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A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Japan's Okinawa island on Sunday, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre. _0"> The quake struck at a depth of about 6.2 miles, 125 miles north-northeast of Okinawa's capital city of Naha. No tsunami warning was issued. (Editing by Matt Driskill)

Rescue teams evacuated over 500 people overnight from the small Bulgarian town of Mizia after torrential rains caused flooding that claimed at least one casualty, an interior ministry official said on Sunday. _0"> Rescue teams with boats and helicopters were still evacuating stranded people on Sunday. One man was found dead in his flooded home, said Nikola Nikolov, head of the ministry's fire safety and civil protection unit. Over 50 houses have collapsed after the Skut River, which runs through the town, burst its banks. Hundreds of houses remain under water. Another town and several villages in the northwestern area, which is close to the Danube, were also hit by floods. "It was terrible, terrible. The water kept coming and coming. My home is under water. Luckily I have an aunt who lives in the higher parts of the town. I think we will be at least 30 people in that house tonight," Valia Mircheva, a farmer from Mizia, told BTV television. The rains have

A violent downpour caused a flash flood late on Saturday that swept up dozens attending a local summer festival in northern Italy, killing four men and injuring about 20 others, rescuers and officials said. _0"> About 100 people had gathered near the banks of a stream in the foothills of the Alps near the town of Refrontolo for the annual gathering when a thunderstorm hit, sending a wall of water and mud into the festival, the fire department said. "Nobody had ever seen anything like it. There were 2 meters of water. People grabbed onto trees to save themselves," Mirco Lorenzon, a local civil protection official, said in an interview broadcast by SkyTG24 on Sunday. The storm caused about 50 mudslides and much property damage in the area, Lorenzon said. Pictures and videos posted online showed cars that had been swept away in the flood lying upside-down in the stream or stranded sideways against trees. "There was an hour-and-a-half of rain so heavy that you

As a child, Mohammad Rahmanpour spent his summers swimming in Lake Orumieh in northwestern Iran - then the largest in the Middle East. In less than two decades, the saltwater lake has almost disappeared, leaving behind a hole in the ground. "My friends and I would go on the top of trees in our neighborhood. We could see the lake clearly from that point," said the 32 year-old farmer who grows wheat and beets. "Now, there is no water left and our whole ecosystem is messed up," he told Reuters by telephone from his home, which once stood one km (half a mile) from the lakeshore. Water shortages have long been a problem for countries across the Middle East, where a high birth rate, rising consumption and poor management has strained already scarce resources. But Iran has fared among the worst. The country of 76 million has survived an eight-year war with Iraq, U.S. sanctions imposed over its disputed nuclear program and violence on its borders. But experts say th

More than 400,000 people in eastern India face the risk of flooding after a landslide that killed at least nine people in neighboring Nepal, an Indian government official said on Sunday, as thousands were being evacuated. The landslide triggered by heavy rains has left scores of people missing and has created a mud dam blocking the Sunkoshi river, which runs into India's Bihar state as the Kosi river. The fear is that as Nepal tries to blast its way through the landslide to clear it, it will unleash a torrent of water across densely populated Bihar. Around 425,000 people could be affected by the floods and authorities have already evacuated 44,000 across seven districts of Bihar, said Ashok Kumar, an officer at the state's disaster management unit. "We are shifting people from the area where the water is expected to reach," Kumar said. He added that 117 relief camps have been set up in the region so far. In some places the authorities have had to force people t

Health authorities tested water for toxins in Toledo, Ohio, on Sunday as some 400,000 people remained without safe drinking water for a second day following the discovery of high toxin levels from algae on Lake Erie. Toledo Mayor D. Michael Collins said some sampling showed decreased toxin levels but results from further tests would not be known until later in the day. The city is waiting on water samples being analyzed at Environmental Protection Agency labs in Cincinnati. "All I can tell you is that everything is trending in a very positive direction," Collins told reporters, but he added that he could not predict when water would be safe to drink. About 500,000 people get water from the contaminated source but about 100,000 residents of some communities have backup water supply systems, said city of Toledo spokeswoman Lisa Ward. Toledo Public Utilities Director Edward Moore said a plan is in place to swiftly flush the system of contaminated water once the water suppl

