35 software package means the planes will carry fewer weapons at first, although the software will later be upgraded to the final version, said the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said a final decision had not been made and declined to comment further. A spokesman for the Pentagon's F-35 program office declined to comment.
The decision reflects the military's desire to start using the new warplanes, which are already rolling off the assembly line at Lockheed's sprawling Fort Worth, Texas, plant, even as military officials continue to test the plane.
The Air Force, Marines and Navy must report to Congress by June 1 on their target dates for initial operational capability, or IOC, which marks the point when the services have enough planes on hand to go to war if needed. Actual deployments usually lag IOC dates by about a year.
The sources said the services would send Congress a list of target or "objective" dates for declaring initial operational capability and a list of "threshold" dates, or deadlines.
The Marines Corps is sticking to its plan to begin early operational use in mid-2015 of its F-35B jets, which can take off and land like a helicopter, making it the first of the three U.S. military services to start using the jets.
Its threshold is the end of 2015. The planes will run the F-35's 2B software, which will give the Marines an initial war fighting capability that includes some air-to-air skills, the ability to strike targets on the ground and carry several internal weapons, including laser-guided bombs.
The Navy has set mid-2018 for starting operational use of its C-model F-35, which is designed for use aboard U.S. aircraft carriers. Its deadline or threshold date is early 2019.
The Air Force decision marks a reversal from its earlier insistence that it needed the final 3F software package and comes after a Pentagon report cited China's development of two new fifth generation fighters over the past year.
"This decision gets that (U.S.) fifth-generation capability out on the front lines that much sooner," said one of the sources familiar with the Air Force's plans. "It also sends a message about confidence in the program to Congress and the international partners."
The Air Force began studying the possible change several months ago. Lieutenant General Charles Davis told reporters in March that it might make sense to declare initial operating capability earlier than initially planned, given that the weapons on board would be suitable for basic war fighting needs.
The Air Force will have about 100 F-35s by 2016, when it plans to declare the planes ready for operational use.
The Pentagon's program chief, Lieutenant General Christopher Bogdan, told lawmakers last month he was "moderately confident" that the 2B software -- and the associated 3I software being developed for international buyers -- would be completed in time for the planned Marine Corps IOC in mid-2015.
The Air Force jets would use the 3I software, which will include a technology refresh with improved memory processors for some sensors on board.
Bogdan said it was not as clear that work on the final software package would be done in 2017, when the Air Force initially planned to declare IOC.
The final 3F software will support use of the aircraft's full war fighting capability, with additional internal and external weapons, and more advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Dan Grebler)
Obama to meet with China's Xi in California June 7-8
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold their first meeting since Xi became president in March when they sit down for a June 7-8 summit in Rancho Mirage, California, the White House announced on Monday.
The two leaders are likely to discuss ways to apply pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program after a period of bellicose rhetoric and threats from Pyongyang.
The United States also has concerns about cyber attacks it says are emanating from China. Washington would also like China to allow its currency to rise against the dollar to improve U.S. trade.
American concerns about tensions in the South China Sea due to conflicting territorial claims are also a possible topic of discussion.
"President Obama and President Xi will hold in-depth discussions on a wide range of bilateral, regional and global issues," the White House said in a statement.
"They will review progress and challenges in U.S.-China relations over the past four years and discuss ways to enhance cooperation, while constructively managing our differences, in the years ahead," it said.
The meeting will be the first between the two leaders since Xi took over as China's president in March.
The leaders will meet at Sunnylands, a 200-acre (80 hectare) estate on Bob Hope Drive in Rancho Mirage, California. Sunnylands is the former estate of the late philanthropist Walter Annenberg, who frequently hosted President Ronald Reagan there.
The fact that they will devote two days to the talks shows an intent by the two leaders to build a closer relationship. White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon will travel to Beijing to meet Chinese officials May 26-28 to prepare for the Xi visit.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Editing by David Brunnstrom)
Chief Palestinian peace negotiator backs Kerry's efforts
By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The top Palestinian negotiator with Israel on Monday threw his weight behind U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's bid to revive stalled peace talks, while describing the situation in the West Bank as apartheid worse than that suffered in South Africa.
Kerry is due to visit Jerusalem and Ramallah on Thursday and Friday. U.S.-brokered peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel broke down in 2010 in a dispute over continuing Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told a U.N. committee in New York on Monday that a settlement freeze and the release of Palestinian prisoners were not conditions for returning to negotiations, but rather obligations that Israel must fulfill.
