LONDON (Reuters) - Tax havens such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands will work more closely with Britain and other European countries to fight tax evasion, British finance minister George Osborne said on Thursday.

With governments in most advanced economies short of tax revenue after the financial crisis, pressure has been growing on small territories with big banking sectors to lift bank secrecy and do more to combat tax dodging and money laundering.

The United States has been in a lengthy dispute with Switzerland over the latter's bank secrecy rules, while the European Union also has turned up pressure on two of its smaller members, Austria and Luxembourg.

Austria in turn has accused Britain and the United States of shielding their own tax havens.

Now British overseas territories such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands - which are effectively colonies with some self-government - will have to automatically provide details the ownership of bank accounts, and about how they are used, Britain's finance ministry said.

"This represents a significant step forward in tackling illicit finance and sets the global standard in the fight against tax evasion," Osborne said.

The information will be shared by Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, which agreed in June last year to work together to combat tax evasion.

The Isle of Man also will be subject to the deal, but two other major offshore centers, Jersey and Guernsey, have not yet agreed to share information with countries other than Britain.

The other territories affected by the deal are the Caribbean islands of Anguilla, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos.

Britain has made fighting tax evasion a priority while it chairs the G8 group of advanced economies this year, and in two weeks it will host a meeting of finance ministers from the bloc.

However, Britain also faces problems of its own in being certain that companies comply with its tax laws.

A Reuters investigation published on Wednesday highlighted inconsistencies in the way Google portrays its activities in Britain, prompting lawmakers to demand the company's executives and auditors appear before them.

(Editing by Michael Roddy)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After enduring a roller-coaster season described by Hall of Famer Earvin 'Magic' Johnson as "one of the worst" in franchise history, Los Angeles Lakers fans are scratching their heads over what may happen next. Widely tipped as National Basketball Association (NBA) championship contenders after assembling a star-studded lineup for their 2012-13 campaign, the injury-hit Lakers were swept out of the playoffs in the opening round by the San Antonio Spurs.

McIlroy among seven tied for Wells Fargo lead

(Reuters) - World number two Rory McIlroy, back at the scene of his first PGA Tour win, fired a five-under 67 at Quail Hollow on Thursday for a seven-way share of the first-round lead in the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Northern Irishman was joined atop the leaderboard by Americans Nick Watney, Ryan Moore, Robert Garrigus, Daniel Summerhays, Derek Ernst and Monday qualifier Nate Smith.

Blazers' Lillard named unanimous Rookie of the Year

(Reuters) - Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard was named the NBA Rookie of the Year on Wednesday after a breakout campaign that saw him leapfrog all first-year players. Lillard, the sixth overall pick in the 2012 draft, was not the highest profile rookie entering the season but he quickly claimed the spotlight to be the unanimous selection for the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy.

PREVIEW-Horse racing-Orb, Verrazano battle in wide-open Derby

(Reuters) - Few sports fluctuate as much as horse racing and even fewer races are as unpredictable as the Kentucky Derby. This year's race, at Churchill Downs on Saturday, is no different and looms as one of the most open in decades.

Proud Celtics making stand against Knicks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - It might be the last Celtics stand for the tandem of Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett but they showed their class and determination as Boston humbled the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. Age, a lack of depth on the roster and the strains of the National Basketball Association salary cap have put the Boston future of Garnett and Pierce in doubt but the gritty veterans refuse to go out quietly this postseason.

Brazil promises fast Internet connections at World Cup

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Soccer fans attending next year's World Cup in Brazil will have no problem going online from stadiums, but they might want to use a local cellphone chip to keep their charges low, Brazilian Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo said on Thursday. Each of the 12 stadiums hosting the 32-nation soccer tournament will have two separate 50-gigabyte networks connected to Brazil's fiber optic backbone, he told reporters.

Unheralded Conley proving key to Grizzlies' playoff success

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - While Chris Paul was busy scoring a playoff career-high-tying 35 points on Tuesday, Memphis guard Mike Conley was quietly leaving his fingerprints on a series he has helped shift in favor of the Grizzlies. Conley is the "other" point guard in a playoff matchup that features National Basketball Association (NBA) elite little man Paul of the Los Angeles Clippers, but his importance should not be lost in his subtlety.