A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck southwestern China on Sunday, killing at least 367 people and leaving 1,881 injured in a remote area of Yunnan province, and causing thousands of buildings, including a school, to collapse. _0"> The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake registered at a shallow depth of less than 1 mile (1.6 km). Chinese state media said it was felt most strongly in Yunnan as well as in the neighboring provinces of Guizhou and Sichuan. The official Xinhua news agency said the epicenter was in Longtoushan town in Yunnan's mountainous Ludian county. Communications have been seriously affected and rescuers have begun arriving on the scene, the report said. Pictures posted online by state media showed troops stretchering people away and cars damaged by fallen bricks. Many people rushed out of buildings onto the street after the quake hit, electricity supplies were cut and at least one school collapsed, Xinhua added, with more than 12,000 houses having col

At least 34 people, including several children, were killed in a stampede at a beachside rap concert celebrating the end of Ramadan in Guinea's capital Conakry, medical sources said on Wednesday. Hundreds of people gathered at the Donka hospital in predominantly Muslim Guinea's capital to visit the injured and identify the dead. A Reuters reporter saw the bodies of three children among the dead, while witnesses put the number at around 10. "There are currently 34 bodies in the morgue. The list of injured keeps growing," a medical source told Reuters, requesting anonymity. "The oldest among them can't be more than 20. There are young girls among them," he said. The presidency declared a week of mourning. The head of a government agency for entertainment was removed from his post following the incident overnight, the presidency added. Witnesses said the event was attended by up to 10,000 people, mostly children and young people, who came to see popu

Australian pop rock group 5 Seconds of Summer scored one of the year's biggest debuts on the weekly Billboard 200 chart on Wednesday, cementing its status as the latest boy band to conquer the United States. 5 Seconds of Summer's debut self-titled album sold 259,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan. It became the third most-streamed album on music platform Spotify, with more than 4.4 million streams last week according to the platform. For 2014, the album's first-week sales trailed only Coldplay's "Ghost Stories," which debuted with 383,000 copies in May and Eric Church's "The Outsiders," which opened with 288,000 in February. 5 Seconds of Summer, formed by Luke Hemmings, Calum Hood, Ashton Irwin and Michael Clifford, built a following as an opening act for British boy band One Direction over the past year. This year, its popularity grew with the single "She's So Perfect," which is on the de

Three years ago playwright Laline Paull began to notice bees in her garden in Sussex, southeast England. Her interest was inspired by the death of a beekeeping friend. “Angie had breast cancer, and she wasn’t going to make it. I was awed at her graciousness in the face of her terror and when she died, in order to keep that feeling of how wonderful she was, I started reading about bees. She was gone but the bees were not gone.” The more Paull read the more inspired she was. “Everything I read made me think 'Wow, they do that? They fly how far? It takes how many bees their whole lives to make a teaspoon of honey?'” The result is her debut novel, "The Bees", a story of intense drama within a hive, framed by a biological integrity that intrigues and informs. Through the protagonist Flora we learn of the hive mind, the blissful scent of mother love, nectar gathering, and encroaching sickness. The pampered drones (male bees) are sketched with expert humor as the fe

When Cambridge City Council decided to hold a music festival in the historic English university town back in 1964, few expected it to be going strong 50 years later. But this year the Cambridge Folk Festival is celebrating its golden anniversary in style with headliner Van Morrison - who had to be courted for years before he agreed to attend - as well as Roseanne Cash and Sinead O'Connor. There also will be time for folksy pursuits like rapper dancing, which is a dance using a short sword, and yarnbombing - the graffiti version of knitting. It's this eclectic approach that keeps people coming back year after year to the festival, which runs from July 31 to Aug 3. And although it has evolved and expanded since the 1960s, it is still held at the compact Cherry Hinton Hall site just outside town. "We have withstood the pressure to expand the festival or move it to a larger site because we appreciate the intimacy of the performance is what people really like – the site a