"We have no conditions to resume negotiations," Erekat told the committee on rights of the Palestinian people, which was created by the U.N. General Assembly in 1975.
"Make no mistake we are exerting every possible effort in order to see that Mr. Kerry succeeds. No one benefits more from the success of Secretary Kerry than Palestinians and no one loses more from his failure than Palestinians," Erekat said.
He said that in the past two months Kerry had met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas five times, Erekat three times and that the three spoke by phone almost weekly.
"Mr. Kerry is keeping things (close to) his chest. He likes to work very, very, very below the radar and grow things like mushrooms," Erekat said. "We did everything ... in order to enable him to succeed. He is not going to wait for years or months actually, he's working very hard."
Palestinians seek to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza, where about 2.7 million Palestinians live, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
CHANCE FOR PEACE
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected any Israeli return to the lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, calling those boundaries indefensible.
"Today in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem ... I can sum up the situation with one word - apartheid. Worse than that which existed in South Africa," Erekat said. "Today Israel justifies its apartheid by the term security."
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor accused Erekat of spreading falsehoods and propaganda.
"One would expect a so-called 'peace negotiator' to be educating his own people for tolerance and coexistence," Prosor said in a statement. "Saeb Erekat is using every microphone to incite, inflame, and demonize the State of Israel."
Erekat said the Palestinians had finished preparation to join a raft of international bodies, such as the International Criminal Court, but would not act yet in order to give Kerry and President Barack Obama "a chance" to pursue Middle East peace.
"We want to give a chance to all nations who have a common denominator of achieving two states on the 1967 lines," Erekat said. "There is a chance, there is a good opportunity now."
If the Palestinians were to join the ICC, they could file complaints with the court accusing Israel of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious crimes.
The Palestinians are able to apply to join the ICC and other international bodies after the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly approved the de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine on November 29.
It was a diplomatic setback for the United States and Israel, which were joined by only a handful of countries in voting against upgrading the Palestinian Authority's observer status to "non-member state" from "entity," like the Vatican.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Eric Beech)
A gnome grows in Chelsea - at the flower show, that is
By Paul Casciato
LONDON (Reuters) - Some spectators at London's Chelsea Flower Show wouldn't be caught dead with one in the boot of their Bentley, but garden gnomes have turned up at the show's 100th edition this year, for charity.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), which runs Chelsea in the grounds of the Christopher Wren-built Royal Hospital Chelsea, has lifted a ban on the ceramic figures with floppy hats and beards in order to raise funds for an RHS charity that supports the use of gardens in schools.
Some 100 gnomes decorated by singer Elton John, actress Helen Mirren, "Downton Abbey" screenwriter Julian Fellowes and other celebrities have taken up residence by the Great Pavilion at the heart of the show. They are also up for auction on e-Bay.
Sarah Easter, acting show manager, told Reuters the RHS was keen to have a bit of fun with the gnomes, but also wants to underscore the importance of getting children out in the fresh air to learn about flowers, vegetables and fruit.
"It's got huge health benefits, it's relaxing, it's good exercise and the design side of gardening gets underplayed," Easter said.
GARDENING NOT JUST FOR GROWNUPS
British pop singer Lily Allen told Reuters that gardening was particularly important for young people surrounded by touch-screen tablets and smartphones.
"I think there is so much immediate gratification these days it's probably quite good for young people especially to grow (plants) and feed them and watch, chill out and learn something about patience," she said as she strolled amongst a largely grey-haired crowd of VIPs and gardening enthusiasts.
Celebrity gardener Alan Titchmarsh, host of a BBC television show about the event that will be seen by millions every night this week, admitted he also has gnomes.
"I hide mine away but I've got them. They're round the back of a yew tree," Titchmarsh told Reuters.
He said Chelsea had pulled out all the stops for the 100th birthday edition, which will see more than 160,000 visitors this year and is famed for bringing plants from throughout the world into fashion as well as reviving old favourites, like roses.
"They always do their best, but they've done their 'double best' this year," he said as he hurried past the show gardens competing for a medal from the judges on Tuesday.
A few steps away, sponsors of the RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) Blue Water Roof Garden, where English designer Nigel Dunnett has created Chelsea's first "living roof", awaited the verdict.
"The judges were here this morning and you could have heard a pin drop," Lynn Patterson, RBC Director, Corporate Responsibility, said.
Dunnett said water conservation, another big theme at this year's show, was a key part of an exhibit that ties North American plants into an urban design meant to highlight the potential for greening city rooftops.
