Kim K. flaunts pregnant belly in 'Keeping Up' teaser
Now that Kourtney and Kim are done taking Miami (the season finale aired on Sunday), it’s time to keep up with the rest of the Kardashians.
A teaser trailer for the eighth season of E!’s “Keeping Up” recently hit the Web, promising “a huge change in dynamics.”
In addition to the Jenner boys joining the cast, Kim is expecting a new cast member of her own.
The mom-to-be bares her pregnant belly in the short trailer and shares, “I’m scared with the divorce. … I’m probably going to have this baby being married to someone else.”
Meanwhile, it looks like Kourtney and Scott are trying to spice up their sex life, Rob is trying to lose weight, Khloe is trying to convince her sisters that she doesn’t want to get pregnant, and Bruce is trying to persuade Kris to keep a gun in the house.
The new season premieres on June 2 at 9 p.m. ET.
P. Diddy tops list of hip-hop's wealthiest
Sean "P. Diddy" Combs has gone by many names, but for now we can call him hip-hop's biggest moneymaker.
Forbes magazine has released its list of the five wealthiest hip-hop artists of 2013, and Combs is No. 1. Forbes estimates that he has a net worth of $580 million.
The industry mogul is lining his pockets mainly with deals outside of music, particularly his work with Ciroc vodka.
Coming in second place is Jay-Z, whose net worth arrives at $475 million. Between the 2007 sale of Rocawear for $204 million, and his $150 million deal with Live Nation, we're guessing his daughter Blue Ivy won't have to worry about her college tuition fund.
Coming in third place is Dr. Dre with a net worth of $350 million, mostly due to his Beats by Dr. Dre line of headphones.
Lil Wayne's Cash Money/Young Money Entertainment co-hort, Bryan "Birdman" Williams, is at No. 4 with a net worth of $150 million. At No. 5 on the list of the wealthiest hip-hop artists is 50 Cent, whose net worth of $125 million includes solid sales of music, merchandise, video games and books.
New York Metropolitan Museum of Art receives $1bn donation
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has received a $1bn (£650m) donation of Cubist art from cosmetics executive Leonard Lauder.
The heir to the Estee Lauder fortune has pledged 78 works - considered one of the foremost collections of Cubism in the world.
It includes pieces from Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and Fernand Leger, amassed over 37 years.
Museum director Thomas Campbell said the gift was "truly transformational".
In a statement, Lauder, 80, said his gift was for "the people who live and work in New York and those from around the world who come to visit our great arts institutions".
The Met said it had previously "lacked" early 20th Century art, but with Lauder's donation it would be at the forefront of world collections.
"We have long lacked this critical dimension in the story of modernism. Now, Cubism will be represented with some of its greatest masterpieces," Campbell said.
The collection "distinguished by its quality, focus, and depth," includes 33 Picassos, 17 works by Braque and 14 by Gris and Leger.
Lauder built it up over nearly four decades, telling the story of a movement that revolutionised modern art and paved the way for abstraction.
"I selected the Met as the way to share this collection because I feel that it's essential that Cubism - and the art that follows it, for that matter - be seen and studied within the collections of one of the greatest encyclopaedic museums in the world," he said.
The collection is thought to be worth around 13% of Lauders' personal fortune according to Forbes magazine which it said "enshrines him in the pantheon of the most generous philanthropists of all time".
Meanwhile, letters written by J D Salinger to a spiritual mentor have been donated to The Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan.
The Catcher in the Rye author wrote 28 letters to Swami Vivekananda, founder of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Centre, which donated the correspondence.
Salinger, who died in 2010 aged 91, was strongly influenced by Eastern religion and philosophy and mentioned Vivekananda in his story Hapworth 16, 1924.
The Morgan Museum now holds 52 letters written by Salinger in its collection.
Barack Obama unveils $3.77tn budget plan
US President Barack Obama has unveiled a $3.77tn (£2.4tn) budget that proposes fresh taxes on the wealthy along with cuts to benefit programmes.
The White House is offering to trim pensions and healthcare costs, but only in return for $700bn in new revenue.
However, the Obama plan is viewed as having no chance of being fully enacted by the deadlocked Congress.
Republicans Senate leader Mitch McConnell branded the budget a "left-wing wish list".