Award-winning American filmmaker Robert L. Drew, a pioneer of the cinema vérité documentary style, died on Wednesday in Sharon, Connecticut at the age of 90, his family said. _0"> Drew, who made more than 100 films on social issues, politics and the arts during a career that spanned more than five decades, died peacefully surrounded by children and friends. "He had been declining for some time and it was not completely unexpected," his son, Thatcher Drew, said. Drew, a former correspondent and editor at Life Magazine and a fighter pilot during World War Two, helped to develop cinema vérité, a direct type of observational or fly on the wall filming to capture reality. He also founded the documentary film company Drew Associates in the early 1960s. Many of his films were shown on television and screened at international film festivals. "He believed in the pure form of cinema vérité. It was a strict code that allowed no directing of subjects, no set up shots

Kids have been sleeping overnight in museums across the country for years, dozing off among live sharks and dinosaur bones. Now adults are getting to join the fun. The American Museum of Natural History is hosting its first adults-only sleepover this week, with a champagne reception, live jazz and a three-course dinner. Guests will spend the night in sleeping bags beneath the iconic 94-foot-long blue whale suspended in the cavernous Milstein Hall of Ocean Life. The event sold out in three hours, organizers said. Adults-only overnights are rather rare, yet experts say they can be an excellent and innovative way for U.S. museums to attract new supporters. "Every museum is looking for a new way to engage different demographics," said Paul Johnson, a fund-raising consultant. "It's a way to engage people, get people in the door who may not otherwise come," he said. "It's about cultivating future audiences and future donors." Scores of museums of

When Cambridge City Council decided to hold a music festival in the historic English university town back in 1964, few expected it to be going strong 50 years later. But this year the Cambridge Folk Festival is celebrating its golden anniversary in style with headliner Van Morrison - who had to be courted for years before he agreed to attend - as well as Roseanne Cash and Sinead O'Connor. There also will be time for folksy pursuits like rapper dancing, which is a dance using a short sword, and yarnbombing - the graffiti version of knitting. It's this eclectic approach that keeps people coming back year after year to the festival, which runs from July 31 to Aug 3. And although it has evolved and expanded since the 1960s, it is still held at the compact Cherry Hinton Hall site just outside town. "We have withstood the pressure to expand the festival or move it to a larger site because we appreciate the intimacy of the performance is what people really like – the site a

There are thousands of music festivals around Europe every summer, but only one lays claim to being held at the highest altitude and that's the one in the Swiss ski resort of Verbier, sometimes called the Davos of the music world. It gets that nickname in part from the quality of the musicianship. Argentine-born piano star Martha Argerich is a regular, and this year the big names have included Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin, British cellist Steven Isserlis and American violinist Joshua Bell. But the comparison has a deeper root. The three-week-long Verbier Festival, which runs from July until August 3, draws the moneyed elites and big corporate sponsors. George Clooney's smiling face is a fixture around the town as the brand ambassador for food giant Nestle's Nespresso coffee line, while Swiss private banker Julius Baer is another sponsor. Martin Engstroem - the Swedish artists' agent who founded the festival in 1994 and lost 1.2 million Swiss francs ($1.3 million)

Viacom Inc's unit, Paramount Pictures, said director and producer Michael Bay extended his first-look agreement with the studio by three years. _0"> The agreement with Bay's production company Platinum Dunes starts immediately and was expanded to include Bay Films, Paramount said. Bay has directed and produced films such as "Pearl Harbor," "Armageddon," and the "Transformers" series. (Reporting by Abhirup Roy in Bangalore; Editing by Savio D'Souza )