"Water conservation and really wise use of water is at the heart of it," Dunnett said.
Another of the gardens has been created by the Sentebale charity for vulnerable children in the southern African country of Lesotho, supported by Prince Harry, whose grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, is patron of the RHS.
In the Great Pavilion, amongst the fruit, vegetables and blooms of every shape and colour, 10-times gold medallists Karen and Peter Warmenhoven said their 100-year-old Dutch family firm has been bringing Amaryllis flowers and bulbs to Chelsea for 25 years, fulfilling a dream of Peter's grandfather.
The company now has customers all over the world. Is it worth the full time staff, growing flowers in Spain to have them ready in time for Chelsea and how much does it all cost?
"You don't want to know," Peter Warmenhoven said.
(Reporting by Paul Casciato; Editing by Michael Roddy)
Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift big winners at Billboard Awards
(Reuters) - Pop stars Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift won the big prizes on Sunday at the Billboard Music Awards, which also honored legendary performers Madonna and Prince.
Bieber, who was named top male artist, also performed at the show at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. He also took home Billboard's first Milestone Award, chosen by fans, for musical innovation and ingenuity.
"I'm 19 years old. I think I'm doing a pretty good job, Bieber said. "It should really be about the music. This is not a gimmick. I'm an artist and I should be taken seriously. And all this other bull should not be spoken of."
The teen heartthrob did not elaborate, but in recent months he has been involved in several high-profile incidents ranging from driving offenses to reports of hard partying and drugs being found on his tour bus in Sweden.
Swift won the top award of the night, artist of the year. She thanked her fans by telling them: "You are the longest and best relationship I've ever had."
Pop diva Madonna was named top touring artist for her "MDNA Tour," 2012's highest-grossing concert series.
Madonna strode onstage to accept the accolade from will.i.am, wearing black fishnet stockings, garters and a padlock choker.
The MDNA tour grossed more than $305 million from 88 sold-out shows and attracted an audience of 2.2 million people. Madonna acknowledged her fans, saying: "A showgirl needs her fans. Thank you for supporting me for three decades."
She also thanked her four children for being "incredibly supportive."
The Billboard Music Awards, hosted by "30 Rock" star Tracy Morgan, opened with Bruno Mars performing "Treasure."
Early awards went to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, who won top rap song for "Thrift Shop," and Nicki Minaj, who took home the top rap artist honor.
Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" was named top digital song, while Swift took home the top Billboard 200 album award for "Red."
French producer and DJ David Guetta was named top electric dance music artist.
Among musical highlights, Bieber performed "Take You," which was chosen by his fans via Twitter, before pairing up with will.i.am for "#ThatPOWER."
Other musical pairings included Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull singing "#LiveItUp," Minaj and Lil Wayne who performed "High School," and Christina Aguilera and Pitbull singing "Feel This Moment."
Selena Gomez, Chris Brown, Icona Pop, South Korea rap sensation Psy and Swift, who was nominated for 11 Billboard awards and received eight, performed as well.
In an apparently unscripted moment, Miguel, performing "Adorn," leapt from the stage and landed feet-first atop two young women. No mention was made on the broadcast as to whether they were injured.
The show ended with the Icon Award for Prince, in recognition of his unique career and accomplishments in the music industry. Prince performed a medley to close the show, but did not deliver an acceptance speech.
(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by David Brunnstrom and Stacey Joyce)
Nearly 19 Feet! Longest Burmese Python Captured in Florida
Florida has a long list of problematic invasive species, from the vervet monkey to the lionfish, but the Burmese python might be the state's public enemy No. 1 so much so that residents will hop out of their cars at night to catch one double the normal size.
A Miami man wrangled and killed the longest-ever Burmese python to be captured in Florida, wildlife officials announced today (May 20). The 128-lb (58 kilograms) snake measured 18 feet, 8 inches (5.6 meters) long.
Jason Leon spotted the python poking out of the roadside brush late on May 11 as he was driving in a rural part of southeast Miami-Dade County, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). [In Photos: Giant Pythons Invade Florida]
Leon, who had previous experience with Burmese pythons as a pet owner, apparently got out of his car, grabbed the snake behind its head and dragged it out of the brush. People who were with Leon came to help when the snake started wrapping around his leg. The man eventually used a knife to kill the snake and reported the incident to authorities, the FWC said.
