A photograph of the late singer Whitney Houston holding a Grammy Award is displayed next to one of her Grammys during a press preview of the new exhibit ''Whitney! Celebrating The Musical Legacy of Whitney Houston'', at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, California August 15, 2012.

LOS ANGELES | Thu Sep 27, 2012 2:53pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Whitney Houston will be remembered in a star-studded Grammy televised concert as well the release of a greatest hits album and a television reality series following the singer's family as they cope with her sudden death.

Celine Dion, Usher and Jennifer Hudson were the first performers to be announced by The Recording Academy on Thursday for "We Will Always Love You: A Grammy Salute To Whitney Houston" on CBS on November 16.

The one-hour event will be taped in Los Angeles on October 11 and will also feature interviews and footage with the late singer, as well as artists sharing their memories of her.

Houston's death at age 48 from accidental drowning in a bathtub at a Beverly Hills hotel on the eve of the Grammy awards in February shocked the music world. Authorities deemed her death was also a result of heart disease and cocaine use.

The televised special will coincide with the November 13 release of a compilation album, "I Will Always Love You - The Best of Whitney Houston," featuring 16 of Houston's best-known hits and two previously unreleased songs, including a new duet of "I Look To You" with R. Kelly, her RCA record label said.

Lifetime television network will also be airing a new series starting on October 17, "The Houstons: On Our Own." It documents Houston's 19-year-old daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, sister-in-law and former manager Pat Houston and mother Cissy, as they deal with life after the singer's death.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy. Editing by Jill Serjeant and Andre Grenon)

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1 of 9. Protesters shout slogans during a protest against cuts in public education in central Madrid September 27, 2012.

MADRID | Thu Sep 27, 2012 7:59pm EDT

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain announced a crisis budget for 2013 based mostly on spending cuts on Thursday in what many see as an effort to pre-empt the likely conditions of an international bailout.

Ministry budgets were slashed by 8.9 percent for next year and public sector wages frozen for a third year as Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy battles to trim one of the euro zone's biggest deficits.

"This is a crisis budget aimed at emerging from the crisis ... In this budget there is a larger adjustment of spending than revenue," Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria told a news conference after a marathon six-hour cabinet meeting.

Beset by anti-austerity protests and threats of secession by the wealthy northwestern region of Catalonia, Rajoy is resisting market and diplomatic pressure to apply for a rescue, partly out of concern for national sovereignty but also because European Union paymaster Germany insists Spain doesn't need help.

The central government sees budget savings of 13 billion euros in 2013, with spending down 7.3 percent -- not including social security and interest payments -- and income rising 4 percent thanks to a 15 percent leap in value-added tax take.

The budget goes to parliament on Saturday and debates could last weeks. The country's 17 autonomous regions still must present budgets and find an additional 5 billion euros in adjustments to meet overall public deficit reduction goals.

Spain, the euro zone's fourth largest economy, is now at the center of the euro debt crisis. Investors fear Madrid cannot control its finances and question whether Rajoy has the political will to take all the necessary but unpopular measures.

Madrid is talking to EU authorities about the terms of a possible aid package that would trigger an European Central Bank bond-buying program and ease Spain's unsustainable funding costs.

Brussels has demanded an independent budget oversight body, which Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said on Thursday would be created to review budget execution. The government is still analyzing potential conditions for aid, he said.

The conservative government said tax revenue would be higher than originally budgeted in 2012 -- partly due to a hike in VAT -- allowing it to comfortably cut the public deficit to 6.3 percent from close to 9 percent last year.

Uncertainty over Spain's ability to control spending in regional governments -- which account for half of all public spending and could threaten the deficit goal -- has increased due to the Catalan demands for independence.

The autonomous region's parliament voted on Thursday to hold a referendum on independence, but Saenz de Santamaria said the region must consult the rest of the country first.

PENSIONS WILL BE REVIEWED

Pensions, earmarked by the European Commission as a key area for reform, will rise by 1 percent next year but Treasury Minister Cristobal Montoro would not be drawn on whether the government would pay an inflation catch-up which could be over 3 percent this year.

In a sign of how tight the budget is this year the government said it would use 3 billion euros from social security reserves to pay pensions in 2012.

Before the end of the year the government will announce a pension reform to restrict early retirement and to review sustainability of the pension system which could open the door to accelerating an increase in retirement age.

