LOS ANGELES | Thu Dec 20, 2012 8:36pm EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The administration of President Barack Obama plans to more than double the size of two marine sanctuaries off the northern California coast to guard the near pristine waters from oil drilling in a move that sidesteps potential hurdles in Congress, federal officials said on Thursday.

The proposed expansion would protect nutrient-rich Pacific Ocean waters off the coast north of San Francisco that are home to humpback whales, great white sharks and abundant fish stocks key to commercial fishing and tourism, officials said.

"This area is a national treasure, it needs and it deserves permanent protection from oil and gas exploration," said Representative Lynn Woolsey, a Democrat who represents Marin and Sonoma counties north of San Francisco.

"Believe me when I tell you that no one is going to vacation on the Sonoma coast if they are going to be looking at oil derricks," she said.

The protected zone covers nearly 2,800 square nautical miles, an area slightly bigger than the state of Delaware. From north to south, it ranges from the coast of the town of Point Arena to the waters beyond San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

Amid widespread public opposition in California to offshore drilling, the oil industry says it has no active plans to exploit the designated area.

Woolsey, who is retiring after 10 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, has pushed for the marine sanctuary expansion since 2004, but says Republican opposition in Congress was preventing its passage.

"The plain fact is that the Republican House majority will not debate or pass this bill," Woolsey said.

A House bill passed in 2008 did not get past the Democratic-controlled Senate that year.

Under pressure from Democratic leaders in Washington, the Obama administration's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has proposed expanding two existing federal marine sanctuaries, Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones.

The process will take up to two years as the agency hears from the public, officials said. The two existing sanctuaries cover over 1,800 nautical square miles, according to NOAA.

Tupper Hull, spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association, said none of the oil companies in his organization have shown an interest in drilling in northern California.

"It's not an area where there is any expectation that additional energy is going to be brought to market," Hull said.

Several Republican members of Congress active on energy issues could not be reached for comment on the plan.

All of California's offshore oil production comes from 32 platforms off the southern coast of the state, and those derricks date from the late 1960s and early 1970s, Hull said. Drilling in federal waters off California produces only 54,000 barrels a day, compared to 1.3 million a day in the Gulf of Mexico, according to U.S. government figures.

The proposed waters to be protected in northern California has North America's most intense "upswelling" zone, where nutrient-rich water comes to the ocean surface and feeds many kinds of marine life, according to NOAA.

(Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Todd Eastham)

View the original article here

1 of 6. People stand in front of a portrait of Peter the Great at the Russians and Germans exhibition at the New Museum in Berlin, December 2, 2012.

BERLIN | Wed Dec 12, 2012 12:20pm EST

BERLIN (Reuters) - From beeswax and birch bark to war booty and gas pipelines, an exhibition now showing in Berlin chronicles the long, colorful and sometimes tragic history of relations between Germany and Russia, Europe's two most populous nations.

The "Russians and Germans" exhibition at the Neues Museum focuses on cultural and trade contacts between the two peoples stretching back to the 10th century and largely skirts the political controversies that still dog their relationship.

"The aim of the exhibition is to emphasize the continuity of intensive relations in the areas of politics, economy and culture," said Steffen Zarutzki of the agency that operates Berlin's state museums.

"It has been very successful and has drawn plenty of visitors, about a quarter of them Russian speakers."

The exhibition, sponsored by Germany's biggest energy group E.ON, is one of the main cultural events in a "year of Russia" in Germany that runs until 2013 and is paralleled by a "year of Germany" in Russia.

It comprises some 600 works of art, including paintings, books, costumes and weapons loaned by Russian museums. Arranged chronologically, it starts with the mediaeval Baltic merchants of the Hanseatic League and ends after the fall of the Berlin Wall and withdrawal of Soviet troops from German soil.

In one of the first rooms, a large wooden panel dating from the 14th century shows bearded Russians in tall hats and smocks collecting beeswax and hunting squirrels and sable for their furs and then presenting the products to German merchants.

Germans paid for the furs, wax, timber and grains with wines, metals and luxury goods - an exchange not unlike today's trade flows which see Russia selling natural resources such as gas and oil to buy German cars and other consumer goods.

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Primitive dictionaries with tables of vocabulary show the first efforts of German traders to learn Russian.

The explanatory labels of the exhibition tells the visitor that the word for 'German' in Russian - 'Nemtsy' - stems from the word 'mute', signaling the incomprehension with which early Slavs greeted visitors from the west.

Russians and Germans have an easier time understanding each other these days. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in Soviet-dominated East Germany, has good Russian while Russian President Vladimir Putin, stationed in the 1980s as a KGB agent in East Germany, speaks fluent German.

But there is still ample scope for misunderstanding and disagreement, as shown in Merkel's latest trip to Moscow where she and Putin clashed over Russia's human rights record even as they signed lucrative business deals.