Adult Burmese pythons caught in Florida are on average between 6 feet and 9 feet (1.8 and 2.7 m) in length. The previous record-setter, found in August 2012, was 17 feet, 7 inches (5.3 meters) long. That snake still holds the record for carrying the most eggs a whopping 87 of any a Burmese python captured in Florida. The recently identified beast, now dead, was a female but was not carrying any eggs, according to the University of Florida scientists who examined the snake.
Kristen Sommers, the FWC's exotic species coordination leader, praised Leon's actions and said the agency is "grateful to him both for safely removing such a large Burmese python and for reporting its capture."
But tackling the state's problem with the Burmese python will take even greater heroics.
As its name suggests, the snake is native to Southeast Asia, and it was thought to be first let loose by exotic pet owners in the 1990s. Since then, the population of this nonvenomous constrictor has exploded in south Florida, mostly in the everglades, and it is wiping out native wildlife, such as bobcats, foxes, raccoons and other animals. Wildlife officials have said there may be up to 100,000 Burmese pythons living in the state. A month-long python roundup earlier this year saw 68 of them killed.
Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
Image Gallery: Snakes of the World Alien Invaders: Destructive Invasive Species That's Odd! The 10 Weirdest Animal Discoveries Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A Miami man wrangled and killed the longest-ever Burmese python to be captured in Florida, wildlife officials announced today (May 20). The 128-lb (58 kilograms) snake measured 18 feet, 8 inches (5.6 meters) long.
Jason Leon spotted the python poking out of the roadside brush late on May 11 as he was driving in a rural part of southeast Miami-Dade County, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). [In Photos: Giant Pythons Invade Florida]
Leon, who had previous experience with Burmese pythons as a pet owner, apparently got out of his car, grabbed the snake behind its head and dragged it out of the brush. People who were with Leon came to help when the snake started wrapping around his leg. The man eventually used a knife to kill the snake and reported the incident to authorities, the FWC said.
Adult Burmese pythons caught in Florida are on average between 6 feet and 9 feet (1.8 and 2.7 m) in length. The previous record-setter, found in August 2012, was 17 feet, 7 inches (5.3 meters) long. That snake still holds the record for carrying the most eggs a whopping 87 of any a Burmese python captured in Florida. The recently identified beast, now dead, was a female but was not carrying any eggs, according to the University of Florida scientists who examined the snake.
Kristen Sommers, the FWC's exotic species coordination leader, praised Leon's actions and said the agency is "grateful to him both for safely removing such a large Burmese python and for reporting its capture."
But tackling the state's problem with the Burmese python will take even greater heroics.
As its name suggests, the snake is native to Southeast Asia, and it was thought to be first let loose by exotic pet owners in the 1990s. Since then, the population of this nonvenomous constrictor has exploded in south Florida, mostly in the everglades, and it is wiping out native wildlife, such as bobcats, foxes, raccoons and other animals. Wildlife officials have said there may be up to 100,000 Burmese pythons living in the state. A month-long python roundup earlier this year saw 68 of them killed.
Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
Image Gallery: Snakes of the World Alien Invaders: Destructive Invasive Species That's Odd! The 10 Weirdest Animal Discoveries Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
NBC hires news division chief from Britain
NEW YORK (AP) NBC went out of the company and out of the country to find a president for its news division, on Monday naming the first woman to hold the top job.
Deborah Turness, former editor of ITV News in Britain, replaces Steve Capus, who resigned earlier this year, and will begin her new job in August.
Turness will take over a news division bruised by the "Today" show losing its long-held dominant position in the morning to ABC's "Good Morning America." NBC's flagship "Nightly News" broadcast still tops the evening news ratings, but anchor Brian Williams recently saw his "Rock Center" newsmagazine abruptly canceled after less than two years on the air.
"It is quite simply the greatest imaginable honor to be named as the next president of NBC News," Turness said.
In NBC's new management structure, she reports to Pat Fili-Krushel, head of the NBC Universal News Group, as do MSNBC President Phil Griffin and CNBC President Mark Hoffman.
Fili-Krushel was not immediately available for comment. She said in a statement that Turness is "very familiar" with NBC News through a partnership the two networks have.
Turness, who is 46, became editor of ITV News in 2004, the first woman and youngest person to hold that job. Often overshadowed by the state-funded BBC, ITV is Britain's largest commercial television network. ITN, which is 40 percent owned by ITV, is Britain's top commercial news producer. Turness joined the company in 1988 as a news producer and worked for four years during the 1990s in the company's Washington bureau.
"Deborah epitomizes everything that is best about ITN, inspiring our newsrooms with her ideas, enthusiasm and energy," said John Hardie, CEO of ITN. As editor of ITV News, Turness was in charge of news coverage and business operations.
