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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