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Tropical storm Cristina strengthened into a category 1 hurricane on Wednesday as it moved away from Mexico's Pacific coast, prompting authorities to warn of heavy rains in the Latin American nation. _0"> Cristina was located about 265 miles (425 kilometers) south of the port of Manzanillo with maximum sustained winds of 75 miles per hour (120 kilometers per hour) and higher gusts, the National Hurricane Center said early Wednesday. The hurricane was expected to gain strength, as it moved at a speed of 6 miles per hour westward, unlikely to make landfall. Mexican authorities warned of rising rivers and mudslides caused in Southern and Western Mexican states including Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacan, Colima and Jalisco.   true       Cristina could cause waves of up to four meters high in coastal areas, the National Weather Service said in a statement. Guerrero, home of beach resort Acapulco, last year was severely affected by dual storms Ingrid and Manuel, whose unpreceden

Swathes of north class="mandelbrot_refrag"> India are sweltering under the longest heatwave on record, triggering widespread breakdowns in the supply of electricity and increasingly angry protests over the government's failure to provide people with basic services. The power crisis and heatwave, which some activists say has caused dozens of deaths, is one of the first major challenges for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was elected three weeks ago partly on promises to provide reliable electricity supplies. In Delhi, where temperatures have hit 45 Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) for six days straight, residents marched through the streets in protests organized by opposition parties on Thursday. In the north of the city, people enraged by night-long outages clashed with police and torched a bus, media reported.   true       Delhi is suffering staggered cuts as power companies ration spikes in demand as people crank up air coolers to fight the heat. Modi has inherited

A compromise deal to give European Union states the option of banning genetically modified crops won approval from EU environment ministers on Thursday, bringing the EU closer to ending years of deadlock over GM cultivation. Widely grown in the Americas and Asia, GM crops in Europe have divided opinion, with strong opposition in many countries, including class="mandelbrot_refrag"> France and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Germany , while Britain favors them. Thursday's compromise deal drew criticism from both opponents and supporters of growing GM food in Europe. Monsanto, maker of the only GM crop grown in the EU, said if the law were enacted as drafted, the company would continue to focus its investment in other parts of the world. The European Green Party, meanwhile, described the deal as "a Trojan horse" that would open the door to GM crops across Europe. At a meeting in Luxembourg, EU environment ministers from 26 of the 28 member state

Djibouti is suffering from a fourth straight year of drought, which has driven a huge exodus of people from rural areas to the capital and caused a surge in disease and malnutrition, the top U.N. official there said on Thursday. Robert Watkins, U.N. resident coordinator in Djibouti, was meeting officials from donor countries to seek funds for a U.N. appeal of $74 million for Djibouti this year, launched in May. The class="mandelbrot_refrag"> United Nations has received $9.5 million from donors so far. "The biggest issue facing Djibouti today is the lack of water. People depend on water for their livelihood, essentially their class="mandelbrot_refrag"> livestock ," Watkins told a news briefing in Geneva. Many cattle had perished from the water shortages, he said. "It's the reason why we are investing more and more and we trying to find longer-term alternatives for people - not solutions because we can't solve the drought problem

To grasp the difficulties Mexico faces in capitalizing on a North American shale boom, just wander into the dusty landscape due south of the U.S. border. On one side of the fence, thousands of wells work around the clock in Texas to produce record volumes of shale oil and gas, transforming towns like Carrizo Springs in a modern-day gold rush. On the other side, violent drug cartels roam above untapped shale riches, leaving behind a trail of blood. The relatively few conventional wells operated by state oil giant Pemex and its contractors close down overnight as a security precaution.   true       But surging crime, while dramatic, is just one of many obstacles thwarting a Mexican shale boom that is seen as years off at best. "Organized crime is an additional operating cost companies will be keeping a close eye on," said Alberto Islas, head of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Mexico City-based consultancy firm Risk Evaluation. Bullet-riddled corpses are piling

More than a quarter of all companies covered by Beijing's municipal carbon laws ignored a key reporting deadline, local media reported Friday, with some powerful companies questioning the local government trading body's authority to regulate them. Beijing's carbon trading market, one of six set up in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China to rein in rapidly growing greenhouse gas emissions, caps carbon dioxide from nearly 500 local enterprises. Most of them must hand over permits to the government to cover for their emissions, while some must only report their CO2 levels. But 140 of them missed an April deadline to submit a verified report of their 2013 emissions, local newspapers reported on Friday, a key to determining how many permits each firm must hand over to the government to cover for CO2 output. Some of the firms implied that Beijing's Development and Reform Commission (DRC), which operates the scheme, did not have the authority to issue orders.