The morning will no doubt be her top priority upon joining NBC. The decline of "Today" is a major blow to the company's pride and bottom line. Women dominate the show's viewership and the ham-fisted replacement of anchor Ann Curry with Savannah Guthrie last year tore at the show's popularity. It has not gone unnoticed that men supervised the show during its turnover.
Within the next two years, Turness will likely be responsible for choosing Matt Lauer's successor on "Today" should the long-running anchor decide to leave.
"Nightly News" still has a comfortable lead in evening news ratings over ABC and CBS. But Turness will probably face lingering morale issues related to the cancellation of "Rock Center" after being bounced around the network's prime-time schedule.
___
Associated Press writer Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.
Deborah Turness, former editor of ITV News in Britain, replaces Steve Capus, who resigned earlier this year, and will begin her new job in August.
Turness will take over a news division bruised by the "Today" show losing its long-held dominant position in the morning to ABC's "Good Morning America." NBC's flagship "Nightly News" broadcast still tops the evening news ratings, but anchor Brian Williams recently saw his "Rock Center" newsmagazine abruptly canceled after less than two years on the air.
"It is quite simply the greatest imaginable honor to be named as the next president of NBC News," Turness said.
In NBC's new management structure, she reports to Pat Fili-Krushel, head of the NBC Universal News Group, as do MSNBC President Phil Griffin and CNBC President Mark Hoffman.
Fili-Krushel was not immediately available for comment. She said in a statement that Turness is "very familiar" with NBC News through a partnership the two networks have.
Turness, who is 46, became editor of ITV News in 2004, the first woman and youngest person to hold that job. Often overshadowed by the state-funded BBC, ITV is Britain's largest commercial television network. ITN, which is 40 percent owned by ITV, is Britain's top commercial news producer. Turness joined the company in 1988 as a news producer and worked for four years during the 1990s in the company's Washington bureau.
"Deborah epitomizes everything that is best about ITN, inspiring our newsrooms with her ideas, enthusiasm and energy," said John Hardie, CEO of ITN. As editor of ITV News, Turness was in charge of news coverage and business operations.
The morning will no doubt be her top priority upon joining NBC. The decline of "Today" is a major blow to the company's pride and bottom line. Women dominate the show's viewership and the ham-fisted replacement of anchor Ann Curry with Savannah Guthrie last year tore at the show's popularity. It has not gone unnoticed that men supervised the show during its turnover.
Within the next two years, Turness will likely be responsible for choosing Matt Lauer's successor on "Today" should the long-running anchor decide to leave.
"Nightly News" still has a comfortable lead in evening news ratings over ABC and CBS. But Turness will probably face lingering morale issues related to the cancellation of "Rock Center" after being bounced around the network's prime-time schedule.
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Associated Press writer Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.
Expectations high for next Xbox
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- It's almost time for a new Xbox.
Eight years have passed since Microsoft unveiled the Xbox 360, double the amount of time between the original Xbox debut in 2001 and its high-definition successor's launch in 2005. With the next-generation Xbox expected to be revealed Tuesday, anticipation for the entertainment console's latest evolution is higher than Master Chief's spaceship.
"People get excited about new consoles because consoles represent the future," said Stephen Totilo, editor of gaming site Kotaku.com. "When you buy a new console, you're essentially investing in five years of your future in the hopes that this box won't just be cool the day you buy it, but in five years from now, it will be even cooler."
The platform has been the exclusive home to such popular gaming franchises as sci-fi shoot-'em-up "Gears of War," racing simulator "Forza" and first-person shooter "Halo," starring super-soldier Master Chief. In recent years, Microsoft expanded the console's scope beyond just games, adding streaming media apps and the family-friendly Kinect system.
The next generation of gaming already got off to a rocky start last November when Nintendo launched the Wii U, the successor to the popular Wii system featuring an innovative tablet-like controller yet graphics on par with the Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo said it sold just 3.45 million units by the end of March, well below expectations.
Microsoft will likely take aim at Sony during Tuesday's next-generation Xbox unveiling at its headquarters in Redmond, Wash. Sony was first to showcase plans for its upcoming PlayStation 4 but not the actual box at an event in New York last February. The reaction to that console, which featured richer graphics and more social features, was mixed.
Totilo said to wow gamers with the next Xbox, Microsoft must show off great games for it that players will crave, as well as technology that feels futuristic. He said there's concern from Xbox fans that Microsoft has lost interest in hardcore gamers with their recent efforts to attract casual gamers with the Kinect, its camera-based system that detects motion.