The Democratic president will host a dinner for senior Republicans on Wednesday evening to sell his proposals.
Conservatives have refused to agree to new revenue after passing tax rises on earnings over $400,000 in January.
Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, have balked at Mr Obama's compromise offer to cut Social Security pension payments.
Mr Obama’s budget aims to reduce the US deficit by an additional $1.8tn over 10 years, bringing total potential reductions to $4.3tn, according to administration estimates.
Cuts in the plan include about $400bn in government health spending, and about $130bn from Social Security, by changing the way cost-of-living adjustments are calculated.
Elderly and disabled recipients with the lowest incomes would be shielded from the changes.
The cost-of-living adjustments would also raise $100bn in revenue over 10 years through changes to tax brackets.
Additional cuts would include $100bn each from military and domestic programmes as well as reductions in farm subsidies and federal employee pension programmes.
Mr Obama proposes raising revenue by eliminating income deductions for the top 2% of earnings and includes the president's oft-repeated Buffett Rule, requiring households with incomes of more than $1m to pay at least 30% in taxes.
The plan also includes some new spending aimed at improving the US economy, including $50bn in infrastructure and $1bn for 15 manufacturing institutes across the country.
Mr Obama has previously cited infrastructure spending as the best possible investment to propel an economic recovery.
His blueprint would replace automatic, across-the-board cuts - known as sequestration - to both military and domestic programmes that began on 1 March.
Those cuts took effect after Democrats and Republicans failed to agree to another plan to cut spending and reduce the US budget deficit.
Negotiations over the next US budget are expected to run into the summer, but the White House says the document released on Wednesday is not a opening offer.
"We don't view this budget as a starting point in the negotiations," a senior administration official said on Tuesday. "This is an offer where the president came more than halfway toward the Republicans."
But House of Representatives Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan argued that Republicans had made enough concessions.
Mr Ryan's budget proposal, already passed in the Republican-controlled House, sets out $4.6tn in deficit reduction.
Most of the savings would be found from healthcare spending and domestic programmes, without additional tax revenue, according to his plan.
Source-BBC
WTO cuts 2013 trade growth forecast
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has cut its trade growth forecast for 2013 because of risks from the eurozone crisis and from greater protectionism.
Global trade is now expected to grow by 3.3% this year, the WTO says, down from its earlier forecast of 4.5%.
Next year, however, growth should rebound to about 5%, said WTO director general Pascal Lamy.
Countries might turn to protectionism as other attempts to boost growth have been "found wanting", he said.
"There is a need for more rules-based trade in order to reduce unemployment and to stimulate growth," he said.
The WTO also warned that the weakness in Europe's economies would continue to weigh on trade.
It said that "improved economic prospects for the United States in 2013 should only partly offset the continued weakness in the European Union, whose economy is expected to remain flat or even contract slightly this year according to consensus estimates".
"China's growth should continue to outpace other leading economies, cushioning the slowdown, but exports will still be constrained by weak demand in Europe," it added.
The WTO said that trade had grown by just 2% in 2012, the second-worst figure since records began in 1981. The worst performance had come in 2009 when trade shrank.
Average growth over the past two decades has been 5.3%, it said.
In dollar terms, the value of the goods traded last year remained stagnant at $18.3 trillion (£11.9 trillion). The value was unchanged because prices for coffee, cotton, coal and iron ore fell.
"The events of 2012 should serve as a reminder that the structural flaws in economies that were revealed by the economic crisis have not been fully addressed, despite important progress in some areas," Mr Lamy said.
"Repairing these fissures needs to be the priority for 2013."
Brussels warns on Spanish and Slovenian 'imbalances'
UK hourly labour costs have fallen nearly two euros (£1.7; $2.6) below the EU average, data from the EU's statistics agency Eurostat show.
The EU average in 2012 was 23.4 euros hourly - and in the UK it was 21.6.
Eurostat calls the figures estimates, based on enterprises with 10 or more staff. Labour costs mean wages plus some other costs such as employers' social contributions.
The costs vary widely in the EU - from 3.7 euros in Bulgaria to 39 in Sweden.
The Eurostat data were given in euros to enable comparison across the EU. The data cover the whole economy except for agriculture and public administration.
