SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc wrote its largest-ever check for a subscription-streaming deal, securing hundreds of mostly childrens' TV programs from Viacom Inc for its Internet video service and ratcheting up pressure on rival Netflix.

Amazon's deal with Viacom gives the world's largest Internet retailer broader access to hit shows including "Dora the Explorer" and "SpongeBob SquarePants." Netflix had previously conceded that losing access to those shows would be a blow.

Amazon agreed to pay more than $200 million to Viacom for the license, its largest subscription-streaming transaction ever, a person familiar with the deal said. A second person familiar said the deal would run more than two years and included a deeper library of content than the prior Netflix agreement.

The Amazon-Viacom pact comes just days after Netflix stopped streaming popular Nickelodeon programming, following the expiration of its deal with the company.

The deal includes about 4,000 TV episodes that will be available to stream for free on Amazon Prime Instant Video. This service is free for subscribers to Amazon's Prime program, which, for $79 a year offers free two-day shipping in the United States for items purchased through Amazon.

Part of the payment went to secure exclusive subscription streaming rights to several shows from Viacom's Nick Jr channel, including the "Dora" franchise, "Go Diego Go!," "Blue's Clues" and "The Backyardigans."

Amazon is spending heavily on video content as it competes with Netflix and Hulu for a piece of the fast-growing market for TV and movies delivered over the Internet. Childrens' shows are among the most-watched on Amazon's service, according to Bill Carr, the company's vice president for digital video and music.

Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings, in a CNBC interview last week, said his service still had plenty of content for children but losing the Viacom programming could hurt.

"If you're a parent and your child's looking for 'Blue's Clues,' you know, that is definitely a problem," he said, while noting that Netflix still has programming from the likes of Disney and Cartoon Network.

In early May, Netflix announced a new multiyear license agreement with Walt Disney Co that gave Netflix the exclusive right to stream "Jake and the Never Land Pirates," along with access to other Disney shows including "Handy Manny."

Viacom's shares rose 1 percent to $67.575 in morning trading, while Netflix shares were up 1.4 percent at $225. Amazon gained 44 cents to $267.34.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Additional reporting by Liana B. Baker in New York; Editing by Richard Pullin and Maureen Bavdek)

The experimental therapy, named CO-1686, aims to treat non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients with a mutation in gene T790M.

"(The) data was extremely impressive and we believe further highlights the drug's paradigm changing potential for at least refractory NSCLC patients with (this) mutation," Leerink Swann analyst Marko Kozul wrote in a note.

Shares of Clovis, which had a market capitalization of about $960 million as on Friday, touched a life high of $86.29 before paring some gains to trade up 127 percent at $83.20. The stock was the top percentage gainer on the Nasdaq on Monday.

Forty-two patients were treated with CO-1686 as of May 2013, and the company highlighted initial findings of the treatment on six patients.

Clovis said four of the six patients showed partial response to the disease, while two patients showed a tumor shrinkage of more than 20 percent.

"Beyond this impressive preliminary efficacy is that a maximum tolerated dose has still not been reached, suggesting data could further improve from here," Kozul said, calling the results "unparalleled".

The company said 62 percent of the patients showed treatment-related adverse events such as fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, muscle spasms and anemia.

Clovis also released initial results of an early-stage study of its experimental ovarian cancer drug, rucaparib, which showed the disease, at worst, remaining stable in eight out of nine patients, following 12 weeks of treatment.

The disease control rate in seven patients with a mutation in the BRCA gene was 100 percent. Women with a BRCA gene mutation are known to be at a higher risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.

(Reporting by Pallavi Ail in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)

"Jenna Dewan-Tatum and Channing Tatum are thrilled to announce the birth of their daughter, Everly Tatum, who was born on May 31 in London," . "Sending love and light to Chan, Jenna and Ms. Everly!"

The actor has been on location filming his upcoming movie, "Jupiter Ascending." The new dad was spotted back on set on Monday.

Channing, 33, and Jenna, 32, met in 2006 while co-starring in the dance movie, "Step Up."

They got engaged in 2008 and tied the knot in July 2009 in Malibu, Calif.