The deputy premier said the government would set out 43 new laws to reform the economy over the next six months and including reforms to the labor market, public administrations, energy services and telecommunications sectors.

The detailed timetable for economic reforms goes beyond what the European Commission has required and is an ambitious step forward, the EU's top economic official said on Thursday in response to the government announcements.

"The reforms are clearly targeted at some of the most pressing policy challenges," EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said in a statement.

Market reaction was cautious.

"The first impressions (of the announcements) are good, heading towards a major adjustment in spending rather than in revenues," said Jose Luis Martinez of Citigroup in Madrid.

"However, we see as too optimistic the macroeconomic assumption of 0.5 percent recession for the next year. We see a scenario with a deeper recession and if this were the case, further spending cuts will be needed."

De Guindos' statement that the 2012 budget deficit target would be met this year due to a solid increase in revenues will also be viewed with suspicion with many economists expecting the government to miss the objective.

Spending cuts continue to heap pressure on Spaniards and are likely to fuel further street protests, which have become increasingly violent as tensions rise and police use force to disperse crowds.

A quarter of all Spanish workers are unemployed and tens of thousands have been evicted from their homes since a housing bubble burst in 2008 and plummeting consumer and business sentiment tipped the country into a four-year economic slump.

The prime minister's image, both at home and abroad, has deteriorated rapidly since his party won an absolute parliamentary majority last November.

Newspaper pictures of Rajoy enjoying a cigar on Sixth Avenue in New York on Wednesday while protesters gathered in Madrid fuelled criticism of his detached attitude toward Spain's mounting problems.

(Additional reporting by Julien Toyer; Writing by Paul Day; Editing by Fiona Ortiz, Jeremy Gaunt, Paul Taylor and Giles Elgood)

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Professor Alessandro Vezzosi, Director of the Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci, points to details on a painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and representing Mona Lisa during a presentation in Geneva September 27, 2012.

GENEVA | Thu Sep 27, 2012 3:17pm EDT

GENEVA (Reuters) - A Swiss-based art foundation on Thursday unveiled what it argues is Leonardo da Vinci's original "Mona Lisa", backing its claim with evidence from a U.S. research physicist, a forensic imaging specialist and a top Italian expert on the artist.

Members of the group told a packed Geneva news conference that the portrait of a woman who appears to be some 10 years younger than the sitter in the famous painting in the Paris Louvre could only be the work of the Renaissance genius.

"The facts are overwhelming and clearly prove the authenticity of the masterpiece," said Swiss lawyer Markus Frey, president of the private Mona Lisa Foundation which insists it has no financial stake in the painting.

And Stanley Feldman, an art historian and member of the group, said that critics who have rejected any suggestion the "younger" version could be by Leonardo had never seen it. "We invite them to Geneva to study it themselves," he added.

"It is absolutely clear that neither this nor the Louvre version are copies," he said, in a clear response to British Leonardo authority Martin Kemp, who told a London newspaper last week "so much is wrong" with the foundation's painting, including that it is painted on canvas and not on wood, the artist's preferred medium.

In a luxurious 300-page publication devoted to research over 30 years on what has long been known as the "Isleworth Mona Lisa," the foundation argues that it was painted between 1503 and 1505 in Florence and never finished.

Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Leonardo museum in the Renaissance giant's home town of Vinci in central Italy and a world-renowned expert on the artist, said he had long believed in the existence of two Mona Lisas.

The foundation's version -- which has been owned since 2008 by a private consortium -- seemed likely to be the one that was recorded in a recently discovered document from 1503 and which he had long been seeking, said Vezzosi.

SAME ENIGMATIC SMILE

Slightly larger than the Paris portrait, which is widely dubbed "the world's most famous painting," it shows a woman in an identical pose, the same enigmatic smile and with the same geometric proportions.

John Asmus, a former space scientist from the University of California who has developed digitization techniques to study art works and applied them to the Louvre Mona Lisa, said his studies indicated Leonardo also painted the "Isleworth" version.

And Joe Mullins, an FBI-trained forensic imaging specialist, showed how he had made a computerized version of the woman in the Paris portrait as she would have been 10 years earlier and found it almost identical to the newly unveiled version.

Neither Vezzosi, Asmus or Mullins are members of the foundation.