Bayern crush Barca to reach Champions League final

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Bayern Munich stormed fortress Nou Camp to claim a berth in the first all-German Champions League final when they routed Barcelona 3-0 on Wednesday for a crushing 7-0 aggregate success that saw them hailed as the new kings of Europe. The Bundesliga champions, chasing a fifth continental crown, will play Borussia Dortmund in the May 25 final at London's Wembley Stadium after an imperious performance that inflicted the heaviest two-legged European defeat in Barca's history.

WADA disappointed with Puerto verdict, considers appeal

BARCELONA (Reuters) - The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has voiced its disappointment with Tuesday's decision by the judge in Spain's "Operation Puerto" doping trial to destroy all the evidence from the case instead of making it available to other sports bodies and said it is considering an appeal. Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, the central figure in the trial, was given a one-year prison term for endangering public health and the judge also ordered the evidence, including bags of blood possibly belonging to athletes from sports other than cycling, to be destroyed.

Slumping Clippers seeking solutions as Griffin hobbles out

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Clippers are sweating on the fitness of All-Star forward Blake Griffin, who aggravated an ankle injury during a first-round playoff loss to Memphis on Tuesday that leaves the team on the brink of elimination. Griffin was withdrawn during the third quarter of the 103-93 loss and is now questionable for Game Six on Friday with the Clippers 3-2 behind in the best-of-seven series.

Facebook has introduced software called Home that makes the social network the hub of any smartphone running Google's Android operating system. The idea behind the software is to bring Facebook content right to the home screen, rather than requiring users to check apps. "Home" comes amid rapid growth in the number of people who access Facebook from phones and tablet computers.

Available for download starting April 12, the service is part of Facebook's move to shift its users' focus from "apps and tasks" to people, said CEO Mark Zuckerberg during Home's unveiling at the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters on Thursday.

The new product, which can reside on the home screen of Android phones, is a family of apps designed around people's Facebook connections. Rather than see a set of apps for email, maps and other services on the screen, users will be greeted with photos and updates from their Facebook feeds.

"We think this is the best version of Facebook there is," Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg says users can have an experience on Android phones that they can't have on other platforms. That's because Google makes the software available on an open-source basis, allowing others to adapt it to their needs.

The move that coincides with rapid growth among the number of users who access the social network from smartphones and tablet computers and Facebook's aim to evolve from its Web-based roots into a "mobile-first" company.

"What Facebook wants is to put itself at the front of the Android user experience for as many Facebook users as possible and make Facebook more elemental to their customers' experience," said Forrester analyst Charles Golvin.

In addition to Home, a new HTC phone that integrates the service will also be available starting April 12, with AT&T Inc. as the carrier.

The move could help to attract more mobile advertisers. Though mobile ads were a big concern for Facebook's investors even before the company's initial public offering last May, some of the worry has subsided as the company muscles its way into the market.

Last year, Facebook began showing ads to its mobile audience by shoehorning corporate-sponsored content into users' news feeds, which also include updates from friends and brands they follow. Facebook now faces the challenge of showing people mobile ads without annoying or alienating them.

The mobile advertising market is growing quickly, thanks in large part to Facebook and Twitter, which also entered the space in 2012. Research firm eMarketer expects U.S. mobile ad spending to grow 77 percent this year to $7.29 billion, from $4.11 billion last year.

EMarketer said Wednesday that it expects Facebook Inc. to reap $965 million in U.S. mobile ad revenue in 2013. That's about 2.5 times the $391 million in 2012, the first year that Facebook started showing mobile ads. Clark Fredricksen, vice president at eMarketer, says "there are some clear reasons why a deeper integration with mobile operating systems and handsets make sense for Facebook. At the end of the day, the more deeply Facebook can engage consumers, no matter what device or operating system or handset," the better.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis has indicated for the first time that he may make changes to the Vatican's scandal-ridden bank as part of a broad review of the Holy See's troubled administration.

Before Francis was elected last month, many of the cardinals who went on to choose him expressed concern about the harm done to the Church's image by three decades of scandals at the bank, which Italian magistrates are now investigating for money laundering.

A report last year by Moneyval, a European anti-money laundering body, found that the bank, officially the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), had failed to meet some of its standards on fighting financial crimes, and called for increased oversight.

In an impromptu sermon at a Mass for Vatican employees including staff from the bank, the pope said they should concentrate on the true mission of the Church and that Vatican departments were needed "only up to a certain point".