There will be at least one hardcore game showcased at the Microsoft's event: "Call of Duty: Ghosts," the next chapter in the popular military shooter franchise from "Modern Warfare" developer Infinity Ward. Activison-Blizzard Inc. previously announced that "Ghosts" would be on display Tuesday and will be available for both current and next-generation consoles.
"They wanted 'Call of Duty' on their stage to show off what next gen is capable of," said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing. "We're excited about the approach that both Microsoft and Sony are taking to the next generation. Our business, of course, depends on them launching this new hardware, so we want to do everything we can to help."
For the past five years, questions and rumors about a new Xbox have circulated more than the chainsaw on the end of a "Gears of War" rifle. What will the new Xbox be called? How much will it cost? Will it play used video games? Blu-ray discs? Will it be backwards compatible? Must the Kinect always be on? Will it require a connection to the Internet?
It's that rumor about an always-on Xbox which has ignited the most negative comments on social networks, according to research firm Fizziology. Overall, Fizziology said gamers seem to be more jazzed about a potential new Xbox, with 32 percent of the chatter positive compared to 10 percent of the sentiment negative in online conversation.
"I think because people have been waiting a long time, expectations are higher," said Laurent Detoc, North America president of Ubisoft Entertainment. "As a result, they may not be seeing what they anticipated. In the end, from the research we've done, there's a strong appetite for new machines. I have no doubt they're going to sell extremely well."
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Online:
http://www.xbox.com/
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.
Hezbollah suffers big losses in Syria battle: activists
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Dominic Evans
AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama voiced concern at Hezbollah's growing role in the Syrian civil war on Monday after men from the Lebanese militia fought their biggest battle yet alongside President Bashar al-Assad's army.
About 30 Hezbollah fighters were killed on Sunday, Syrian activists said, along with 20 Syrian soldiers and militiamen loyal to Assad during the fiercest fighting this year in the rebel stronghold of Qusair, close to the Lebanese border.
That would be the highest for Hezbollah in a single day's conflict in Syria, highlighting the increasing intervention by the guerrilla group and prompting U.S. President Barack Obama to voice his concern to his Lebanese counterpart, Michel Suleiman.
If confirmed, the Hezbollah losses also reflect how Syria is becoming a proxy conflict between Shi'ite Iran and Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which back Assad's mostly Sunni enemies. Dozens of dead in sectarian bombings in Iraq on Monday and killings in the Lebanese city of Tripoli compounded a sense of spreading regional confrontation.
Western powers and Russia back opposing sides in the cross-border Syrian free-for-all, which is also sucking in Israel - though Washington and its allies have fought shy of intervening militarily behind fractured and partly Islamist rebel forces.
The White House said Obama spoke to Lebanese President Suleiman and "stressed his concern about Hezbollah's active and growing role in Syria, fighting on behalf of the Assad regime, which is counter to the Lebanese government's policies". The government in Beirut, however, has limited means to influence the politically and militarily powerful Hezbollah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was "preparing for every scenario" in Syria and held out the prospect of more Israeli strikes on Syria to stop Hezbollah and other opponents of Israel obtaining advanced weapons.
Israel has not confirmed or denied reports by Western and Israeli intelligence sources that three raids this year targeted Iranian missiles near Damascus that it believed were awaiting delivery to Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006.
FOG OF WAR
Syrian opposition sources and state media gave widely differing accounts of Sunday's ferocious clashes in Qusair, long used by rebels as a supply route from the nearby Lebanese border to the provincial capital Homs.
Hezbollah has not commented but in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley on Monday several funeral processions could be seen. Pictures of dead fighters were plastered on to cars and mourners waved yellow Hezbollah flags.
Several ambulances were seen on the main Bekaa Valley highway and residents said hospitals had appealed for blood to treat the wounded brought back to Lebanon.
The air and tank assault on the strategic town of 30,000 people appeared to be part of a campaign by Assad's forces to consolidate their grip on Damascus and secure links between the capital and government strongholds in the Alawite coastal heartland via the contested central city of Homs.
The government campaign has coincided with efforts by the United States and Russia, despite their differences on Syria, to organize peace talks to end a conflict now in its third year in which more than 80,000 people have been killed.
A total of 100 combatants from both sides were killed in Sunday's offensive, according to opposition sources, including the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Troops have already retaken several villages around Qusair and have attacked increasingly isolated rebel units in Homs.