Copyright 2013 by . All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The sale of the stake in Carlyle - valued at $373.3 million as of the end of stock market trading on Monday - comes 13 months after Carlyle's initial public offering. Its shares have risen 34 percent since then.

Alternative asset managers such as Carlyle and Apollo Global Management LLCsold stakes to some of their biggest fund investors before they went public in a bid to raise cash. Their subsequent IPOs have given those investors an opportunity to more easily cash out on their investment.

Calpers, which is the biggest U.S. public pension fund and is also an investor in many of Carlyle's funds, acquired a 5.5 percent stake in Carlyle in 2001 for $175 million. That later got diluted to 4 percent.

In May 2012, Thomson Reuters Buyouts Magazine reported Calpers had until then received $225.2 million in carried interest, fees and distributions from its Carlyle stake, based on a California Public Records Act request.

Also accounting for Carlyle's distributions as a public firm since May 2012, this would mean Calpers stands to make close to 3.5 times its money on its Carlyle stake investment over a period of 12 years, calculations by Reuters show.

The sale of the stake in Carlyle, disclosed in a regulatory filing on Monday, comes one month after Calpers moved to sell a quarter of its 8 percent stake in Apollo.

Calpers joined Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and two of Apollo's founders in selling some of its shares in New York-based Apollo. It raised $187.5 million by cutting its stake in Apollo to 6 percent from 8 percent.

Founded in 1987 by David Rubenstein, William Conway and Daniel D'Aniello, Carlyle had total assets under management of $176.3 billion as of the end of March, including in private equity, corporate credit and hedge funds.

Citigroup, Credit Suisse and JPMorgan will serve as the book-running managers for Calpers' offering.

Calpers also has a stake in Silver Lake, a technology sector-focused private equity firm which, unlike Carlyle and Apollo, has not gone public. Calpers acquired the 9.9 percent share in 2008.

Calpers had $4 billion - equivalent to 10 percent of its private equity program - invested with Carlyle as of the end of the end of March, ranking the Washington, D.C.-based firm as the second-largest exposure in Calpers' private equity portfolio. It had $4.3 billion invested with Apollo and $1.1 billion invested with Silver Lake.

(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Ryan Woo)

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said on Tuesday that MSD Animal Health, a unit of Merck & Co, had been issued a licence for the new vaccine after an accelerated assessment to make it available this summer.

As a result, farmers will be able to vaccinate sheep and cattle before most of them become pregnant, which is important as exposure to the virus can cause damage to foetuses.

Schmallenberg virus - named after the German town where it was first detected - infected sheep and cows on at least 2,600 farms in eight EU countries in 2011.

It is particularly harmful to the offspring of animals infected during early pregnancy, resulting in stillbirths and malformations such as brain deformities, twisted spines and locked joints.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by David Cowell)

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- Representatives from several companies will be in Little Rock for a town hall for small businesses on ways to use social media.

U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor and the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce on Friday plans to host a Small Business Social Media Town Hall. The event will be held at the chamber in downtown Little Rock.

The town hall will include representatives from Facebook, Google, Twitter and Yelp. The representatives plan to share tips on how small businesses can use social media to expand their customer base.

Pryor is to deliver opening and closing remarks at the event.

Pryor is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet.

TORONTO (Reuters) - Between the army of reporters camped at his door and an exodus of top aides, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has endured a tough two weeks since allegations surfaced that he was caught smoking crack cocaine on video, something he staunchly denies.

For North America's fourth-largest city, however, it's been mostly business as usual thanks to a "weak mayor" political system that limits the executive's influence and puts more power in the hands of the city council. Council meetings on city business and other day-to-day operations have carried on regardless of the ruckus at City Hall.

To pass a motion in council, the Toronto mayor must secure the support of a majority of councilors. And if the council votes against his wishes, Ford has no power to veto or overturn that decision.

"The mayor is the chief executive officer - he presides at meetings and is the person that does ribbon cuttings," said John Mascarin, a municipal law expert with Aird & Berlis LLP in Toronto. "But the mayor generally doesn't have more than a single vote at council."

