LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Mia Wasikowska, Olivia Williams and Evan Bird have joined the cast of David Cronenberg's upcoming thriller, "Maps to the Stars."

Already signed to the project are Julianne Moore, John Cusack and Robert Pattinson.

Wasikowska is best known for starring roles in "Jane Eyre" and "Alice in Wonderland," Williams has had key supporting roles in "Rushmore" and "The Ghost Writer," and Bird appeared on AMC's "The Killing."

Cronenberg's latest cerebral genre film is a ghost story that also skewers L.A.'s celebrity-obsessed culture. Bird will play a drug-addicted child star, Williams is his manipulative mother and Wasikowska his schizophrenic sister.

Cronenberg is looking to return to critics' favor after his most recent efforts "A Dangerous Method" and "Cosmopolis" got mixed reviews.

Production begins this July in Toronto and Los Angeles.

Persistent drizzle at the Namseoul Country Club on the outskirts of Seoul could not dampen Kim's spirits as the local favourite mixed six birdies and a bogey for a one-shot lead at 10-under 134.

"You can see it wasn't very good weather, so I am very happy with my score," said Kim, sounding confident that he had put behind him the shoulder injury that has plagued his performance in the last couple of years.

"I am feeling very comfortable, and I have my caddy from Japan with me so we are having a good time," said the Japan Tour regular.

Kim Gi-whan shot a matching 67 to lurk one shot behind while Kim Dae-sub was one stroke further adrift after firing a six-under-par 66.

Overnight joint leader Terry Pilkadaris of Australia was the best placed non-Korean at joint 12th after carding 75.

Former champions Kim Kyung-tae (74) and Kim Dae-hyun (73) missed the cut after both finished one over at the halfway stage of the $900,000 tournament. (Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi, editing by Clare Fallon)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supreme Court justices appeared divided on Monday as they considered a challenge to a law requiring non-profit organizations to adopt an anti-prostitution policy in order to obtain federal funding for HIV/AIDS programs abroad.

Several justices voiced concerns that the law imposes unconstitutional limits on freedom of speech, but others indicated the government had a right to direct how its money should be spent.

The 2003 law bars funding for non-governmental organizations that work on HIV/AIDS prevention but do not have a policy opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.

The Alliance for Open Society International and Pathfinder International - NGOs that receive funding for overseas HIV/AIDS prevention - sued in 2005, citing the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech.

The organizations challenging the provision do not want to take a stand on prostitution. They say the law interferes with their work providing advice and counseling to prostitutes about the risks of HIV infection.

The non-profit world is divided, with 46 groups, many of which focus on women's rights, supporting the law.

The groups obtained an injunction in 2006 that has prevented the policy from being enforced ever since.

Justice Elena Kagan is recused, most likely due to her previous role as solicitor general in the Obama administration, meaning only eight justices are presiding over the case.

At least three indicated they had concerns about the law, with Justice Samuel Alito the most outspoken.

He signaled discomfort with the general concept of the government having a broad right to direct groups it is funding on what they can and cannot say.

"It seems to me like quite a dangerous proposition," he said. Alito questioned whether, for example, the government could impose similar conditions to funding for higher education.

FIRST AMENDMENT QUESTIONS

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg focused on a move made by the Bush administration, later amended by the Obama administration, to resolve some of the First Amendment questions. The government has said that NGOs could set up affiliate groups to receive the funding without the parent organization having to announce a position on prostitution.

Ginsburg said that approach may not solve the problem because it's "no simple thing" for an NGO to set up a new organization in another country. She said that requiring this extra step is "quite an arduous" burden to place on NGOs.

Taking another line of attack, Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether the law restricted an NGO's ability to "stay true to its own beliefs."

Other justices, while not wholeheartedly endorsing the government's argument in defense of the law, did not appear to feel that there was a problem in general with Congress attaching conditions on funding.

Justice Stephen Breyer said there were "dozens and dozens" of examples in which the government gave funding to groups because they shared the same goals. "Otherwise, they wouldn't be in the program," he said.

Chief Justice John Roberts said the government is "just picking out who is an appropriate partner."

Under a barrage of questioning from the justices, David Bowker, the NGOs' attorney, seemed momentarily stumped by one of Roberts' questions.

The chief justice asked whether, during the period in which South Africa was racially segregated, the U.S. government could have limited funding for public health programs to NGOs that were opposed to the policy, known as apartheid.

After a lengthy pause, Bowker conceded the question was tougher than the one posed in his case, but that it would still be impermissible for the government to make decisions on that basis.

The case is Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-19.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller and Bill Trott)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc on Monday agreed to buy Life Technologies Corp for $13.6 billion in a deal that would make it one of the top two companies in the hot field of genetic testing.

The pact values Life Tech at $76 per share, a 12 percent premium, and is one of the year's biggest corporate takeovers.