Rock guitarist Dick Wagner, whose prolific session work graced the albums of such acts as Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, Kiss and Aerosmith during the 1970s, has died at age 71 in Arizona, his manager said on Thursday. The Michigan-bred musician, featured on scores of albums and hailed by fans as "the Maestro of Rock," suffered from a number of health problems in his later years, including two heart attacks and a stroke. He died on Wednesday at a hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona, succumbing to respiratory failure about two weeks after undergoing a cardiac procedure, his manager and business partner, Susan Michelson, told Reuters. Wagner began his rock career in the 1960s with the formation of an early Detroit-area band called the Bossmen. He gained wider notice after establishing the Frost, recording his first three Billboard-charted albums with that group. After moving to New York he formed another band, Ursa Major, whose original but short-lived lineup included Billy Joel on

Flying sharks chomping through New York City drew a record audience for Syfy's "Sharknado 2: The Second One," and became the most tweeted-about TV movie on social media, the U.S. cable network said on Thursday. _0"> "Sharknado 2," which aired on Wednesday and reunited leading stars Tara Reid and Ian Ziering from last year's campy hit "Sharknado," drew 3.9 million viewers to become Syfy's most-watched original movie. The network added that the film also attracted 1.6 million viewers in the 18-49 demographic that advertisers covet. On Twitter, Syfy, a unit of Comcast Corp's NBCUniversal, said "Sharknado 2" garnered 1 billion impressions across conversations on the micro-blogging site, and was also among the top trending topics of Wednesday evening. In the movie, an aerial shark attack causes large-scale destruction across Manhattan. It features numerous cameos including "Today" show hosts Matt Lauer and Al R

There are thousands of music festivals around Europe every summer, but only one lays claim to being held at the highest altitude and that's the one in the Swiss ski resort of Verbier, sometimes called the Davos of the music world. It gets that nickname in part from the quality of the musicianship. Argentine-born piano star Martha Argerich is a regular, and this year the big names have included Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin, British cellist Steven Isserlis and American violinist Joshua Bell. But the comparison has a deeper root. The three-week-long Verbier Festival, which runs from July until August 3, draws the moneyed elites and big corporate sponsors. George Clooney's smiling face is a fixture around the town as the brand ambassador for food giant Nestle's Nespresso coffee line, while Swiss private banker Julius Baer is another sponsor. Martin Engstroem - the Swedish artists' agent who founded the festival in 1994 and lost 1.2 million Swiss francs ($1.3 million)

The "Guardians of the Galaxy" stormed into the box office with a $11.2 million opening night, Walt Disney Co said on Friday, and could outperform expectations if it keeps drawing viewers with a new leading man, strong reviews and social media buzz. _0"> "Guardians," the newest franchise from the Disney-owned Marvel universe, follows a rogue band of misfits on an intergalactic space adventure. As the Guardians try to save the galaxy from a planet-destroying orb coveted by evil warlords, they may also "save the summer" for a slumping movie industry if the film exceeds expectations, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak. "This is a movie that everyone has been waiting for," Dergarabedian said. Hollywood's summer box office has been in a funk, producing fewer blockbusters than usual and putting ticket sales 20 percent behind last year at $2.93 billion. Early projections for the "Guardians" opening weeke

Summer jobs: The very mention brings up memories of low pay, long hours and sweaty, clueless teenagers who don't really know what they're doing. Memories like that are still vivid for some of the nation's greatest achievers. Since last August, Reuters has been gathering the first-job stories of successful Americans, including sports legends, business titans and media superstars. This month, to coincide with the nation's monthly jobs report, we spoke to a few of them about those memorable summer jobs that got them started. JASON MRAZ, SINGER AND SONGWRITER First summer job: Fence builder "My dad was a fence contractor in Mechanicsville, Virginia, so my first paying gig was building fences. It involved a lot of digging holes, cleaning up construction sites and distributing lumber. It was for $5 an hour, which, at the time, was more than minimum wage." "It was hard manual labor, and I certainly would rather have been at the pool with my friends r

Those ubiquitous Angry Birds flew from the mobile screen to the toy store, hooked up with Hollywood, and are headed back to the digital world thanks to the telepod. That is toymaker Hasbro Inc's answer to merging the physical and digital worlds of children's play in what the industry calls "toys-to-life." And like another leading toy company, Walt Disney Co, they are finding fans among the fervent audiences for action and superhero films. Hasbro's Angry Bird telepods were a big attraction last weekend at San Diego's Comic-Con, an annual gathering of 130,000 comic and entertainment enthusiasts, with fans lining up to preview new Transformers-themed bird figurines containing miniscule codes that can be read by tablets. The Angry Birds Transformers telepods, featuring "Autobirds" and "Deceptihogs," is due out on October 15, spinning off the success of Paramount Pictures' June box office hit, "Transformers: Age of Extinction."