The post is more ceremonial than in other large North American cities like New York and Chicago where mayors have the power to veto any bill approved by the city councils. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has embraced the "strong mayor" system to advance his public health agenda, including requiring fast-food restaurants to post calorie counts and barring restaurants from cooking with trans fats.

No stranger to controversy in his political career, Ford made international headlines after the Toronto Star and Gawker Media reported on May 16 that they had seen a video that purports to show the mayor using illegal drugs.

Ford issued a denial on Friday after several city councilors and allies encouraged him to confront the issue directly.

"There has been a serious accusation from the Toronto Star that I use crack cocaine. I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine," he told a news conference.

Reuters cannot confirm the existence of the video or its content. A spokesman for the Toronto police said on Thursday they continue to monitor the situation but gave no further comment.

The crack allegations could cause Ford to lose allies, analysts say, making the last year of his already rocky term even tougher than previous ones.

LOSING ALLIES

Ford enjoys a hard core of support from a segment of Toronto voters, particularly in the suburbs, who lifted him to power in 2010 on a platform of controlling spending and cutting taxes, along the line of the Tea Party agenda in the United States.

"You can think of him as the Tea Party candidate," said Ivor Tossell, a journalist and author of the biography "The Gift of Ford". "He arrived at the height of the Tea Party movement, in the height of the recession and he had a clear message that resonated at that moment."

Early on his mayoral term, Ford was successful in controlling Toronto's City Hall, wrangling the right-leaning votes to repeal an unpopular vehicle registration tax and privatized garbage collection for half of the city.

But things soon turned sour. The mayor's plan to build a subway in suburban Toronto was voted down by council, which chose instead to build above-ground light-rail train lines.

The council has always been divided, with the city's downtown core mainly represented by left-leaning councilors and suburban areas like Etobicoke represented by right-leaning councilors like Ford. But a series of missteps has eroded Ford's support among councilors on the right.

"What this scandal has done, I think, is weakened support for the mayor among those councilors who he could count as pretty durable allies," said Phil Triadafilopoulos, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

Indeed, Ford lost a key vote last week to bring a full-service casino to the city. And his executive committee, which decides council's agenda, was overruled on a decision not to debate new funding for a regional transit plan in council.

The mayor often touts his own austerity record, and under his administration staffing has been sharply trimmed at City Hall, saving the city millions. And, for the first time in more than 15 years, Toronto's operating budget was balanced in 2013 without using the prior year's surplus.

But the anti-tax Ford was also required to raise property taxes by 2 percent in 2013 and 2.5 percent in 2012, with business taxes and transit fares also climbing. He did not raise taxes in 2011, instead adjusting "user fees".

While Ford continues to chair city meetings and the council appears to be getting work done, things are less smooth in his own office. Ford fired his chief of staff last week and then his press secretary and deputy press secretary quit on Monday.

Ford is, so far, benefiting from the fact that the mysterious video has not surfaced for mass consumption. Three reporters from two separate media outlets say they have seen it. Gawker Media, which was the first outlet to publish the story, raised over $200,000 to buy the video and post it online, but its editor says he has lost contact with the owner.

"If it doesn't show up pretty soon, I think people had better maybe curtail their allegations because that video is needed to show there's hard proof of anything," Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday, a Ford ally, told Reuters. "The more time goes on, the less likely its going to appear."

In the end, as long as the city continues to function, some voters may not care much about the drug use allegations. Ford's poll numbers have not changed since before the scandal broke, according to Forum Research Inc, though he does risk losing the 2014 election to a left-leaning candidate.

Marion Barry, the Washington D.C. mayor, was arrested on drug charges after he was videotaped smoking crack cocaine in 1990. He served six months in jail and then went on to be re-elected as mayor and continues to serve as a popular city councilor in the U.S. capital.

(Editing by Mary Milliken, Jeffrey Hodgson and Kenneth Barry)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - American actress Amanda Bynes appeared in court on Friday and denied charges of possessing marijuana and tossing a bong out of the window of her 36th-floor Manhattan apartment.

The former Nickelodeon child star, who appeared in court dressed in gray sweatpants, a long-sleeved black shirt and a disheveled platinum blonde wig, was released on her own recognizance after spending a night in jail after her arrest on Thursday.