"The Church is not an NGO (non-governmental organization). It is a story of love," he said, according to a transcript published by Vatican Radio.

"I know that people from the IOR are here, so excuse me. Offices are necessary but they are necessary only up to a certain point."

It was the first time Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina, had mentioned the Vatican bank in public since his election.

The account of the sermon in the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, omitted the mention, however. Italian media said this was a sign of conflict within the Vatican on how to deal with the bank.

Vatican sources have said the pope could restructure the IOR and has the power to close it if he wants to.

Italian media have reported that the bank, which currently answers to a commission of cardinals and enjoys great autonomy, could be placed under the control of another Vatican department to enable tighter control.

Famiglia Cristiana, Italy's leading Catholic weekly, has called for the funds in the IOR, which manages money mostly for dioceses and religious institutions, to be administered by an independent "ethical bank" external to the Vatican.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said he was not aware of any imminent changes affecting the bank.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey)

By Alonso Duralde

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - As Criticwire recently pointed out, the years after 1988 were littered with "Die Hard" knock-offs, set in or on buses ("Speed"), aircraft carriers ("Under Siege"), hockey arenas ("Sudden Death") and Air Force One ("Air Force One").

A quarter-century later, "Die Hard" finally comes to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. with "Olympus Has Fallen," a thrilling but dopey action flick that keeps things moving even while it defies logic and slavishly follows the barefoot-Bruce-Willis formula.

This time around, the Lone Renegade Who's Our Only Hope is Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), a high-ranking Secret Service agent who got bounced to Treasury a year and a half earlier after he made the tough choice to save the life of President Asher (Aaron Eckhart) in a car accident even though it meant losing the First Lady (Ashley Judd).

During a White House visit by the South Korean premier, a well-orchestrated attack on Washington, D.C., sees a plane fly into the Washington Monument while terrorists take the president and his advisors hostage in the bunker beneath the White House. Banning sneaks in during a firefight and winds up being the only link with the outside world, communicating via the president's satellite phone with the head of the Secret Service (Angela Bassett), a blustery general (Robert Forster) at the Pentagon and the Speaker of the House (Morgan Freeman).

The latter is acting chief executive while the prez and VPOTUS are being held hostage but relax everyone, it's Morgan Freeman. (The cool-headed Freeman and Bassett essentially play Reginald VelJohnson to Butler's Bruce Willis, while Forster is the Paul Gleason.)

The villainous plot leads, inevitably, to the bright red countdown clock that features in so many action movies, and the terrorists' scheme has so many holes that it's best not to ask questions. Subsequently, director Antoine Fuqua ("Training Day") provides explosions and gun battles (R-rated, blood-splattery gun battles, it's worth noting) with enough frequency to paper over the gaps in the script by first-timers Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt.

With all this rushing about and blowing things up, however, the movie skirts past some potentially interesting subplots; for example, it's established early on that the president's young son (Finley Jacobsen) knows all the secret ins and outs of the White House after hanging out with Mike and the rest of the security detail.

He's set up as a character akin to Eric Shea's in "The Poseidon Adventure," and we figure he'll outfox the bad guys and maybe even help save the day, but no - he's found by Mike and rescued in fairly short order.

Of course, this is a movie where national monuments are blown up and soldiers and innocent civilians get killed by bullets and debris as though 9/11 never happened, so it's no surprise that so much of the movie feels like it was chucked onto the screen without much forethought.

"Olympus Has Fallen" ranks among the best movies that Butler has ever made, but that's damning with faint praise.

He occasionally slips into his native Scottish brogue, and no one apparently felt like ADR-ing over it. (Another minor mistake that no one bothered to fix was the TV news lower-third that reads, "Terrorist Attack The Whitehouse.")

There are tons of talented actors slumming here, including Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser and Dylan McDermott, but they're not called upon to do much. (Many of them spend the film literally phoning it in, or at least shouting into a walkie-talkie.)

Yes, you'll guess who the secret turncoat is within the first five minutes of the movie, and you'll roll your eyes over some of the script's lazier ideas and moments of "America, Fk Yeah!" jingoism. But you won't be bored by "Olympus Has Fallen," and if you're in the mood for some trashy adventure, the movie makes up in adrenaline what it lacks in brains.

Officials at the Interior Ministry and the election commission said Friday the measure is aimed at preventing terrorist attacks during the vote.