Documents prove the painting, known in French as "La Joconde" and in Italian "La Giaconda", was commissioned from Leonardo by Florentine nobleman Francesco del Giacondo as a portrait of his wife, Lisa Gherardini.

Leonardo -- also an architect, sculptor and engineer -- left Florence in 1506, apparently delivering the unfinished work to Giacondo before leaving, as documents record it was seen there some 30 years later.

According to backers of the "Younger" Mona Lisa, the Paris version was probably painted around 1516 when the painter left for France. Before he died in 1519 in a small chateau on the Loire he is known to have shown visitors a Mona Lisa.

After his death, it found its way into the collection of French King Francois 1, and from there to the Louvre.

The "younger" version first surfaced in 1913 when British art connaisseur and painter Hugh Blaker found it in a manor house in western England, recording that it had been hanging there for about 150 years.

For the next 20 years, it hung in his home in the London suburb of Isleworth, so gaining its name.

But efforts by Blaker, who died in 1936, and subsequent owners to convince the art world at large of its authenticity failed. "What we want now if for people to come and look at this with an open mind," Feldman told the news conference.

(Reporting by Robert Evans, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Ronnie Wood of the The Rolling Stones walks away after posing at the opening of the exhibition ''Rolling Stones: 50'' at Somerset House in London July 12, 2012.

LONDON | Wed Sep 26, 2012 2:17pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and his ex-wife Jo Wood disagreed on Wednesday over the ownership of some items due to be sold off in an art and memorabilia auction next month as well as over how the sale was billed.

Both issued statements claiming ownership of items reported to be included in an auction to be held at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills on October 27 that was described as a "joint sale". The two separated in 2008 and finalised their divorce in 2011.

"Ronnie was asked by Jo some time ago if he wished to add some items to an auction and he said he did not want to participate," an emailed statement from his spokesman said. "He is therefore shocked and disappointed that this auction is being misrepresented as a joint sale. This is not the case."

A spokeswoman for Jo Wood said the former model was given the items as part of the divorce settlement.

"This is Jo's auction, it includes all the items left to her following the divorce," a statement read out to Reuters over the telephone said. "She's had everything in storage for three years and can't keep it any longer. Ronnie has been kept in the loop of the sale."

Ronnie said he was "staggered" that some of the auction items were his personal belongings, which he said did not pass to Jo as part of the divorce proceedings.

"The Tour Clothes being offered belong to the Rolling Stones and are not hers to sell," the statement said.

"Ronnie feels saddened that Jo has taken this course of action and wants the public to know he has NOT teamed up with Jo on this outrageous sale."

Auctioneer Darren Julien, the owner of Julien's Auctions, has pegged the collection's initial value at $300,000 to $500,000 and said the sale would go ahead.

"It is their (Ronnie and Jo's) collection and it is part of their divorce settlement," Julien told Reuters in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

"What we are doing is selling items that have shared ownership. These are items that are clearly owned by both Jo and Ronnie," he added.

DIVORCE

The rocker, 65, and Jo, 57, separated after his widely reported relationship with a young cocktail waitress named Ekaterina Ivanova. Their divorce was finalised in February 2011.

The sale takes place ahead of the release next February of Jo Wood's memoirs that promise to reveal her tales of life as the wife of a Rolling Stone.

Part of the proceeds will go to MusiCares, the Grammys charity that offers help to people in the music industry, the auction company said in a statement.

The collection features memorabilia spanning four decades from the guitarist's work with the Rolling Stones and his earlier association with the band Faces, as well as his solo career.

Items include tour clothing, backstage passes and ephemera from various Rolling Stones tours, such as worn leather jackets and custom painted Fender Stratocasters, one depicting a Rolling Stones recording session, valued at $4,000 to $8,000, Julien's said in a statement.

Portraits of Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan, valued at $800 to $1,200 each, are also among the artwork offered by Ronnie Wood, a celebrated visual artist and painter, it said.

Wood has recently been focusing on his visual art career and in April opened a New York City art show entitled, "Faces, Time and Places", featuring portraits of Mick Jagger, Richards, Charlie Watts and other celebrities.

But he is still best known for his music and in April was inducted for a second time into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with other members of Faces, including Rod Stewart and Kenney Jones.

The Rolling Stones, which Wood joined in 1975 after Mick Taylor left the band, were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1989 and this year are celebrating their 50th anniversary.