In the UK, hourly labour costs rose on average from 20.9 euros in 2008 to 21.6 euros in 2012 - a 3.3% rise. But measured in pounds sterling, and taking account of exchange rate fluctuations, the increase was 5.2%.
Eurostat says that in 2012 the non-wage costs for employers, as a share of total labour costs, were highest in France (33.6%), Sweden (33.3%) and Lithuania (28.3%). The UK was at the lower end of the scale - 15.1%, but even lower were Denmark (12.4%) and Luxembourg (13.4%).
In the eurozone the biggest increases in labour costs since 2008 were in Austria (15.5%), Slovakia (13.8%) and Finland (13.7%).
There was a big decrease of 11.2% in Greece - coinciding with the country's financial crisis.
In non-eurozone countries the biggest increases were in Bulgaria (42.6%) and Sweden (23.3%).The European Commission has warned that Spain and Slovenia must quickly tackle the imbalances in their economies.
Spain has already had its banking system bailed out and Slovenia is widely expected to become the next to ask for for a debt rescue.
The Commission said the pair are the worst of the 13 European Union countries currently under review.
It called on Spain to deliver a "decisive" reform programme by the end of the month.
The imbalances in debt, unemployment and growth were doing long-term damage, with more than half of under-25s unable to find a job, the Commission said.
"Our (European) citizens are still paying the price for the unchecked development of imbalances in the past," it said in a statement.
"Urgent policy action needed"
Brussels highlighted the plight of banks in Slovenia by saying that "urgent policy action is needed".
The new Slovenian prime minister, Alenka Bratusek, insisted on Tuesday that her government was already working "day and night" to save the country's banking system.
The Commission said that the other 11 European Union countries experiencing "macroeconomic imbalances" to a lesser degree than Spain or Slovenia were Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Italy, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Source-BBC
South Korea raises alert with North to 'vital threat
South Korea has raised its alert level to "vital threat" amid indications the North is preparing for a missile test.
At least one ballistic missile with an estimated 3,000km (2,000-mile) range is fuelled and ready for launch, US and South Korean sources say.
Pyongyang has been making bellicose threats against South Korea, Japan and US bases in the region.
The threats follow tough new UN sanctions imposed on North Korea last month after its third nuclear test.
Separately, an initial investigation by the South into a major cyber attack last month that affected a number of banks and broadcasters has said the North is to blame.
North Korea is believed to have completed preparations for a missile launch after it moved two Musudan missiles to its east coast, Yonhap news agency says.
In anticipation, the South Korea-US Combined Forces have raised their alert level to Watchcon 2, to increase surveillance monitoring, Yonhap quoted a senior military official as saying.
North Korea unveiled the Musudan missile during a military parade in 2010 but has yet to test it. There are reports, however, that it may have been sold to Iran and tested there.
The launch could happen "anytime from now", South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told parliament.
A test launch would be a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1718, passed in 2006, which states the North "must not conduct any further nuclear test or launch of a ballistic missile".
North Korea has tested intermediate range missiles before and during periods of crisis and tension, says the BBC's John Sudworth in Seoul.
So while another test launch would certainly be seen as provocative, it is unlikely to have any major, short-term military significance unless it goes wrong, our correspondent adds.
He says one key date for a launch could be Monday - the birthday of the North Korean state's late founder, Kim Il-sung.
Yonhap also reported that the South's National Police Agency had raised its state of alert by one level from "attention" to "caution".
It said that patrols had been increased at 770 sites, including at embassies and key underground stations.
Japan's Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said his nation was on "high alert", with anti-missile defences deployed in Tokyo as a precaution.
A number of travel agencies in China have reported that tourist trips into North Korea have been suspended.
One travel agent in the north-eastern city of Dandong told Reuters news agency: "All [tourist] travel to North Korea has been stopped from today and I've no idea when it will restart."
The border remains open to commercial traffic.
Meanwhile, an official investigation by the South into last month's cyber attack traced the malicious codes used to six computers in the North.
"We've collected a lot of evidence to determine the North's Reconnaissance General Bureau led the attack, which had been prepared for at least eight months," a spokesman for the Korea Internet and Security Agency said.
The attack on 20 March severely affected the KBS, MBC and YTN broadcasters and operations at the Shinhan, NongHyup and Jeju banks.
