My Tweety

New blow for BP in Russia as office raided - Yahoo! News

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Black-clad special forces raided BP's Moscow offices on Wednesday, deepening the British company's problems in Russia after its attempts to salvage an oil exploration agreement in the Russian Arctic collapsed.

The raid, a day after ExxonMobil signed a deal giving it access to fields BP had hoped to develop, was ordered to let bailiffs search for documents in a legal battle over BP's failed bid to partner Russia in the Arctic, a spokeswoman said.

But BP, which has a long history of problems in Russia, denounced the raid and said it feared the search could continue for the rest of this week.

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Home prices dip in June from May: S&P/Case-Shiller - Yahoo! News

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Single-family home prices dipped in June from May as the market continued to crawl along at depressed levels, a closely watched survey said on Tuesday.

The S&P/Case-Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas slipped 0.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis. A Reuters poll of economists had expected prices to be unchanged. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the index rose 1.1 percent.

"This month's report showed mixed signals for recovery in home prices. No cities made new lows in June 2011, and the majority of cities are seeing improved annual rates," David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor's, said in a statement.

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Bank of America to sell part of CCB stake - Yahoo! News

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp is selling 13.1 billion shares of China Construction Bank <0939.HK> to a group of investors for $8.3 billion of cash, the bank said on Monday.

The deal represents about half of Bank of America's holdings in CCB, reducing its stake to about 5 percent of the Chinese lender's outstanding shares.

After the deal was announced, Bank of America shares were up 3.6 percent at $8.04.

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Def Leppard pours "Mirrorball" of sugar on fans - Yahoo! News

TORONTO (Reuters) - It may be difficult to believe that after three decades of rocking hard -- 65 million albums sold and hundreds of packed concerts -- Def Leppard hadn't released a standalone live album until this year.

As the bandmembers put it, "Mirrorball: Live and More" came together without much advance planning, and owes its existence, at least partly, to them leaving their old record label which, the group thinks, may unleash a new burst of creativity.

The three disc collection features live recordings of some of Def Leppard's greatest hits such as "Pour Some Sugar on Me," "Rock of Ages," and "Photograph." It has three new tracks, including anthem "Kings of the World", and a behind-the-scenes DVD. But a live album was never atop of the bands to do list.

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Rebuilding lives and Ground Zero post-9/11 in "Rebirth" - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Rebirth" follows five New Yorkers who discuss the events of 9/11 and the World Trade Center as a site of shared trauma, exploring the emotional, spiritual, mental and physical repercussions that day left on all of us.

Interwoven with the annual interviews is on-site time lapse photography -- paired with an ethereal score by Philip Glass -- that shows how the Twin Towers' rubble is removed and new structures are built in the same space.

As the rebuild moves forward, interviewees tell how they are coping with the emotional toll of the attacks.

To get his footage, Whitaker strapped 14 cameras to various locations in lower Manhattan that would snap a still of the site's recovery every five minutes, every day, for the duration of his interviews.

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Vera Farmiga, younger sister take on "Higher Ground" - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After Vera Farmiga was nominated for an Oscar for her performance opposite George Clooney in the 2009 film "Up in the Air," the actress was offered the chance of a lifetime -- not just to act in a film, but to direct it as well.

The result is indie drama "Higher Ground," due in theaters on Friday. The film is inspired by Carolyn Brigg's memoir "This Dark World," in which a young woman enters a community of evangelical Christians, then begins to question her faith.

"Ground" follows lead character Corinne (Farmiga) over a span of 20 years. Farmiga, 38, made the film a family affair with husband Renn Hawkey a producer and musical director and her sister Taissa, 15 years-old at the time and with no prior acting experience, playing young Corinne.

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Film rights nabbed to upcoming videogame "Hawken" - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - DJ2 Entertainment has snatched up film rights to Adhesive Games' highly anticipated videogame "Hawken."

On March 30, the five-man Los Angeles-based videogame studio released gameplay footage from the yet-to-be released first-person shooter.

On its way to a million views, it sent waves through the online gaming community -- as well as Hollywood.

It's described by Adhesive as "Romeo & Juliet" meets "District 9."

DJ2's Dmitri M. Johnson told TheWrap that his two-month old independent multi-platform production company was able to secure rights for the film adaptation through a personal recommendation.

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A Minute With: Katie Holmes on "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It sounds like a latter-day version of "The Odd Couple" -- petite, American actress Katie Holmes (Mrs. Tom Cruise) paired with portly Mexican writer/director Guillermo del Toro, a gothic horror film devotee known for "Hellboy" and "Blade" franchises.

But their new film together, "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" which hits theaters on Friday, is anything but a comedy in the vein of "The Odd Couple."

Rather it is a serious scare-fest that also stars Guy Pearce and Bailee Madison and an army of evil little creatures who invade an old house and terrorize its occupants.

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First countries enter Oscar foreign-language race - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The Academy's often controversial and always interesting foreign-language race is picking up a little steam, with Romania, Morocco and Venezuela submitting their entries to join Greece and Poland this year.

We won't know for months if Greece has found another surprise nominee like last year's "Dogtooth," or if Romania will once again be overlooked for a strong, tough film the way it was with "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days."

But at this point we can start to discern countries' strategies for dealing with the Academy's Best Foreign-Language Film process. Greece, for instance, seems to have reacted to "Dogtooth" with an attitude of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," while Romania may be going for something marginally friendlier than its usual grim submissions.

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"The Help" outflexes "Conan" to win box office - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The maids of "The Help" proved far mightier than muscle-flexing "Conan the Barbarian" and three other new releases at the weekend box office, taking the top spot with an estimated $20.5 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales.

"The Help" rose from its second-place finish last week to the top spot with rave reviews and strong word-of-mouth buzz, distributor Walt Disney Co said on Sunday. The drama chronicles the relationships between white women in Mississippi and their black housekeepers in the 1960s.

The movie's North American (U.S. and Canadian) receipts slipped 21 percent from its debut a week earlier, an impressive hold and more than enough to beat underwhelming performances from four new films. To date, "The Help" has beat expectations by ringing up a total of $71.8 million.

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