"If Qusair falls, God forbid, the opposition in Homs city will be in grave danger," said an activist who called himself Abu Jaafar al-Mugharbil.
State news agency SANA said the army had "restored security and stability to most Qusair neighborhoods" and was "chasing the remnants of the terrorists in the northern district".
Syrian television also showed footage of what it said was an Israeli military Jeep which it said the rebels had been using and which showed the extent of their foreign backing. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the vehicle was decommissioned a decade ago and dismissed the footage as "poor propaganda".
Opposition activists said rebels in Qusair, about 10 km (six miles) from the Lebanese border, had pushed back most of the attacking forces to their original positions in the east of the town and to the south on Sunday, destroying at least four Syrian army tanks and five light Hezbollah vehicles.
The Western-backed leadership of the Free Syrian Army, the loose umbrella group trying to oversee hundreds of disparate rebel brigades, said the Qusair fighters had thwarted Hezbollah with military operations it dubbed "Walls of Death".
Syrian government restrictions on access for independent media make it hard to verify such videos and accounts.
"NO DIALOGUE WITH TERRORISTS"
The fighting raged as Western nations are seeking to step up pressure on Assad - Britain and France want the European Union to allow arms deliveries to rebels - while preparing for the peace talks brokered by Russia and the United States next month.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said "no option is off the table" over the possible arming of rebels if the Syrian government does not negotiate seriously at the proposed talks.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose country has shielded Syria from U.N. Security Council action, said Syrian opposition representatives must take part without precondition, apparently referring to their demands for Assad's exit before they come to the table.
Assad has scorned the idea that the conference expected to convene in Geneva could end a war that is fuelling instability and deepening Sunni-Shi'ite rifts across the Middle East.
"They think a political conference will halt terrorists in the country. That is unrealistic," he told the Argentine newspaper Clarin, in a reference to Syria's mainly Sunni rebels.
Assad ruled out "dialogue with terrorists", but it was not clear from his remarks whether he would agree to send delegates to a conference that may in any case falter before it starts due to disagreements between its two main sponsors and their allies.
The fractured Syrian opposition is to discuss the proposed peace conference at a meeting due to start in Istanbul on Thursday, during which it will also appoint a new leadership.
Attacks by troops and militias loyal to Assad, who inherited power in Syria from his father in 2000, have put rebels under pressure in several of their strongholds in recent weeks.
Assad, from Syria's minority Alawite sect, has been battling an uprising which began with peaceful protests in March 2011. His violent response eventually prompted rebels to take up arms.
Hezbollah has supported Assad throughout the crisis but for months denied reports it was fighting alongside Assad's troops.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the Hezbollah casualties on Sunday at 28 dead and more than 70 wounded, while 48 rebel fighters and four civilians were also killed.
Tareq Murei, an activist in Qusair, said six more people were killed on Monday as Syrian army artillery and Hezbollah rocket launchers bombarded rebel-held parts of the town.
Video footage purportedly showed a Syrian tank on fire at a street corner in the town. In another video a warplane was shown flying over the town amid the sound of explosions.
Lebanese security sources said at least 12 Hezbollah fighters were killed in Qusair on Sunday. Seven were to be buried in the Lebanese town of Baalbek and nearby villages on Monday, they said.
(Additional reporting by Erika Solomon in Hermel and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Samia Nakhoul, Alistair Lyon, Giles Elgood and Alastair Macdonald)
Harper under cloud after chief of staff resigns
By Randall Palmer
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper was under intense pressure on Monday to reassure voters that his administration is above reproach amid questions surrounding a secret check paid to Senator Mike Duffy.
"There's been nothing under this prime minister's watch that's tied him so closely to such a massive ethical scandal. We need to see him show leadership," opposition New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Charlie Angus told a news conference.
Harper's chief of staff, Nigel Wright, resigned on Sunday after news broke that he had written a check from his own bank account for C$90,000 ($88,000) to enable Duffy to repay to the government housing allowances which should not have been claimed.
Senators are banned by their ethics rules from receiving gifts related to their position, and Harper has given no indication of disapproval, saying on Sunday that he accepted that "Nigel believed he was acting in the public interest."
Harper led the Conservatives into office in 2006 on a promise of cleaning up the misdeeds of the previous Liberal government, and has since been reelected twice.
Though he has a parliamentary majority, he is facing a restive caucus and polling numbers that bode trouble for his party in the October 2015 general election, if things are not turned around.
On behalf of the New Democrats, Angus wrote to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Monday to ask for an investigation into the C$90,000 check.