Source-BBC
Horsemeat scandal: Dutch uncover large-scale meat fraud
Some 50,000 tonnes of meat supplied by two Dutch trading companies and sold as beef across Europe since January 2011 may have contained horsemeat.
The meat is being recalled where possible, the Dutch authorities say.
There was no evidence that the meat was a threat to human health, the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority said.
In total, 132 companies in the Netherlands and some 370 more around Europe are affected by the discovery.
The suspect meat was supplied by Wiljo Import en Export BV and Vleesgroothandel Willy Selten.
The two companies are owned by one man who has already previously been investigated by food safety officials, the BBC's Matthew Price reports.
The latest find was made as part of EU-wide tests to trace horse DNA in processed beef foods and to detect a veterinary drug used on horses.
The recall covers meat dating back to 1 January 2011 up until 15 February this year, the Dutch food authority said on Wednesday.
Due to the lapse of time, a lot of the meat "may already have been consumed", it added.
Inspectors examining the records of the Dutch trading companies found that the origin of the supplied meat was unclear. As a result it was not possible to confirm whether slaughterhouses had respected procedures.
Some of the suspect meat was also exported to Germany, France and Spain, where authorities have been alerted. The British Food Standards Agency has confirmed that a small number of UK companies may have received products from the Dutch wholesalers.
"It might contain traces of horsemeat, but we don't know for certain at the moment if this is the case," said Esther Filon, a spokeswoman for the Dutch food authority.
"The buyers have probably already processed the meat and sold it on. They, in turn, are obliged to inform their own customers."
All EU member states have been informed of the Dutch discovery, EU spokesman Frederic Vincent told the BBC.
They have been urged to check whether or not processed meat products coming from the plants in question were still on the market, he added.
"The Dutch announcement is a consequence of the investigations which were launched by EU member states a few weeks ago," the EU spokesman said.
"Given the size of the fraud, the Dutch decided to go public with their discovery."
Traces of horsemeat have been found in numerous processed beef frozen meals across Europe.
In February, Dutch officials raided a meat processing plant suspected of mislabelling beef and ordered the withdrawal of suspicious products from supermarket shelves.
Other countries affected included the UK, the Republic of Ireland, France, Switzerland, Sweden and Germany.
The EU is set to adopt an Animal and Plant Health legislative proposal in the coming weeks, which includes clauses designed to tackle food fraud.
Source-BBC
Pakistan Gunmen Kill Police Officer Guarding Polio Workers
Officials in northwestern Pakistan say unknown gunmen shot and killed a policeman and wounded another, as they were protecting a team of female polio workers administering vaccines.
Authorities said Wednesday's attack happened in Mardan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. No polio workers were harmed since they were inside the home giving polio drops to children when the attack happened.
This is the latest in a series of attacks on people working on the United Nations-backed vaccination campaign in Pakistan. Last December, gunmen killed nine polio workers across the country. Several more have been killed in attacks since then.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, including the one Wednesday, but in the past, the Taliban has indicated violent opposition to the vaccinations and accused health workers of being spies. There also are rumors in Pakistan that the vaccinations are meant to make Muslim children sterile.
Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world where polio is endemic. The problem is worst in the tribal regions, where Islamist militants are most active.
Syria Leads G8 Talks Agenda
Britain and France are expected to continue their push to arm the Syrian opposition in its civil war against President Bashar al-Assad when G8 foreign ministers gather for talks Wednesday in London, but there are no signs of a major policy shift.
North Korea's threats of war will also be high on the agenda of the meeting, a preliminary gathering ahead of the annual Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland.
Members of Syria's civilian opposition are also in London, and are due to meet with some of the ministers, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his British and French counterparts.
Britain and France have advocated amending or lifting a European Union arms embargo on Syria to support the rebels. Russia and Germany oppose such a move, arguing it could allow weapons to fall into the hands of Islamist militants and fuel a regional conflict.
The foreign ministers will also discuss how to respond to North Korea, which has been threatening to attack the United States and South Korea and on Tuesday warned foreigners to evacuate the South to avoid being caught in a war.
The Group of Eight also plans to consider how to move forward from last week's failed talks on curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the ministers would also discuss Burma, Somalia, cyber security and how to prevent sexual violence in war zones.