EU energy ministers agreed on Friday to limit production of biofuels made from food crops, responding to criticism they stoke inflation and do more environmental harm than good. The ministers' endorsement of a compromise deal overcomes a stalemate hit late last year, when European Union governments failed to agree on a proposed 5 percent cap on the use of biofuels based on crops such as maize or rapeseed. Friday's agreement would set a 7 percent limit on food-based biofuels in transport fuel. It still needs the approval of the newly-elected European Parliament, expected to begin considering it later this year.   true       "We think this proposal is much better than nothing," European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told the Luxembourg meeting of ministers. "We need to support research and development in advanced biofuels so we can move forward from generation one into generation two and generation three," he added, referring to more sophistica

More than 20,000 African elephants were killed for their ivory in 2013, driven by demand in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Thailand , and some local populations face an immediate threat of extinction, a U.N.-linked wildlife conservation agency said on Friday. Criminal gangs and rebel militias hunt dwindling herds for tusks that fetch many thousands of dollars per kilo, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species said. "Today we are confronting a situation of industrial-scale poaching and smuggling, the involvement of organized transnational criminal organizations, the involvement of rebel militia," CITES secretary-general John Scanlon told a briefing.   true       Fighters of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) were sanctioned by the Security Council this year for illegal hunting and ivory trade, particularly in central Africa, he said. The 2013 estimated figure is less than the peak of 25,00

Actress Audra McDonald made Broadway history on Sunday, winning her sixth Tony as Billie Holiday in "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill" and Bryan Cranston and Neil Patrick Harris nabbed the top acting prizes at the 68th annual Tony Awards. "A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder," took home the top musical prize and Jessie Mueller was named best actress for her starring role in "Beautiful - The Carole King Musical". McDonald, with her best actress prize in a play, became the only woman to win a Tony in all four acting categories. She also tied with the late actress Julie Harris, who had six wins, including a special lifetime achievement award.   true       With tears streaming down her face, a trembling McDonald acknowledged her parents, family and the women who came before her. "I want to thank all the shoulders of the strong and brave and courageous women that I am standing on," she said. "And most of all Billie Holiday

Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie and British Foreign Secretary William Hague vowed on Tuesday to ensure the world's first summit on ending sexual violence in conflict resulted in practical action to punish those responsible and help victims. Up to 1,200 government ministers, military and judicial officials and activists from up to 150 nations are attending the June 10-13 summit that is the result of a two-year partnership between Jolie and Hague to combat rape as a weapon of war. The summit follows a series of violent incidents against women that was expected to raise pressure for action, including the kidnap of 200 Nigerian schoolgirls, the stoning of a pregnant Pakistani woman to death, and the gang-rape and murder of two Indian girls. Opening the four-day summit in London's docklands, Jolie, special envoy of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said political will was needed globally to treat sexual violence as a priority and tackle a culture of impunity. &q

British singer Sarah Brightman is scheduled to begin training this year for a 2015 flight to the International Space Station where she hopes to become the first professional musician to sing from space, the company arranging the trip said on Tuesday. Brightman, a famed soprano who starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s "Phantom of the Opera," will pay about $52 million for a 10-day stay aboard the orbital outpost, Tom Shelley, president of privately owned Space Adventures, said. “She’s absolutely 100 percent committed,” Shelley said during a National Space Club Florida Committee meeting. “She’s putting together her mission plan now.”   true       Brightman, who would become the eighth privately funded space tourist, is slated to fly in September 2015. Her training to fly on a Russian Soyuz capsule is scheduled to begin as early as this fall, Shelley said. He said she planned to be the first professional musician to sing from space. But she faces competition from Lady Gaga

A man and a woman have pleaded not guilty in Los Angeles to burglary and theft among other charges, after a Maserati sports car was stolen from the home of pop singer Miley Cyrus along with jewelry and other items, prosecutors said on Tuesday. _0"> Tylor Scott, 19, and Naomi Charles, 21, both from Arizona, face felony counts of first degree residential burglary, grand theft of personal property, grand theft auto and unlawful driving or taking of a vehicle, prosecutors said. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office alleges the pair, who entered their pleas on Monday, broke into Cyrus' Los Angeles home on May 30 and made off with purses and thousands of dollars in clothes along with jewelry and the sports car. Scott has also been charged with first degree residential burglary and grand theft firearm for a May 15 burglary of a home in Woodland Hills, a Los Angeles suburb, where he is accused of stealing a 9-millimeter Luger handgun. If convicted, Scott face

