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Musician Andrew W.K., the self-described "party king," set a new world record after playing drums nonstop for 24 hours during MTV's O Music Awards this week. _0"> The O Music Awards, which give out accolades in a variety of fan-voted categories to musicians who make a significant impact online through social media, was streamed solely online as a 24-hour virtual concert. The 34-year-old American, who was born Andrew Fetterly Wilkes-Krier, drummed for 24 hours from Wednesday to Thursday, earning the world record for Longest Drum Session in a Retail Store, MTV said in a statement. A message left seeking confirmation from Guinness World Records, which verifies official records, was not immediately returned. Artists such as the Jonas Brothers, Hanson, Atlas Genius and Kate Nash performed from the MTV studios in New York, Los Angeles and Nashville during the 24-hour live music festival that MTV billed as the largest online-only event of its kind. The network sai

Billboard's weekly music chart will not include the 1 million copies of rapper Jay Z's upcoming album that were sold to electronics maker Samsung as part of a promotion, the U.S. trade magazine said on Friday. _0"> Jay Z, 43, announced last weekend that his album "Magna Carta Holy Grail" could be downloaded for free on July 4 - three days before its public release - to the first 1 million users of Samsung smartphones who had downloaded a special app.   Bulk album sales that are give away for free are not counted in total sales and not eligible to be included on the music charts even if an artist and a record label are paid for them, according to Billboard's rules. The magazine's editorial director, Bill Werde, said Billboard rejected Jay Z's request that the Samsung promotional sales be counted toward the Billboard 200 chart because "in the context of this promotion, nothing is actually for sale." "The ever-visionary Jay Z pull

Reality television star Kim Kardashian and rapper Kanye West have named their baby daughter North West, according to a copy of the birth certificate released by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health on Friday. _0"> Kardashian, the 32-year-old star of the TV show "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," gave birth in Los Angeles on Saturday morning, weeks before her expected due date in July. West was with her for the delivery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. People magazine said the couple had been considering directional names. Representatives for Kardashian and West could not immediately be reached for comment. Kardashian, who also has a clothing line and endorsement deals, started dating the Grammy-winning rap star in April 2012. She married her second husband, NBA basketball player Kris Humphries of the Brooklyn Nets, in an elaborate ceremony filmed for the reality TV show in August 2011. But the union lasted only 72 days.   (Reporting by Eric Kelsey

The Food Network said on Friday it would drop celebrity chef Paula Deen after the Southern food doyenne was sued for racial discrimination and admitted in a legal deposition to using a racial slur in the past. The impending loss of Deen's broadcast deal represents a potentially huge setback for a television personality who has built an empire on high calorie food, with cookbooks and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> restaurants in her native Georgia and other states.   The Food Network said in a statement it "will not renew Paula Deen's contract when it expires at the end of this month." A spokeswoman declined further comment but the network, which is owned by Scripps Network Interactive Inc, said on Thursday it "does not tolerate any form of discrimination and is a strong proponent of diversity and inclusion." The network's decision to drop Deen was announced hours after she failed to make a scheduled appearance on the NBC television mornin

Palestinian cities erupted in joy after Gazan singer Mohammed Assaf won the "Arab Idol" song contest final held in Beirut on Saturday night, providing a welcome break from the grinding conflict with Israel. _0"> The fresh-faced 22-year-old from humble roots in a refugee camp endeared millions of voting television viewers with his Palestinian patriotic anthems and folk songs.   After watching Assaf's victory from giant screens in the Gaza Strip and Israeli-occupied West Bank, tens of thousands of Palestinians set off fireworks, danced in the streets and blasted his music from cars idling in frantic traffic jams. "This shows that Palestinians don't just fight and struggle, but we rejoice and make great art," beamed Awad Najib, a government employee, after a mass viewing outside the Ramallah presidential palace in the West Bank. Some Muslim clerics in Friday sermons had dismissed the pageant, saying its title encouraged idolatry and that people