She was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana, reckless endangerment and attempted tampering with physical evidence, according to court documents. All the alleged offenses are classified as misdemeanors rather than felonies.

Her attorney at the hearing denied the charges and accused police of entering the actress' apartment illegally.

"Clearly a search was made for the bong and nothing was recovered," attorney Andrew Friedman told the court. "My client completely denies ever having thrown anything out the window. She was followed illegally into her apartment for no reason."

The actress, 27, who has had several brushes with the law in the past year and is on probation for driving on a suspended license in California, was ordered to return to court on July 9.

Bynes said, "Thank you, sir," to the judge before leaving court and entering a taxi cab, flanked by paparazzi.

New York police were called to Bynes' 47th Street midtown high-rise building after an employee there reported that someone was smoking marijuana in the building's lobby.

Police said they were then directed to Bynes' apartment, where the actress invited them in.

Officers said they detected a strong smell of marijuana in the apartment and observed the bong - a tube-shaped water pipe commonly used for smoking marijuana - in the apartment.

Bynes then grabbed the bong and threw it out the window and the actress was taken into custody, police said.

Bynes, who had her own TV comedy sketch show on Nickelodeon at the age of 13, has gained a strong Internet following for her recent bizarre behavior and statements on her Twitter social media account.

The actress has not appeared in a film since 2010's "Easy A" and has appeared in court over a slew of driving violations in the past year, including drunk driving, and hit and run.

(Additional reporting by Eric Kelsey in Los Angeles; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

A commercial asteroid-mining company aiming to launch a crowdfunded space telescope raised more than $200,000 on the first day of its campaign.

, a private venture aiming to mine near-Earth space rocks for water, minerals and other resources, announced Wednesday (May 29) that it would build and launchif it could raise at least $1 million in 33 days.

The telescope will be a twin copy of thethe company is developing to detect, track and study asteroids in preparation for its mining mission. A test version of the spacecraft is set for its maiden trial flight in April 2014, while the crowdfunded model would launch in early 2015. []

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Dozens of tea party groups and other conservative organizations of the kind subjected to improper scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service operated with small budgets and rarely displayed overt partisan activities, according to an Associated Press review of public tax filings by 93 such activist groups. A few groups built million-dollar operations and political ties that could have been legitimate grounds for IRS investigation, tax law experts said.

The AP reviewed 990 tax returns for nonprofit groups that were made publicly available and posted on both the Guidestar and the Foundation Center websites, searching between 2009 and 2011 under the terms "tea party," ''patriot" and other terms frequently used by tea party groups. Several tea party groups also made their tax returns available to the AP. The returns detailed revenues and expenses for the groups, as well as other details. Donors' identifies, however, are shielded from disclosure under federal tax code provisions.

Only 21 of the 93 groups reported annual gross receipts higher than $25,000 between 2009 and 2011, according to the AP review. The $25,000 figure is a threshold for the IRS because an organization's financial strength and revenue sources are important factors in determining its tax-exempt status. Nonprofit groups reporting less than $25,000 a year are allowed to file a short-form, postcard tax return instead of a detailed filing one indication of a low-budget operation.

The median income for all the groups was just $16,700 a year. That figure includes several tea party organizations that boasted million-dollar budgets and a cluster of others with more than $100,000 in annual revenues. The well-funded activist groups were led by the Georgia-based Tea Party Patriots Inc., the nation's biggest tea party group, which started out with more than $700,000 in annual revenues in 2009 and grew to $20.2 million annually in 2012.

Facing IRS delays in tax-exempt status since late 2010, the Tea Party Patriots also set up a separate "super" political action committee last January, a sign of the group's growing campaign involvement. Overt political ties and activity are red flags for IRS scrutiny, tax law experts said, and returns from several groups hint in that direction, including voter turnout efforts and rallies. But while the tax returns of many of the groups reflected interests in fiscal responsibility and other pet conservative issues, there was little clear evidence of direct campaign ties.

