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William Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management said it had filed a lawsuit seeking confirmation that its request to hold a special shareholder meeting of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Allergan Inc would not trigger Allergan's poison pill takeover defense. _0"> Ackman, who owns nearly 10 percent of Allergan, last week filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission to call a shareholder meeting to elect new directors to the company's board. The Botox maker has rejected a $53 billion joint offer from Ackman and Canadian drugmaker class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Valeant Pharmaceuticals International . An Allergan spokeswoman declined to comment immediately. Allergan adopted the one-year shareholder rights plan on April 22, the day Valeant and Ackman made the offer, saying it needed time to consider takeover proposals.   true       Allergan's shareholder rights plan, or poison pill, will be triggered if a person or gro

A warming world could pose a risk of more frequent catastrophic flooding but also be a long-term boon for Vermont farmers and a shorter-lived thrill for its skiers, according to a state report released on Tuesday. The Vermont Climate Assessment found that higher rates of precipitation expected to come with climate change could bring heavier winter snows over the next 25 years, good news for ski resorts until the state becomes too warm to sustain significant amounts of snow. It was the first state report to follow the model of the National Climate Assessment released last month by the White House, which was intended to help U.S. states prepare for concrete ways a changing climate could affect agriculture, transportation and other aspects of life. The report, based on records from weather data to farmers' observations on when ice thaws on ponds and plants bloom, found that average temperatures in Vermont have risen by 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit (0.7 C) and average annual rainfall ha

A special Chilean ministerial committee on Tuesday canceled the massive HidroAysen hydro-power project's permit, after environmentalists protested it would wreck pristine valleys in Chile's wild south. While the decision is a big blow to the controversial project, it is not deadly. HidroAysen can still tweak the project or take its case to courts, suggesting more bitter legal wrangling over the fate of the 2,750 megawatt project may still be ahead. Still, the $8 billion-plus project faces a steep uphill battle if it decides to fight on in court. "Although the project isn't formally dead the litigation strategy has become a lot harder for the company now," said Luis Cordero, law professor at the Universidad de Chile, who estimated a fresh legal battle would yield a final decision in about a year. The HidroAysen joint venture, made up of leading generators Endesa Chile and partner Colbun, was not immediately available for comment. Some industry observers said

A U.S. federal judge has denied ExxonMobil Corp's bid to dismiss a government lawsuit and instead ordered the oil giant to hand over documents going back decades on a pipeline that ruptured last year and inundated an Arkansas town with oil. U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker ruled on Tuesday the company must hand over requested information on the entire 850-mile (1,370-km) Pegasus pipeline, which spilled about 5,000 barrels of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> crude oil in a residential neighborhood in Mayflower, Arkansas, in March 2013. She also said ExxonMobil should speed up the handover of documents sought by the state's attorney general and the U.S. Department of Justice, which brought the case, and set a deadline of July 10.   true       The company had said it needed more time to go through millions of electronic and paper records to comply with requests from overlapping state and federal cases related to the spill. "The court understands the defenda

The European Union has agreed a new law to strengthen safety standards and improve supervision of nuclear facilities in response to lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Japan , the European Commission said on Wednesday. _0"> In March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami caused the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years, spewing radiation over a swathe of Fukushima and forcing 160,000 people from their homes. The European Union, in response, carried out a series of stress tests to examine the resilience of  class="mandelbrot_refrag"> nuclear power stations and used the results to draft a response plan based on the latest international standards. "We need to put all our efforts into making sure that the highest safety standards are followed in every single class="mandelbrot_refrag"> nuclear power plant across the EU," Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said in a statement

The European Commission could lift its import ban on herring from the Faroe Islands within months after reaching a deal to protect fish class="mandelbrot_refrag"> stocks in the Atlantic, it said on Wednesday. EU authorities banned imports of herring and mackerel from the Faroe Islands in August in a row over alleged over-fishing, with the world's biggest fish importer saying it had to protect a fish stock referred to as the Atlanto-Scandian herring. The Faroe Islands, a self-governed territory within the Danish Realm and not part of the European Union, said at the time that the EU rules do not give it a sufficient share of the herring catch and that a higher quota is justified by an increase in the number of herring in its waters.   true       On Wednesday, the European Commission said the Faroe Islands had agreed to a new catch limit for Atlanto-Scandian herring. Once that limit is fixed, the EU would end the ban on Faroese herring imports. "After long an

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,