Officials did not say how they would restrict the movement of hundreds of thousands of people spread out across the country or close the porous border.

Pakistan announced similar measures in the past but failed to take action.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

About 1.6 million registered Afghan refugees and 1 million other Afghans live in Pakistan.

They are a legacy of their home country's repeated conflicts. Pakistanis often accuse them of importing terrorism and crime.

If you didn't back Ouya on Kickstarter, you won't be able to get one just yet. Sales to the general public start on June 4, and both Ouya and its retail partners -- including Amazon, Target, and Best Buy -- areThe console costs $99, and additional wireless controllers are priced at $49 each.

How does Ouya compare to the PlayStation and Xbox?

Ouya's much cheaper and smaller (it's about the size of a Rubik's cube), and has fewer games right now. It's also less powerful; while it can play 1080p games on an HD television, the graphics quality isn't quite as good as the most demanding current-gen games.

What are Ouya's tech specs like?

It uses the Tegra 3 chipset, which is the same one used in Google'sNexus 7 tablet. It also has 8 GB of internal storage, which is about as much as the cheaper Xbox 360 or Wii U models have. This is enough for a couple of dozen smaller games, or a small handful of larger ones. Additional storage can be added via USB.

What kind of games are available for Ouya?

A total of 104 games are available so far, many of them written just for Ouya but some familiar to Android tablet owners. Perhaps the most recognizable game is Square-Enix's Final Fantasy III, which appeared on the Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable before it showed up on Android (and also costs more than most Android games).

Ouya's website says "Eight thousand [game] developers have created developer accounts," and that more games will be coming out in the near future.

Can you make your own games for Ouya?

Every Ouya has a "Make" button on its main menu, which lets you install games that you've either written yourself or downloaded from the Internet. You can use the free Ouya Development Kit to write Ouya games, the same way that you'd write Android games or apps.

What does it mean that they say the Ouya is "open?"

"we welcome you to unscrew it and have a look around," andto let you build your own custom case for it -- if you can afford the $2,199 MakerBot 3D printer. MakerBot's website does not say whether third parties are allowed to sell custom cases they've printed.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Fresh off a guest-starring run as vampire Roman Zimojic in HBO's "True Blood," Christopher Meloni is ready to "Suck" again - this time for Fox.

"Law & Order: SVU" star Meloni has been cast in an adaptation of Justin Halpern's book "I Suck at Girls," which has received a pilot order from Fox.

The untitled project, which is being written and executive produced by Halpern and Patrick Schumacker, is about a boy becoming a man, and a man becoming a father, in a time before coming of age was something you could Google.

Meloni will play Jack Dunlevy, a straight-talking ex-military man and an oncologist who "talks to everyone like they're 75 years old and dying of cancer," the network said. Dunlevy's habit has been to go to work early, come home late, yell at his kids and go to bed, but he's forced to take a more active role in his kids' lived after his wife enrolls in law school.

Bill Lawrence and Jeff Ingold are also executive producing the half-hour, single-camera comedy, which comes from the Doozer production company in association with Warner Bros. Television.

Victor Nelli ("GCB," "Wilfred") is directing.

LONDON (Reuters) - The new strain of bird flu that has killed 17 people in China has been circulating widely "under the radar" and has acquired significant genetic diversity that makes it more of a threat, scientists said on Friday.

Dutch and Chinese researchers who analyzed genetic data from seven samples of the new H7N9 strain say it has already acquired similar levels of genetic diversity as much larger outbreaks of other H7 strains of flu seen previously in birds.

"The diversity we see in these first few samples from China is as great as the diversity we have seen with a large outbreak in the Netherlands several years ago and one in Italy," said Marion Koopmans, head of virology at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who worked on the study as part of a nine-member team.

"This means it (the H7N9 strain in China) has been spreading quite a bit and it's important to understand where exactly that is going on."

Its genetic diversity shows the virus has an ability to mutate repeatedly and is likely to continue doing so, raising the risk that it may become transmissible among humans.

Koopmans, whose research was published in the online journal Eurosurveillance, said the circulation would probably have taken place in either birds or mammals, but said exactly which animals were involved was not yet clear.

"Simply the fact that this virus is spreading under the radar - because that is what this data confirms - is of concern," she told Reuters in a telephone interview.

The H7N9 virus is so far known to have infected 87 people in China, killing 17 of them. Health officials raised further questions on Friday about the source of the new strain after data indicated that more than half of patients had had no contact with poultry.