In particular, he cited news reports that an arrangement was made under which Duffy would stay silent, and that a Senate committee report into Duffy's expense claims were altered or "white-washed."
The Senate committee denied any pressure from the prime minister's office, though it has reopened its investigation after new questions were raised about Duffy's expenses. Duffy said when he resigned from the Conservative caucus on Thursday that he had "sought only to do the right thing" throughout the entire situation.
Harper has called a special meeting of the Conservative parliamentary caucus on Tuesday morning before heading to Latin America on a planned visit, where he is expected to urge probity but is also likely to face complaints from legislators.
"Conservatives are angry and want to get to the bottom of it," Conservative strategist Tim Powers told CBC television.
He added that he wished Duffy and Pam Wallin, another Harper appointee whose expenses are under question and who has resigned from caucus, would go further and resign from the Senate.
Outspoken Conservative Member of Parliament Brent Rathgeber told Global television on Sunday about anger back home: "Any suggestion that taxpayers are treated disrespectfully is met with significant concern, I would say even angst."
One prominent New Democrat legislator, Peter Julian, even went so far as to send out a Tweet with the hash tag #PMHarperMustResign, saying the Conservatives' "poor financial management...& scandals & entitlement" were only matched by the former Liberal government.
In a subsequent email to Reuters he clarified that he did not necessarily endorse the #PMHarperMustResign slogan, which did not originate with him, but wanted to contribute to the discussion about it some elements that had not been mentioned.
NDP spokesman Kiavash Najafi said the party was not calling for Harper's resignation.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Royalty raises Elan bid, issues ultimatum to shareholders
By Padraic Halpin and Jessica Toonkel
DUBLIN/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Royalty Pharma raised its hostile bid for Elan to $12.50 per share and threatened to withdraw the bid if Elan shareholders approve a series of defensive transactions announced by the Irish drug firm.
Royalty Pharma, which buys royalty streams of patented drugs, said Elan's efforts to reinvent itself through a series of acquisitions and debt deals were hasty and ill-conceived.
Royalty's new bid for Elan values the company at around $6.4 billion and comes in the face of Elan's insistence that it is worth more. Royalty previously offered $11.25 a share
Elan rejected the initial bid, described as a "nuisance," and stressed that it is determined to keep its independence.
The Dublin-based company said in a statement that its board would assess the new Royalty Pharma offer but "strongly advised" shareholders to take no action on the bid at this time.
Earlier Monday Elan announced its second major drug deal in less than a week.
Royalty said its new, all-cash offer was conditional on Elan shareholders voting against the acquisitions at a special shareholder meeting set for June 17.
Royalty said Elan "dramatically overpaid" last week when it agreed to pay $1 billion for buy 21 percent of the royalties that U.S. company Theravance receives from GlaxoSmithKline.
Royalty said its takeover offer "represents 100 percent liquidity for Elan stockholders today, which Royalty Pharma believes is a far superior alternative to Elan's high-risk strategy of hastily arranged and value-destructive acquisitions."
It added, "If the Theravance transaction and the other transactions announced today serve as a template, Royalty Pharma believes Elan stockholders should be very concerned about future value destruction and undue risk-taking by Elan."
Royalty also contends that Elan's board has "compromised its ability to freely advise Elan shareholders" because according to the Theravance deal, the board is not allowed to recommend Royalty Pharma's offer at any price without breaching that agreement.
"Royalty Pharma believes it is highly irresponsible and 'off-market' to agree to such provisions," the firm said in a statement announcing its sweetened offer.
Elan sold its 50 percent interest in Tysabri, a multiple sclerosis drug, to U.S. partner Biogen Idec in February for $3.25 billion plus royalties of up to 25 percent, and used the proceeds to reward investors through a share buyback and to plot its spending spree.
Royalty also said on Monday that it reserved the right to reduce the acceptance threshold for its increased offer to 50 percent plus one Elan share from 90 percent previously.
Elan shares in New York, up more than 10 percent since Royalty's first approach in February, were up 3 percent to $12.04 in afternoon trading.
In a string of deals over the past few days, Elan has basically transformed itself into a specialty pharma roll-up of companies from around the world, said Michael Yee, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.
Now it is up to shareholders to decide if they want to take the risk of letting management try to execute this strategy, he said.
"The company has limited experience in acquiring, consolidating and executing on products in the last five years," Yee said. "That is why it could be risky."
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin and Brenda Goh; editing by Kate Holton, Louise Heavens and John Wallace)
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