It would catapult Thermo, the world's largest maker of scientific and laboratory equipment, to the forefront of the fledgling field of personalized medicine, where research is uncovering the hereditary underpinnings of diseases to better tailor treatments to patients.

"Genetic sequencing is an area that will become increasingly important over the years in terms of specialty diagnostics, and Thermo needs to compete in that market because they have a number of products in that area that ultimately could get displaced by sequencing applications," said Macquarie Capital analyst Jonathan Groberg.

Thermo Chief Executive Marc Casper said advanced genetic testing was an important field going forward, and his company wanted to get into it as an industry leader. Life Tech is considered No. 2 behind Illumina Inc in the race to produce faster and less expensive gene sequencing technology.

"We didn't want to be a more distant participant, and this transaction facilitated us having a stronger position there," Casper said in a telephone interview.

Illumina last year rebuffed a $6.8 billion hostile takeover bid by Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG. Shares of Illumina, which will now have to compete with a far larger rival with much greater resources, were down nearly 3 percent.

Interest in buying Illumina could heat up again, given the company's unique position in advanced gene sequencing.

"They've only got one target they can think about," Mizuho Securities analyst Peter Lawson said of potential buyers. "There's a lot of experimental technologies out there, but if you need something that functional, you need either Illumina or Life Tech's Ion Torrent business."

Both companies have dramatically cut down the time and cost of sequencing human DNA, a major boon to researchers and drugmakers developing gene-based diagnostic tests and treatments. Life Tech's Ion Proton System can complete the sequencing process, which recently took several days, in a couple of hours for about $500. The technology has more than 1,000 times the sequencing capacity of Life Tech's original sequencing chip.

AN IMMEDIATE PROFIT BOOST

Thermo said the deal would add 90 cents to $1 to its per-share profit in the first full year, initially sending its shares higher. After jumping nearly 6 percent, the shares gave back those gains and were down almost 1 percent at $78.98 in late afternoon trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Life Tech shares were up 7.4 percent at $73.05, below the offer price.

Analysts estimate the combined company's 2013 revenue at about $17 billion. The acquisition will also enhance Thermo's offerings in the fast growing field of food safety, and its ability to grow in China and other emerging markets.

"The combined company has significant scale in emerging markets and scale makes a huge difference there," said Casper, adding that the deal "will put us in even better position to grow in the fastest growing regions in the world."

The acquisition is by far the biggest deal for Thermo since the company was created in the $12.8 billion merger of Thermo Electron and Fisher Scientific International in 2006. It is also far larger than the biggest previous deal on Casper's watch - the $3.5 billion acquisition of Phadia in 2011.

Thermo expects the transaction to close early in 2014, pending U.S. regulatory and shareholder approvals.

Thermo will assume Life Tech's net debt of about $2.2 billion. In the third year following the deal's closing, Thermo said it expects to achieve cost savings of $250 million by consolidating facilities and support functions.

Thermo's products range from basic scientific instruments to advanced mass spectrometry equipment used to determine the chemical structure of molecules. It also sells chemicals, agents and antibodies used in the manufacture and research of biotech medicine - a line that will be complemented by Life Tech's product lines - and in recent years has increased its portfolio of products for testing air and water quality and food safety.

LIFE TECH EXPLORED MANY OPTIONS

Life Tech explored a sale after previous attempts by Chief Executive Gregory Lucier to boost the value of the company's stock and capture more market share from Illumina.

Lucier said the company explored many options during a lengthy strategic review, with the ultimate sale of the company always one of them. "We are very satisfied both with the process and the outcome," he said in a telephone interview.

Lucier oversaw the merger of his former company Invitrogen and Applied Biosystems that created Life Tech.

Life Tech President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Stevenson is expected to play a significant role in the combined company, the companies said.

Thermo has obtained committed bridge financing from JPMorgan and Barclays, which also acted as the company's financial advisers.

Sources familiar with the deal told Reuters that Life Tech chose Thermo over Sigma-Aldrich Corp, a maker of chemicals for research laboratories, and a private equity consortium consisting of Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group, KKR & Co and Temasek Holdings.

Deutsche Bank Securities and Moelis & Co advised Life Tech.

Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz and WilmerHale are legal counsel to Thermo Fisher; Cravath, Swaine and Moore is legal counsel to Life Tech.

(Additional reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Michele Gershberg)

BNY Mellon's net loss of $266 million, or 23 cents a share, reflected a U.S. Tax Court decision announced in February that triggered a previously announced $854 million charge against profits.

In the year-earlier quarter, BNY Mellon reported net income of $619 million, or 52 cents a share.

Excluding the tax-related charge, the bank earned 50 cents a share, missing the average analyst estimate by 2 cents, according to I/B/E/S Thomson Reuters.

Revenue totaled $3.61 billion, down 1 percent from a year ago. Bright spots included 10 percent gains in both investment management and performance fees, and foreign exchange trading.