Underlining the often wide cultural gulf between the two peoples, German traders living in Moscow would be required to live in a specially designated part of town to prevent them infecting local people with 'dangerous' ideas - a custom that has more recent echoes in the Cold War when Soviet citizens were discouraged from mixing with Western visitors.

But illustrating the rich cultural interaction always there in the background, the exhibition also tells of the Russian Orthodox archbishop of Novgorod who commissioned German architects to build a typically German red brick palace near his cathedral in the city's fortress, or 'kremlin'.

The exhibition recounts how German scholars and explorers helped to open up and map the vast territories of Siberia, it stresses the German origins of such famous Russian rulers as Catherine the Great and the contribution of German companies like Siemens to the industrialization of the Russian Empire.

Writers from Dostoevsky to Nabokov and artists like Kandinsky flocked to Germany at different times to escape political oppression at home - or simply lured by casinos and spas. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, hundreds of thousands of Russians have come in search of better jobs and salaries.

"The Russian soul and the German mind are clearly nearer to each other than is sometimes claimed," German President Joachim Gauck, a former pastor from the communist east, said at the opening of "Russians and Germans".

Urging both peoples to look beyond the devastating two world wars of the 20th century in which they fought on opposing sides, Gauck said there was much in their relationship to be proud of.

"In the shared history of Russia and Germany the horrors of the past will not have the last word," he said.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

View the original article here

Actor Shia LaBeouf poses on the red carpet during a screening for the movie ''The Company You Keep'' at the 69th Venice Film Festival September 6, 2012.

NEW YORK | Tue Dec 11, 2012 9:12pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hollywood star Shia LaBeouf will make his Broadway debut as a petty thief opposite Alec Baldwin in a revival of the play "Orphans," press representatives for the play's producers said on Tuesday.

LaBeouf, 26, who starred in such big-budget movies as "Indiana Jones" and the "Transformers" franchise films, will take to the Broadway stage playing Treat, a thief supporting his younger brother. Baldwin will playing an older gangster, Harold, in Lyle Kessler's play that premiered in 1983.

The new production of the drama, which has seen previous incarnations in Los Angeles, Chicago, and London as well as being made into a movie, will open on Broadway in April.

(Reporting By Christine Kearney, editing by Cynthia Osterman)

View the original article here

Ballet dancers perform during the premiere of a new production of the Russian composer Sergei Prokoviev's ''Metaphysics'' in the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg November 15, 2006.

LONDON | Tue Dec 18, 2012 3:31pm EST

LONDON (Reuters) - With the imminent opening of its third home venue, St. Petersburg's Mariinsky opera and ballet will ramp up an already prodigious output but may ease back on hectic foreign touring, director Valery Gergiev said on Tuesday.

World audiences have come to know Gergiev and his company well as they crisscrossed the globe after the collapse of Soviet state funding. But with Russians now pouring the kind of money into the arts that has just built the $700-million Mariinsky II theatre, he wants to concentrate on domestic performances.

"It's important for us to continue to go to London, Berlin or Chicago," Gergiev told Reuters after a presentation of plans in London. "But now we are more comfortable at home."

Touring remains important, not for commercial gain but for "national pride" in promoting Russian music, he said. Some 300 of 1,000 performances in 2014 would be on the road - but many of these would be not abroad but in distant Russian regions where Gergiev sees it his mission to bring music to the provinces.

For those unable to visit St. Petersburg, where the 2,000-seat new venue will open on May 2 to complement the 150-year-old opera house and a concert hall opened in 2006, the company, known as the Kirov in Soviet times, is expanding its recordings and video broadcasts to theatres worldwide, including in 3D.

A 3D recording of Christmas ballet "The Nutcracker" is in cinemas this winter and Gergiev will go a step further in what he acknowledged is not a risk-free experiment with a live 3D broadcast from St. Petersburg of "Swan Lake" on February 14 - St. Valentine's Day. It is being produced in partnership with the Hollywood 3D studio of "Avatar" director James Cameron.

Turning 60 next year, Gergiev shows little sign of slowing down; he plans to direct all three of the orchestras that will play under the Mariinsky name once the new venue opens, will begin new recordings of Wagner's "Ring" cycle and plans to complete his series of discs of all Shostakovich's symphonies.

While working the company hard, he denied there have been serious rumblings of discontent in the ballet troupe over pay and conditions. Responding to a letter of complaint from dancers that was widely publicized in Russian media last month, he said: "There's nothing terrible happening in the Mariinsky - no way."

In a move to address concerns, however, he announced a plan to build 50 or more apartments to house performers: "They will be relatively cheap apartments, basically a gift to them from the company," he said. "But then they have to perform."