"Monsters University," the prequel to Pixar's 2001 animated blockbuster "Monsters, Inc.," scared up $82 million in weekend ticket sales to easily outdistance the week's other new movie, the big-budget apocalyptic thriller "World War Z," which came in with an impressive haul of $66 million. "World War Z,", the story of a zombie pandemic starring Brad Pitt, was Pitt's biggest opening weekend ever, easily outpacing the $50.3 million for "Mr. And Mrs. Smith."   Last week's top movie, the Superman reboot "Man of Steel", was third with ticket sales of $41.2 million. "Monsters University," featuring the voices of Billy Crystal and John Goodman as monsters who flunk out of the college's scare program, continued the tradition of hugely successful films produced by Pixar, a unit of the Walt Disney Co. It was Pixar's 14th consecutive film to head the box office for the weekend it premiered in theat

Bobby "Blue" Bland, a pioneer of the modern soul-blues sound, died on Sunday, according to Memphis media reports. He was 83. _0"> Local television stations cited the Memphis Music Foundation, which could not be reached for comment.   Bland was a member of the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His hits included "Turn on Your Love Light," "Further on Up the Road" and "I Pity the Fool." Bland, known as "The Lion of The Blues," was born in 1930 in Rosemark, Tennessee. He moved to Memphis in 1947 where he began mixing sounds from gospel, blues and R&B music, joining the Beale Streeters, a group that included Johnny Ace, B.B. King and Junior Parker, according to Bland's biography on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website. "His hallmark was his supple, confidential soul-blues delivery," the website said. Bland received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. (Reportin

The following are the top stories in the Wall Street Journal. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. _0"> * A global cat-and-mouse game involving the admitted leaker of National Security Agency secrets exploded into a diplomatic scramble, as U.S. authorities sought to catch Edward Snowden before he reached what supporters say is his next goal: political asylum in Ecuador. () * Federal officials are cracking down on fraud in student-aid programs, responding to evidence that a growing number of recipients are pocketing federal loans and grants without any intent of going to school. ()   * Banks have floated to federal regulators a proposal on how to pay for a restructuring of the nation's largest financial institutions in the event of a future crisis. () * Chinese companies are under growing financial pressure as the country's economic growth slows. So industries ranging from airlines to steel to consumer appliances increas

In a country synonymous with larger-than-life mining tycoons and Outback heroes, the geeks are quietly inheriting the earth. As coal magnate Nathan Tinkler, the poster boy for Australia's fading 10-year minerals boom, publicly battles against bankruptcy, software entrepreneurs Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar are riding high. The former college buddies behind fast-growing software firm Atlassian unceremoniously bumped Tinkler off the top of Australia's "young rich list", leading a charge in the country's blooming technology industries.   The tech start-up and biotech sectors are at the forefront of a push to transform Australia from an exporter of iron ore to an exporter of ideas. "It's a pretty primitive economy," said internet entrepreneur Matt Barrie. "We basically dig stuff up out of the ground, put it on a boat and ship it." As part of ambitious plans to change that, the government has announced millions of dollars in new

Britain's FTSE 100 index is seen opening flat to 4 points higher, or up 0.07 percent, on Monday, according to financial bookmakers. For more on the factors affecting European stocks, please click on _0"> * The UK blue chip index fell 43.34 points, or 0.7 percent, to 6,116.17 points on Friday, the lowest seen since January. The index recorded a fifth straight weekly loss, hit by the prospect of a curbing of U.S. monetary stimulus.   * ENRC - The billionaire founders of ENRC are close to finalising a buyout bid for the London-listed Kazakh miner, valuing the troubled group at just over 3 billion pounds ($4.7 billion), below the value of a tentative proposal made in May. * Trading in shares of Kazakhmys was suspended on Monday afternoon pending a statement on inside information, according to a filing on the Hong Kong exchange. The company is also listed in London. * Rio Tinto Ltd has scrapped the proposed sale of its $1.3 billion diamonds business, a setback for its

European stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Monday, adding to last week's sharp losses, as investors fretted about the prospect of reduced U.S. monetary stimulus and worries over China's banking sector. _0"> At 0602 GMT, futures for Euro STOXX 50, for UK's FTSE 100, for Germany's DAX and for France's CAC were down 0.2-0.9 percent.

Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc was ramping up production at its Indonesian unit on Monday, a company spokeswoman said, six weeks after a deadly tunnel collapse at the world's No.2 copper mine halted operations.   Trade union workers at the Grasberg mine in remote West Papua were also returning to production work, while postponed pay talks with the Arizona-based firm have been resumed, a union official added. Freeport Indonesia employs about 24,000 workers, of which three-quarters belong to the union. Freeport stopped production at Grasberg on May 15, a day after a training area in a tunnel caved in, killing 28 people. Planned pay talks were also put on hold last month. On Saturday, the company said it had slowly resumed open-pit mining after receiving approval from the Indonesian government, although underground production remained closed. "We herewith confirm that we have started to ramp up production since Saturday," Freeport Indonesia spokeswoman Daisy Prim

Sandoz, the generics unit of Novartis, has launched a late-stage trial with its biosimilar version of Amgen's Enbrel, consolidating its leading position in developing cheaper copies of complex biotech drugs. _0"> With the start of the major study of its version of Enbrel, or etanercept, Sandoz now has seven Phase III clinical trials across five biosimilar molecules - more than any other company in the industry.   Sandoz said on Monday the new trial aimed to confirm the biosimilarity of its product versus Enbrel in patients with moderate to severe chronic plaque-type psoriasis. Results will be used to support U.S. and European regulatory filings. Unlike traditional chemical drugs, biotech medicines consist of proteins derived from living organisms that cannot be replicated exactly. Generic copies, therefore, are more difficult to develop and market. IMS Health, a provider of data for the healthcare industry, expects global spending on biosimilars to increase to between

Chinese shares dragged Asian bourses to a fresh 9-1/2-month low on Monday as investors worried about Beijing's economic and financial stability and markets scrambled to price in the Federal Reserve's plan to slow its stimulus drive later in 2013. European stocks were seen consolidating after last week's losses, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100, Paris's CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX would open little changed. But a 0.6 percent drop in U.S. stock futures pointed to a weak Wall Street open. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.8 percent to its lowest since early September, after posting its worst week since May 2012 with a drop of 4.5 percent last week. Most of the region's stock indexes are now well into oversold territory. China bank shares led the downward spiral after official news reports at the weekend suggested Beijing would continue to address the risks of shadow banking, which was behind t

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Statoil has found extra oil at its Volve field in the North Sea, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said on Monday. _0"> The firm has found an additional 3.8 million and 4.4 million barrels of recoverable oil, said the agency. Earlier this month Statoil said new drilling proved the Volve field to hold additional oil reserves in a range from 8.8 million to 9.4 million barrels, almost doubling the estimated remaining reserves at the North Sea field.   Statoil holds 59.6 percent in Volve, ExxonMobil 30.4 percent and Bayerngas Norge 10 percent of the license.

A bumper takeover in the telecoms sector helped European shares bounce on Monday after three days of losses, although concern over the impact of stimulus withdrawal in the United States and the health of China's banks weighed. _0"> Vodafone struck its biggest deal since 2007 after it agreed to buy Germany's largest cable operator Kabel Deutschland for 7.7 billion euros, a deal which Kabel said it intended to recommend to share holders.   Kabel's shares rose 2 percent, while heavyweight Vodafone was up 0.6 percent higher. By 0706 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 was flat at 1.39 points at 1,132.85, having spiraled down from the year's high of 1,132.73 on May 23 exacerbated by concerns over U.S. stimulus and China's banking system. "The widespread complacency about the adjustment to the tapering environment, which suggested that equities would remain immune to the winding down of central bank support, must now have been dispelled," Ian Williams, equi

The Euro STOXX 50 Volatility index, known as the VSTOXX, hit a four-month high early on Monday, signalling a sharp rise in risk aversion as mounting worries over China's banking sector kept investors on edge. _0"> The VSTOXX, Europe's widely-used gauge of investor sentiment which is based on put and call options on Euro STOXX 50 stocks , rose 3.4 percent to 24.86, a level not seen since late February.  

The Spanish government is studying all options for the sale of nationalised banks Catalunya Banc and NCG Banco, Economy Minister Luis de Guindos told COPE radio on Monday. The government will seek to ensure the sales secure the greatest benefits to taxpayers. "There is no need to rush," said de Guindos.