David Cassidy, the "Partridge Family" star and 1970s teen idol, will have to appear in a New York court to face a drunken driving charge after missing a proceeding related to his plea deal, apparently because he was playing a game of bocce nearby. Cassidy, 64, was charged last summer with driving while intoxicated. He was initially allowed to forego an in-person appearance at Schodack Town Court that is typically required in criminal cases because he lives in Florida and the court was told he was undergoing substance abuse treatment. Cassidy's lawyer, Lucas Mihuta, was set to sign an agreement that would have allowed Cassidy to enter a guilty plea on misdemeanor charges without being present. But at 11:09 a.m. on Wednesday, the New York Horse racing Association tweeted that Cassidy was at Saratoga Race Track, playing bocce with two horse trainers and an equine doctor.   Carmelo Laquidara, Rensselaer County chief assistant district attorney, said he heard about the t

Canadian band Magic! moved up one place to top the British singles charts on Sunday with their reggae-infused debut track "Rude", the Official Charts Company said. _0"> The single toppled Cheryl Cole's "Crazy Stupid Love" to take the number one spot, boosted by internet streaming which was added to the charts data last month alongside physical sales. In the albums chart, British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran continued his run at number one, topping the bill for a sixth week with "X", while Dolly Parton's "Blue Smoke - The Best Of" remained in second place. Eric Clapton & Friends were a new entry at number three with "The Breeze", a tribute to late U.S. singer-songwriter J.J. Cale. The album features contributions from a host of musicians including John Mayer, Tom Petty and Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan ; editing by Keiron Henderson)

Canadian band Magic! moved up one place to top the British singles charts on Sunday with their reggae-infused debut track "Rude", the Official Charts Company said. _0"> The single toppled Cheryl Cole's "Crazy Stupid Love" to take the number one spot, boosted by internet streaming which was added to the charts data last month alongside physical sales. In the albums chart, British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran continued his run at number one, topping the bill for a sixth week with "X", while Dolly Parton's "Blue Smoke - The Best Of" remained in second place. Eric Clapton & Friends were a new entry at number three with "The Breeze", a tribute to late U.S. singer-songwriter J.J. Cale. The album features contributions from a host of musicians including John Mayer, Tom Petty and Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan ; editing by Keiron Henderson)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and actress Cheryl Hines married on Saturday evening at the Kennedy family compound at Hyannis, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, according to media reports and the designer of Hines’ wedding gown. _0"> The couple married under a tent before a cheering group of family and friends during the Kennedy family's annual reunion, according to People magazine. Kennedy, 60, is an environmental lawyer and son of the late U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Hines, 48, is an actress and writer on the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm." A fans’ website for Hines provided links to media accounts of the wedding, and the designer of her gown, Romona Keveza, announced the wedding on her company Facebook page on Saturday. Hines and Kennedy were introduced on a ski trip in Utah, and the marriage is her second and his third, according to People. (Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City; Editing by Paul Simao)

"Guardians of the Galaxy," Walt Disney Co's offbeat space adventure featuring extraterrestrial misfits and a talking raccoon, made $94 million in ticket sales this weekend, setting a record for an August film opening. The film's strong beginning, however, isn't likely to jumpstart a lackluster summer box office season. The 3D movie, which stars lesser-known characters in Disney's Marvel comic book universe, added $66.4 million from international markets, for a global debut of $160.4 million, Disney said on Sunday. "Guardians" outgunned last weekend's leader, the science-fiction thriller "Lucy" that collected another $18.3 million in sales at domestic theaters, according to estimates from Rentrak. "Lucy" stars Scarlett Johansson as a woman with a super-powered brain. "Get On Up," a biography of the soul singer James Brown, was third with $14 million in its first weekend in theaters. "Guardians" stars