Also up for sale at the auction are antiques, furniture and art from the Surrey, England countryside estate once shared by the couple, including an Erard harp, pegged at $4,000 to $5,000, and a bronze jockey statue by Dame Elisabeth Frink valued at $65,000 to $85,000, Julien's said on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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n">(Reuters) - U.S. money managers cut their equity holdings to the lowest in three months in September despite a strong rally in U.S. stock markets, increasing their allocation in bonds to the highest in four, a Reuters poll found on Thursday.

The poll of 15 U.S. fund managers taken Sept 14-26, showed a drop in the average equity allocation in a global balanced portfolio to 62.6 percent, the lowest since June, from 64.6 percent in August.

That came despite a nearly 2 percent rally in the benchmark S&P 500 so far this month and a 16 percent rally since a recent trough in June. The MSCI world stock index is also up about 2 percent this month.

Investors in the asset allocation poll, as well as strategists the Reuters global stock market poll published on Wednesday, said that the "fiscal cliff" of tax increases and spending cuts at the start of the new year have made many investors cautious.

"We feel that (the S&P 500) is more likely to see modest moves upward in the near term, potentially declining as concerns surrounding the fiscal cliff come to bear near the end of the year," said Douglas Gordon, senior investment strategist at Russell Investments.

At the same time, the average bond allocation rose to 30.1 percent in September from 27.6 percent last month.

A chunk of that came from a rise in allocations to euro zone bonds, which followed the European Central Bank's announcement on September 6 that it intended to buy peripheral euro zone bonds in an attempt to bring down yields.

"We feel that this partially mitigates downside risks but certainly doesn't remove them. Questions remain surrounding longer term structural issues in Europe," said Gordon.

But it has become clear over recent days that Spain is very close to asking for a full international bailout. Allocations to euro zone equities by U.S. fund managers slipped slightly in September.

On the whole, government bonds attracted an average 39.7 percent of the firms' model allocation, up from 38.6 percent previous month. Firms allocated 10.9 percent of their global bond investments to the euro zone, up from 9.5 percent.

Stock markets broadly have rallied over the past few months in anticipation of a third round of bond purchases from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

On September 13, the Fed announced $40 billion purchases per month of agency mortgage-backed securities, pledging it would continuing buying bonds until there was a meaningful improvement in the moribund U.S. job market.

But allocations to U.S. and Canadian stocks fell in the latest Reuters asset allocation poll, together attracting 65.1 percent of the firms' overall stock exposure, down from 66 percent in August, and the lowest since June.

Apart from the threat of the "fiscal cliff" in the U.S., slowing growth in China, Latin America, and Europe have weighed on market sentiment, said David Goerz, chief investment officer of HighMark Capital Management.

Investors also allocated more to alternate forms of credit ranging from credit default swaps to agency mortgage backed-securities, which the Fed targeted in massive quantities in its latest stimulus plan.

Such credit accounted for 16.2 percent of bond investments, up from 15.3 percent last month.

(Reporting by Sam Forgione, Rahul Karunakar, Ruby Cherian, Deepti Govind; Editing by John Stonestreet)

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A home is seen padlocked and boarded up in Brentwood, New York February 10, 2012.

WASHINGTON | Thu Sep 27, 2012 10:47am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The percentage of seriously delinquent mortgages in the United States hit a three-year low in the second quarter, while the overall quality of mortgages remained little changed, a U.S. regulator said on Thursday.

According to a report released by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 88.7 percent of mortgages were current on payments at the end of the second quarter, a slight decline from the prior quarter's rate of 88.9, and a small increase from 88.1 percent a year earlier.

However, the percentage of seriously delinquent mortgages -- those that are at least 60 days past due or held by bankrupt borrowers — fell to 4.4 percent, the lowest level in three years. That represents a decline of 9.2 percent from a year ago.

The OCC attributes the year-over-year change to improving economic conditions, servicing transfers and the ongoing effects of both home retention loan modification programs as well as home forfeiture actions.

The percentage of mortgages in the second quarter that were 30 to 59 days past due stood at 2.8 percent, up 12.1 percent from the prior quarter but down 7.5 percent from a year ago.

The report covers 30.5 million first-lien mortgages worth $5.2 trillion in outstanding balances. That is about 60 percent of all first-lien mortgages in the United States.

(Reporting By Alexandra Alper; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)

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