(Reporting by Alastair Macdonald, editing by Jill Serjeant)

View the original article here

LOS ANGELES | Thu Dec 13, 2012 6:43pm EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A film memorabilia collector paid $1.2 million for nine rare and early film posters, including the world's highest-valued poster of the 1927 film "Metropolis," in a bankruptcy auction in Los Angeles on Thursday, the trustee in the bankruptcy case said.

Ralph DeLuca, who owns New Jersey-based film memorabilia company Movie Archives Inc, won the bidding against three others in the court auction, said trustee John J. Menchaca.

Bidding for the lot of posters started at $700,000. DeLuca beat out memorabilia powerhouse Heritage Auctions.

The "Metropolis" poster, the crown jewel of the collection, was purchased by California collector Kenneth Schachter for a record $690,000 in a 2005 private sale. But he was forced to sell the poster along with eight others after declaring bankruptcy.

"I honestly feel that the 'Metropolis' poster is worth more than the whole lot," DeLuca told Reuters after the auction. Other notable items in the lot included an original "King Kong" poster and an "Invisible Man" poster, both from 1933.

Directed by Austrian Fritz Lang, "Metropolis" was the most expensive silent film ever made at the time of its release. The German-produced film, with its special effects and futuristic plot, is considered a hallmark in early cinema.

The poster, one of only four known surviving copies, was illustrated by German Heinz Schulz-Neudamm, who depicted the film's dystopian future with towering, faceless skyscrapers and jagged script.

One copy is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which confers the poster's value as art, DeLuca said.

"It's 'The Scream,' the 'Guernica' of film posters," DeLuca said of the modernist masterpieces painted by Edvard Munch and Pablo Picasso, respectively. "It's literally the 'Mona Lisa.'"

DeLuca, however, has no plans to flip the poster in another sale.

"I think I'll keep the poster unless I get overwhelmed with a 'Guinness Book of Records' offer," he said. "I believe it will be the first to go past $1 million and even hit $2 million."

Schachter, a resident of Valencia about 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles, filed for bankruptcy last year after he was unable to repay loans he received to buy film memorabilia.

The sale will go to pay off Schachter's debts, which he listed at no more than $1 million when filing for bankruptcy.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant, desking by G Crosse)

View the original article here

The Frank Lloyd Wright designed house in the Arcadia neighborhood of Phoenix, Arizona, is shown in this undated handout image courtesy of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy.

PHOENIX | Thu Dec 20, 2012 10:50pm EST

PHOENIX (Reuters) - A Phoenix home designed by legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright for his son and daughter-in-law was purchased by anonymous benefactors on Thursday, sparing the distinctive residence from possible demolition.

The David and Gladys Wright House, which features a circular spiral layout reminiscent of Wright's iconic Guggenheim Museum in New York, was purchased for $2.38 million, listing agent Robert Joffe said.

The Chicago-based Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy said it had facilitated the purchase of the home by the anonymous buyers, who would in turn transfer the property to a not-for-profit organization for restoration and maintenance.

"This purchase is a magnificent and generous action," Conservancy president Larry Woodin said. "It is a gift to the people of Phoenix, a gift to the worldwide architectural community and to everyone that cares about the history of modern architecture."

The conservancy said plans for restoration were already under way and that donations would be sought from the public to continue that work. The new owners were also seeking historic landmark designation for the home from the city of Phoenix.

The home was completed in 1952 and Wright's son, David, lived there with his wife Gladys until his death in 1997 at age 102.

It was purchased from the family in 2009 and ultimately sold three years later to a local development company, 8081 Meridian, which had initially planned to demolish it and build new homes on the site.

Phoenix-area real estate agent Bob Hassett, who represented the buyers, said his clients wanted to remain anonymous and purchased the home in order to see it preserved.

"They just absolutely love Frank Lloyd Wright's work and always admired (the home) and cared about its historic value," Hassett said. "It would have been a travesty to tear it down. This is one of his better-known works.

Hassett said his clients had been in negotiations to buy the home several months ago and stepped in again recently after another set of buyers dropped out.

"My buyers just said, 'enough is enough,'" Hassett said.

The conservancy has gathered more than 28,000 signatures on a petition urging the city to give the home landmark status. Local agencies have approved that designation but it still awaits final approval by the city council.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton thanked the conservancy for its work in preserving the home.

"We developed a close working relationship in this process and we stand ready to help them with landmark designation, restoration and a conservation easement so that this important piece of our Phoenix history and the Frank Lloyd Wright legacy will be preserved for generations to come," Stanton said.

Wisconsin-born Frank Lloyd Wright, designed more than 1,100 structures, nearly half of which were completed, according to the conservancy. Considered one of the most important architects of the 20th Century, he died in 1959.

(Writing and additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Lisa Shumaker)

View the original article here

E L James, author of Fifty Shades of Grey, poses for photographers during a book signing in London September 6, 2012.

View the original article here