A man arrested for allegedly breaking into actress Sandra Bullock's Los Angeles home pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges of burglary, stalking and possession of a machine gun. _0"> Joshua Corbett, 39, from Montrose, a Los Angeles suburb in the San Fernando valley, was arrested Sunday morning after allegedly climbing the fence to the Oscar-winner's property and breaking into her home near Beverly Hills at about 1 a.m., prosecutors said. Bullock, the star of such films as "The Blind Side" and this year's Academy Award-winner "Gravity," was at home during the alleged break-in.   true       The Los Angeles County district attorney's office said Corbett, who was arrested at the scene after an emergency call was placed from inside the house, was not in possession of the machine gun at the time of the break-in. A spokeswoman for the district attorney's office declined to say where the gun was found. Corbett's attorney, Stephen Sit

Unlike previous installments of the American space saga, the crew of "Star Wars: Episode VII" did not fly to class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Tunisia last month to start filming. They went to Abu Dhabi. With many countries in the region facing political turmoil in the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings, the woman in charge of the United Arab Emirates's media hub says filming there is seen as a safe option. "At a time when other regional centers are reducing their activities, Abu Dhabi is picking up and saying it's important to have that kind of funding behind Arab talent," Noura al-Kaabi, chief executive officer of twofour54, the commercial arm of Abu Dhabi's Media Zone Authority, told Reuters.   true       "It's benefitting Abu Dhabi but also it is helping Arab culture," she added. In the past year, the capital of the United Arab Emirates has attracted a host of foreign movies including Sony Pictures Entertainment's

A Georgia truck driver accused of causing a fatal car crash on a New Jersey highway that critically injured comedian Tracy Morgan was due in court on Wednesday to face charges of vehicular homicide while driving with too little sleep. class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Wal-Mart Stores Inc delivery driver Kevin Roper, 35, was scheduled to be arraigned in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on charges of death by auto and injury by auto while operating his tractor trailer without having slept "in excess of 24 hours," according to prosecutors. It is unclear how Roper, who is free on $50,000 bail, intends to plead in a case that has refocused attention on required rest for drivers of commercial vehicles and the dangers of so-called "drowsy driving." Roper is accused of failing to see traffic slowing in front of him on the New Jersey Turnpike and slamming into the back of a limousine van carrying Morgan, best known for roles on "30 Rock" and "Saturday N

As two of Hollywood's prominent Scotsmen, actor Gerard Butler and comedian Craig Ferguson relished the chance to embrace their inner Vikings and ride dragons. Butler and Ferguson reunite as Stoick and Gobber, two burly best friends in Dreamworks' animated fantasy sequel "How to Train Your Dragon 2," where they help young dragon rider Hiccup (played by Jay Baruchel) save dragons from intimidating Viking villain Drago Bloodyfist (Djimon Hounsou). Ahead of the film's release in U.S. theaters on Friday, the duo spoke to Reuters to discuss Scotland and dragons.   true       Q: Growing up in Scotland, did you ever think you'd be in a film riding dragons? Butler: Umm, yes. I'm surprised it took so long. Ferguson: Yep. It was something that they taught us at school, that "one day, you two will be in a film riding dragons." Butler: "And if you're not, you'll be failures" ... I think everybody has dreams of being in these fanta

Country singer Miranda Lambert debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart for the first time on Wednesday, beating Disney's juggernaut film soundtrack "Frozen" and a new album from rapper 50 Cent. "Platinum," the fifth album from Lambert, sold 180,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan. She held off "Frozen," which sold 52,000 copies in its 28th week on the chart and notched No. 2. The soundtrack, which features the Oscar-winning song "Let It Go," has sold 2.9 million copies in the United States since its November release. Country singer Brantley Gilbert's "Just As I Am" dropped one spot to No. 3 this week, while 50 Cent's "Animal Ambition: An Untamed Desire to Win" opened at No. 4. Last week's chart-topper Coldplay's "Ghost Stories" dropped to No. 5. Rockers Led Zeppelin landed in the top 10 this week after releasing expanded versions of three of

A Georgia truck driver accused of triggering a fatal New Jersey car crash that critically injured actor Tracy Morgan pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges of vehicular homicide and assault by auto. _0"> Kevin Roper, 35, had not slept for more than 24 hours before he got behind the wheel of his truck, prosecutors said in a criminal complaint. (Reporting by David Jones ; Writing by Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

Hits such as "Brown Eyed Girl," "Twist and Shout" and "Hang on Sloopy" made Bert Berns one of his era's most successful songwriters and producers before he died in 1968, yet few people outside the music industry ever knew about him. That could change with a new musical, "Piece of My Heart: The Bert Berns Story" which begins previews on June 25 and opens Off-Broadway on July 21. Rolling Stone magazine described the songwriter's life as "one of the great untold stories of rock and roll."   true       Denis Jones, the director and choreographer of "Piece of My Heart," believes now is the time to tell it. "He was not supposed to live past 30," Jones said during sneak preview of the show that includes more than 20 of the songwriter's hits. "Interestingly, the entire body of work that he generated was between his 30th birthday and his passing." As a teenager Berns suffered from rheumatic fever,