The U.S. central bank's plans to scale back its stimulus and fears Chinese policy may be tightening sent the dollar sharply higher on Monday, while world shares extended last week's dismal performance.   The sell-off in stocks, bonds and commodities since the Federal Reserve signalled an end to the era of cheap money that has fuelled record rises in asset prices is seen having further to run. "The prospect for a disorderly transition is there," said Josh Raymond, market strategist for City Index. Fears of further market turmoil have been exacerbated by worries over China's growth outlook and the health of its banks after the country's central bank said liquidity in its financial system is "reasonable", despite high short term rates. Amid the selling, yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes , a benchmark for global rates, hit a two-year high of 2.57 percent on Monday, supporting the dollar which added 0.4 percent against a basket major currencies t

Vodafone has agreed to buy Germany's largest cable operator Kabel Deutschland for 7.7 billion euros ($10 billion), betting on TV and fixed-line services in its biggest deal since 2007.   Announcing its second major acquisition for a European fixed-line network in 12 months, Vodafone said it would pay 87 euros ($110) per share for the group to enable it to offer more competitive packages with TV, fixed-line and broadband services to its mobile customers. The world's second-largest mobile operator, following up its acquisition of Cable & Wireless Worldwide, is however paying a rich price for the German firm and its 8.5 million homes, which it considered buying before it went public in March 2010 at 22 euros per share. One trader who asked not to be named said the offer, Vodafone's biggest since a 2007 Indian acquisition, valued Kabel Deutschland at 12 times enterprise value against 2013 core earnings , a 35 percent premium to the sector. However, this falls to 8.5 t

Erste Group Bank will raise about 660 million euros ($867 million) in equity and repay state aid in the third quarter, it said on Monday, forecasting operating profit would fall as much as 5 percent in 2013 rather than holding steady.   Central and eastern Europe's No. 3 lender said it would repay 1.76 billion euros in non-voting participation capital it got when the financial crisis began. Two-thirds came from Austria and the rest from private investors. Erste had said in April that not diluting shareholders with a rights issue was a high priority for the bank. The stock fell as much as 7.1 percent to 20.40 euros by 0730 GMT. The Stoxx European banking sector index was flat. Analyst Dirk Becker at Kepler Cheuvreux said it was disappointing that Erste gone back on its promise not to issue shares, but that Austrian regulators wanted the bank to replace at least a third of the capital being repaid. "The short-term performance of the stock could now be negative because of

The billionaire founders of ENRC ( id="symbol_ENRC.L_0"> ENRC.L ) are close to finalizing a buyout bid for the London-listed Kazakh miner, valuing the troubled group at just over 3 billion pounds ($4.7 billion), below the value of a tentative proposal made in May. ENRC's co-founders - Alexander Machkevitch, Alijan Ibragimov and Patokh Chodiev - and Kazakhstan's government are seeking to acquire the roughly 46 percent of ENRC which they do not already control, offering cash plus the government's shareholding in Kazakh mining rival Kazakhmys ( id="symbol_KAZ.L_1"> KAZ.L ), also listed in London.   The founders want to take the group private after more than five years of bitter boardroom battles, corruption probes and an acquisition spree that left $5 billion of debt. In a statement on Sunday, a day ahead of the deadline for making a firm offer, the bidding consortium said it was "in the advanced stages" of preparing an offer worth $2.6

Nationwide ( id="symbol_POB_p.L_0"> POB_p.L ), Britain's biggest customer-owned financial services group, is drawing up plans to raise at least 1 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) to fill a hole in its balance sheet, the Sunday Times said. _0"> Nationwide must raise additional capital of 400 million pounds in order to meet a new target for banks to hold core Tier One capital equivalent to 7 percent of their risk-weighted assets, Britain's financial regulator said last week.   In addition, Nationwide must raise extra capital to meet another new requirement by the Bank of England for banks to have a leverage ratio of at least 3 percent. Its leverage ratio currently stands at 2 percent. The leverage ratio measures capital against total loans, not adjusted for their supposed riskiness, and some bankers argue it penalizes low-risk, high volume businesses like mortgage lending. Nationwide is Britain's third-biggest home loans provider. Chief Executive Graha