The United States will announce nearly $1 billion in business deals, increase funding for peacekeeping and commit billions of dollars to expanding food and power programs in Africa during a summit this week, U.S. and development officials say. U.S. officials said the Aug. 4-6 summit in Washington of nearly 50 African leaders hopes to showcase U.S. interest in the fast-growing region through a series of government-private partnership deals to boost trade and investment. The spread of the deadly Ebola virus in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone is also a reminder of the vast development needs that persist in some of the region's poorest countries, despite rapid their rapid economic growth and investment. Administration officials have played down questions over whether the summit is in response to China's growing presence in the region. Instead, they have emphasized that American interests go beyond Africa's oil and minerals, where China is focused. "You will see a ser

China has excluded U.S.-based Symantec Corp and Russia's Kaspersky Lab from a list of approved anti-virus software vendors, according to a Chinese media report suggesting Beijing is expanding efforts to limit use of foreign technology. The state-controlled People's Daily reported the news early Sunday on its English Twitter feed, saying that the government's procurement agency "has excluded Symantec & Kaspersky" from a list of security software suppliers. A second tweet said that government procurement office had approved the use five anti-virus software brands, all from China: Qihoo 360 Technology Co, Venustech, CAJinchen, Beijing Jiangmin and Rising. Officials with Symantec could not be reached for comment. Kaspersky spokesman Alejandro Arango said: "We are investigating and engaging in conversations with Chinese authorities about this matter. It is too premature to go into any additional details at this time." The report comes after Beijing

Boutique investment bank Evercore Partners Inc said on Sunday it plans to acquire the operating business of ISI International Strategy & Investment, an independent research-driven equity sales and agency trading firm. _0"> Evercore will also acquire about 40 percent interest in its Institutional Equities business that it does not already own. The combined business will be known as Evercore ISI Institutional Equities, Evercore said in a press release. Evercore will issue up to about 8 million share equivalents in the two transactions - worth about $401 million as of Friday's close - with almost 70 percent of the share equivalent consideration dependent on the financial performance of the combined business over the five years following closing. The transactions are expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2014, and are subject to required regulatory approvals. Evercore shares closed down 8.1 percent at $50.13 on Friday. (Reporting by Angela Moon ; Editing by San

Just before Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd completed a deal to take control of media group Network18 Media & Investments Ltd in early July, two top editors stepped down. In farewell letters to staff, both mentioned press freedoms. Neither linked their decision to the change in ownership, but news of their resignation prompted heated debate over the significance of one of India's most powerful companies buying up some of the country's leading newsrooms. On July 7, the Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance is sole beneficiary, completed the acquisition of control of Network18, home to news channels CNN-IBN and CNBC-TV18, Forbes India and firstpost.com, among others. "Editorial independence and integrity have been articles of faith in (my) 26 years in journalism and maybe I am too old now to change!" wrote one of the two, Rajdeep Sardesai, who was editor-in-chief of IBN 18 News Network, including CNN-IBN, a respected English-language news chan

If Masayoshi Son, the billionaire founder and CEO of SoftBank Corp needs a fresh strategy to fend off a surprise French counterbid for a prized U.S. telecoms target, he could do worse than ask budding entrepreneurs at the SoftBank Academia. Here, some 300 or so aspiring leaders - split about evenly between company insiders and entrepreneurs from outside - brainstorm ideas and vie to catch Son's eye, with a chance he'll offer them a job or invest in their company, or even choose them as his "heir" to run Japan's second most valuable listed company. The Academia, set up by Son four years ago, meets once or twice a month in the 25th floor cafeteria of SoftBank's Tokyo headquarters. In what sounds like an episode from business-reality TV show "The Apprentice", the budding leaders play business-themed board games and compete with 5-minute business proposals that are judged by their peers. The winners get to meet Son; the losers hear, "You're