Some tax law experts said that if IRS officials had considered finances and political involvement in their oversight of the wave of applications by tea party groups in recent years, the agency could have quickly determined whether low-budget groups qualified for tax-exempt status. The agency's blunder, said former top IRS official Marcus S. Owens, was seizing on every activist group that appeared to have a tea party or "patriot" background.

"The big boys who suddenly look like they won the lottery are the ones who should expect a knock on the door," said Owens, who headed the IRS' oversight of tax exempt groups in the 1990s. He added: "The agency should have applied better filters than looking for every tea party group under the rug."

The tea party tax filings showed that many of the groups reported low expenses. The median yearly expense for the 93 groups was $12,770. That figure also included high-spending groups like the Tea Party Patriots, which showed $17.6 million in expenses in 2011.

The contrast between many of the low-budget tea party groups and the few with big bank accounts was most striking in their spending.

Many tea party groups showed minor payments for basic operations travel costs, office supplies, insurance, meals and items for rallies.

The Faulkner County Tea Party of Conway, Ark., which earned $7,847 in 2010, listed $570 for senior citizen transportation and $873 for a website and communications. The First Coast Tea Party Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla., noted $14 for cookbook expenses and $101 for Christmas ornaments. The Laurens County Tea Party of Laurens, S.C., which took in $2,400 in income in 2010 and is seeking tax-exempt status, listed $204 for buying T-shirts for members.

Those low-budget expenses also rarely showed evidence of direct political activity. The Faulkner County Tea Party described itself as "nonpartisan," promoting "fiscal responsibility, conservative principles and values in government, at all levels." The group paid $912 for a "meeting facility expense" and $180 in advertising in 2012. Even during the 2010 campaign, the group spent just $162 on a voter guide,

On the high end, Tea Party Patriots lavished $5.7 million in payments to three direct mail contractors and $1.8 million on fundraising and nearly $1.4 million on telemarketing in 2012. The group paid nearly $700,000 to Campaign Headquarters, an Iowa operation that advertises its voter contact phone and GOTV operations. In January, the activist group set up the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund super PAC, promising to seek unlimited contributions.

Unlike nonprofits regulated by the IRS, super PACs are monitored by the Federal Election Commission. Following the lead of multimillion-dollar campaign operations like GOP strategist Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS and the Democratic-leaning Priorities USA, large and small tea party groups have pressed for tax-exempt status over the last four years.

Some tea party groups have applied as educational groups under the 501(c)(3) tax code, while many others have sought 501(c)(4) status as social welfare groups. Under IRS rules, (c)(4) groups can be involved in politics if it is not their primary purpose, but (c)(3) groups are banned from most direct political involvement. Under federal law, both tax-exempt nonprofits can seek unlimited donations and do not have to disclose the identities of their donors.

An inspector general's report on the IRS' handling of tea party groups noted that auditors were poorly trained in distinguishing between the nonprofit classifications. "It led to inappropriate enforcement of the tax laws," said Jay Sekulow, a lawyer representing nearly two dozen tea party groups with the IRS.

The Houston-based King Street Patriots organization has been waiting since July 2010 for a decision on its tax-exempt status for itself and an allied group, True the Vote, a leading national conservative group aimed at confronting vote fraud. Catherine Engelbrecht of Richmond, Texas, an official of both groups, complained that she and her husband are not only wrangling with the IRS but have fielded inquiries from other federal agencies.

Engelbrecht said the couple has been contacted in recent months by the FBI's domestic terrorism unit, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Her patriots group is well-financed, listing $140,000 in revenue and $130,000 in expenses in its 2010 tax filings. True the Vote listed $64,000 in income and $38,000 in expenses the same year. The 2010 filings were the only recent returns that are publicly available.

The group was at the forefront of conservative efforts to target vote fraud in the 2012 election and said it trained as many as 1 million election monitors. Engelbrecht said her group was nonpartisan, but top Democratic Party election lawyers and activists closely monitored the group's Election Day activities and accused it of close ties with Republican Party vote-suppression efforts.

Engelbrecht said she worries that tea party groups were being targeted by the government.

"I'm very concerned," she said, about a "coordinated effort by the federal government to single out private citizens."