Lloyds Banking Group ( id="symbol_LLOY.L_0"> LLOY.L ) has asked the European competition authorities to give it an extra two years to sell the hundreds of branches it is required to dispose of as a condition for its state bail-out, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper said. _0"> The bank, which is 39 percent-owned by the government, began talks with the European Commission earlier this month. It currently has a deadline of November 30 to sell 631 branches. A sale to the Co-operative Bank ( id="symbol_CPBB_p.L CPBB_p.L ) fell through in April amid concerns over the mutual's financial position.   _1"> The Sunday Telegraph said Lloyds had asked the commission to give it until the end of 2015 to complete the sale. Lloyds is now planning to sell the branches as a separate business via a share listing on the London Stock Exchange. Lloyds plans to sell a first tranche of the shares in the business next year, industry sources have told Reuters. Lloyds decl

European Central Bank policymaker Joerg Asmussen said on Sunday that closer integration within Europe called for European Union institutions - in particular its parliament - to be strengthened to ensure democratic control and accountability. _0"> "The increasing level of integration within Europe calls for a new institutional design to ensure legitimization, accountability and democratic control," the German ECB Executive Board member said at an event organized by the Kiel institute for the World Economy.   Asmussen said governments should ensure national parliaments were appropriately informed and involved in European decision procedures. But often, decisions with the European Union's common interest could only be made at a supranational level. "Therefore European institutions should be strengthened, in particular the European Parliament which could maybe also convene in a euro area format," he said. Germany's weekly Der Spiegel wrote on Sunda

PepsiCo Inc ( id="symbol_PEP.N_0"> PEP.N ) - best known for Pepsi-Cola and Frito-Lay chips - is taking its Muller yogurt brand nationwide expanding its portfolio of healthier foods at a time that U.S. consumers are increasingly shunning traditional soft drinks. Yogurt is one of the fastest selling categories in grocery stores, and PepsiCo sees plenty of room for growth even though it has come late to the party.   "Dairy has become everybody's favorite avenue when it comes to escaping the miseries of obesity," said Bevmark Consulting CEO Tom Pirko. "Everybody's trying to figure out a health angle." To boost its chances of success, PepsiCo has partnered with Germany's Theo Muller Group, a stalwart of the European dairy industry, repeating a strategy that has already made the snack-and-soda company a leading U.S. purveyor of hummus and other healthy dips. Earlier this month, the Muller Quaker Dairy joint venture opened a yogurt plant in u

Virgin Mobile Middle East & Africa (VMMEA) is one of three companies to win a virtual telecom license in Saudi Arabia , the industry regulator said on Sunday, in the latest step to liberalize the kingdom's communications sector. Five companies had bid for the Saudi mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) licenses. MVNOs not own the networks they use to provide communications services but instead lease capacity from conventional operators, usually paying them a percentage of their revenue as well as fees.   VMMEA, part-owned by British entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Group, will launch an MVNO on former monopoly Saudi Telecom Co's 7010.SE network, the Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) said in statement on its website. Jawraa Lebara has joined with second-biggest operator Etihad Etisalat 7020.SE (Mobily), while Dubai-based retailer Axiom Telecom will team up with Zain Saudi 7030.SE. Local companies FastNet and Safari were the losing bid

Jacob Frenkel, an inflation hawk who was Bank of Israel governor in the 1990s, will be returning to the helm of the central bank, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid said on Sunday. They appointed Frenkel to replace Stanley Fischer, who is stepping down at the end of June after eight years on the job, having guided Israel's economy through the global financial crisis. Frenkel, 70, beat deputy governor Karnit Flug, who will likely be acting central bank chief until Frenkel starts. The date of his arrival was not announced. "He is a world renowned figure, which is what Netanyahu was looking for," said HSBC economist Jonathan Katz. As governor between 1991 and 2000, Frenkel was credited with reducing inflation, liberalising financial markets and removing foreign exchange controls.   He is currently chairman of JPMorgan Chase International ( id="symbol_JPM.N_0"> JPM.N ) and also served as vice chairman of insurer American Inte