MUTATIONS

A scientific study published last week showed the H7N9 strain was a so-called "triple reassortant" virus with a mixture of genes from three other flu strains found in birds in Asia. One of those three strains is thought to have come from a brambling, a type of small wild bird.

For their study, Koopmans and her team compared some data from the first two weeks of the China H7N9 outbreak with data from a large H7N7 flu outbreak in birds and people the Netherlands in 2003 and an H7N1 epidemic in birds in Italy in 1999 and 2000.

The Dutch outbreak resulted in infection of poultry on 255 farms and led to the culling of about 30 million chickens. Some 89 people were also diagnosed as having the H7N7 virus and one person, a vet, died as a result of the infection.

The comparison suggested that "widespread circulation (of the H7N9 strain in China) must have occurred, resulting in major genetic diversification", the researchers wrote in their study.

They added: "Such diversification is of concern, given that several markers associated with increased risk for public health are already present."

Flu experts in China and at the World Health Organization say there is no evidence so far that H7N9 is passing easily between people.

But scientists who analyzed the genetic sequence data from three early samples from China say the virus has already acquired some mutations that might make it more likely to be able to do so in the future, raising the risk of a human pandemic.

"Although human infections with H7 influenza viruses have occurred repeatedly over the last decades without evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission, the absence of sustained human-to-human transmission of H7N9 viruses does not come with any guarantee," Koopmans' team wrote in their study.

(Editing by Ben Hirschler and Alison Williams)

An expanded ranking with a total of 200 private institutions appears on(you can also find the full list below).The site also includes slide shows of the top ten schools among both private universities and liberal arts colleges; a tool that lets readers sort colleges according to the criteria that most interest them; plus answers to the most frequently asked questions about the annual rankings.

Each year, Kiplingers assesses quality according to measurable standards, including the percentage of students who are admitted out of those who applied, the test scores of incoming freshmen, the ratio of students to faculty members, and the four- and five-year graduation rates.

This year, Kiplinger adjusted its criteria to better reflect the issues affecting families. Now, the rankings give more weight to the four-year graduation ratea measure of the colleges ability to deliver academic support and of the overall cost to families--and to colleges that keep student debt down. While the criteria have shifted, the focus on value remains the same. Many of the schools on the top 200 list have appeared in Kiplingers rankings in previous years, demonstrating that these schools consistently deliver good value.

On the face of it, private colleges are far too pricey for most families, charging an average total amount of about $37,000 a year, according to . Several of the private schools on this years list charge a sticker price of $50,000 or more, and a few charge a sticker price approaching $60,000. But thenet pricethe amount families actually payruns far less, making even the most elite schools affordable for students who qualify for financial aid. For example, at Princeton, the average financial aid reduces the total amount from $50,269 a year to a much more affordable $15,550. Pomonas total cost runs $54,010, but financial aid brings the annual total to $19,336.

At first glance, the "Best Value" schools seem to correlate with the "Best" schools in lists from U.S. News and other standard college ranking lists. The outliers among private universities in the Kiplinger's rankings that don't normally rank this high in traditional measures of academic excellence are Rice (ranked 4th), the University of Richmond (12th), and Emory University (13th). Washington University in St. Louis (ranked 15th), which was skewered in theof universities that contribute to "the public good" seems to be giving out a lot more financial aid than the Washington Monthly editors lead us to believe.

Selected from a pool of more than 600 private institutions, the schools on Kiplinger's two lists (see below) were ranked according to academic quality and affordability, with quality accounting for the majority of the total. Criteria included admission and retention rates, student-faculty ratio and graduation rates, as well as data oncost and financial aid.

But "Value" is a very subjective notion. And Kiplinger'sseems to sidestep controversies around its meaning.

Going forward, Kiplinger's should drill down deeper in order to find measures of "quality" and "value" that don't so readilycorrelate with traditional college rankings. In a 2009(in which thewas ranked number one)Kiplinger's was faulted for its bias towards financial aid to needy students, while failing to note schools that gave substantial aid based on academic merit. Frankly, I'd like to see much more financial aid based on the latter than the former. And aid to the financially needy based on a far higher standard of academic excellence. In other words, the .

For now, here's the rankings. Let me know what you think.

KiplingersTop 20 Values in Private Colleges for 2011-12:

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