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie appeared together on Thursday at a global summit on ending sexual violence in conflict, in a show of celebrity power that British Foreign Secretary William Hague said was helping put a spotlight on the issue of rape as a weapon of war. Dressed in black, Pitt and Jolie flanked Hague at the opening of the third day of a four-day summit in London that is the culmination of two years' joint work by the actress and Hague. Up to 1,200 government ministers, officials, activists and members of judiciaries and militaries from more than 120 countries are at the summit that aims to find practical steps to punish those responsible for sex violence and help victims. Hague said his partnership with Oscar-winning Jolie, special envoy of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), had put the issue of sexual violence in conflict on the world agenda and was an example of how foreign policy could be conducted in the future. "She brings what governments can&

Actor Harrison class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Ford was injured on the set of "Star Wars: Episode VII" on Thursday and taken to a hospital for treatment, a Disney representative said. _0"> class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Ford , 71, hurt his ankle while filming at Pinewood Studios, on the outskirts of London, Disney spokesman Paul Roeder said. Filming will continue on schedule while Ford recovers. The actor was taken to nearby John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Thames Valley Police said on its official Twitter feed that police responded to an incident where "a 71-year-old man was airlifted to hospital with injuries not believed to be life-threatening." A second tweet said the mishap "is believed to have involved a garage door." Vanessa Davies, a unit publicist for the "Star Wars" film, said any reports that Ford suffered other injuries as well were untrue. The actor is reprising his role as Han Solo in the highly

Comedian Tracy Morgan, badly injured in a weekend highway crash, is showing signs of improvement in a New Jersey hospital where he remains in critical condition, his publicist said on Thursday. The pileup on the New Jersey Turnpike early on Saturday killed comedian James "Jimmy Mack" McNair and injured Morgan and three others in their limousine van. Morgan, 45, best known for roles on "30 Rock" and "Saturday Night Live," suffered injuries including a broken leg, nose and ribs and was hospitalized at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey.   true       "Today was a better day. While Tracy remains in critical, but stable, condition, he continues to show signs of improvement," publicist Lewis Kay said in a statement. "His medical team remains optimistic that his recovery is progressing," Kay said. Morgan's fiance, Megan Wollover, is with him, Kay said. A Georgia truck driver pleaded not guilty on W

Voters in Florida were still waiting to cast their ballots more than six hours after polls closed on Election Day, registered voters in Ohio were told they were not on voter rolls and new voter ID laws in Pennsylvania led to confusion at voting places. Election Day problems have become commonplace in the United States in recent general elections. But a comment by President class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Barack Obama offered a glimmer of hope that problems that have dogged voting for years might finally be addressed. In his election victory speech, made while some people still waited in line to cast ballots in Florida six hours after polls closed, Obama took a moment to point out that he was aware of problems with the electoral system.   true       "I want to thank every American who participated in this election, whether you voted for the very first time, or waited in line for a very long time," Obama said in Chicago. "By the way, we have to fix that.&quo

The chairman of Florida's Democratic Party congratulated President class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Barack Obama on Thursday on winning the battleground state on Tuesday, while blasting the state's Republican governor for his handling of the election. _0"> "On behalf of Florida Democrats, I wish President class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Barack Obama congratulations on his re-election and on winning Florida's 29 electoral votes," said Rod Smith in a statement posted on the party's website. Vote counting in Florida continued on Thursday, with Obama holding a narrow 58,000 vote lead that Republican challenger class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Mitt Romney appeared unlikely to overturn.   true       If Obama's victory is confirmed, the Florida result would give the president 332 electoral college votes and 206 for Romney. The Republican Party in Florida has yet to officially concede the race, though one party strategist

Political watchdog and secularist groups are asking the U.S. government to investigate whether Catholic bishops and a Christian evangelical group headed by preacher Billy Graham should lose tax breaks for telling followers how to vote in this year's election. Under constitutional protections of free speech and separation of church and state, churches are free to speak on any issue. But they risk losing tax breaks worth $145 billion in the past decade if they violate Internal Revenue Service rules by promoting or opposing any particular candidate. Other non-profits also have special tax status. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a political watchdog group, in its complaint to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, cited reports of individual bishops "abusing their positions to advocate against the election of President class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Barack Obama ."   true       The group's executive director, Melanie Sloan, said some bisho