Net interest revenue at the bank, however, fell 6 percent to $719 million, reflecting lower yields on reinvested securities and the elimination of interest on European Central Bank deposits.

(Reporting by Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Jeffrey Benkoe)

LONDON (Reuters) - Scottish singer-songwriter Emeli Sande scored a new chart record on Sunday with her debut album after a stellar year in Britain that has paved the way for her next challenge - the U.S. market.

Sande smashed a record held for nearly 50 years by The Beatles when her debut album, "Our Version of Events", hit its 63rd week in the top 10 of the UK album charts, according to the Official Charts Company.

The Beatles previously held the record for the debut album spending the most consecutive weeks in the top 10 with "Please Please Me" racking up 62 weeks in 1963 and 1964.

"It feels quite surreal to even have your name mentioned in the same sentence as The Beatles," Sande, 26, told Reuters television.

"For a record to stay there for so long it means that people have connected with it so that's how I'm enjoying celebrating this record."

The release of "Our Version Of Events" in February 2012 kicked off a year of successes for Sande who sang at the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics and won best British female artist and best album at the BRIT Awards.

Sande also notched up three No. 1 singles in the UK with "Read All About It" with Professor Green, "Next to Me", and "Beneath Your Beautiful", a collaboration with Labrinth.

Now the former medical student has set herself a new challenge, tackling the U.S. market, where she has yet to make a name for herself.

Her single "Next To Me" is currently 46th in the Billboard Hot 100 chart and she is in the United States this month to promote her album.

"I'm really excited about taking music over to the States because it's a brand new challenge," she said.

"There's different formats over there so you have to understand the market, the people, you really have to take into account how massive the place is .. It's a brand new adventure and it's chapter two of this whole big thing."

Sande is the first to admit that the past year has been extraordinary but she is aware that she needs to keep building from her debut album that was Britain's best-seller last year.

"So many things I've dreamed of doing have happened last year which is amazing, but you always want to be better as a musician," she said.

"The biggest thing for me right now is creating a second record that I love."

So does the success mean that she has abandoned her plan to go back and finish her medicine degree that she shelved in its fourth year?

"Would I go back? I'd like to and every time I see programs on medicine I'm tempted to go back to it because I do miss it a lot and I miss science and learning but in the near future, no. I think I'd miss music too much," she said.

(Reporting by Rollo Ross, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

The American Chamber of Commerce suggested the Chinese government could speed up Internet access by permitting some companies to circumvent its extensive system of Web filters.

"When we compare the Internet in China to the Internet as it exists in other countries such as South Korea or the European Union or the United States, what we see is that it is significantly slower. It is also less reliable and less secure," said the chamber's president, Christian Murck.

Beijing's Internet controls and attitude toward data security have become politically sensitive after Mandiant, an American security firm, released a report in February on a wave of hacking attacks against U.S. companies it said were traced to a Chinese military cyberwarfare unit.

The American chamber warned that while two-thirds of its member companies use cloud computing, the number willing to base those operations in China has declined to below 50 percent due to security concerns.

In an annual "white paper" on policy recommendations, the chamber appealed to Chinese authorities to repeal restrictions imposed in 1999 on use of foreign encryption and security technology for sensitive data.

China has the world's biggest population of Internet users, with 564 million people online at the end of last year.

The government encourages Web use for business and education but tries to block access to material deemed subversive using filters that slow access and prompt widespread complaints.

The American chamber said its member companies have "noted deterioration in access speeds" to websites outside China and warned that will "eventually discourage investment in China."

It suggested Chinese authorities might certify companies that would be allowed high-speed international access that circumvents the filters. It said those companies might promise to use such networks only for business-related correspondence.

The chamber also appealed to Beijing to increase the size of stakes foreign investors are allowed to own in Chinese Internet and data storage companies.

It warned that security policies that "diverge from global practices" might hamper China's development and appealed to the government to embrace international standards.

U.S. officials are pressing Beijing to help combat Internet-based industrial spying. Pressure increased following the Mandiant report, which said a wave of attacks were traced to a building in Shanghai that is occupied by a Chinese military cyberwarfare unit. The attacks have prompted threats of commercial sanctions by Washington.

An American undersecretary of state, Robert Hormats, warned during a visit to Beijing this month that hacking from China was undermining its relations with Washington.

Capriles called on the council to announce by the end of Thursday that it will allow his team to also examine registers containing voters' signatures and fingerprints.

"We are not going to allow you to make fools out of us," Capriles said, directing his statement at representatives of the electoral council during a news conference Wednesday. "We are not going to accept a flawed audit."

The council said last week that it would allow an audit of 46 percent of the vote not already audited. It said it would announce this week when it would start comparing vote tallies from each machine with the individual vote receipts from that machine.

Opposition politician Diego Scharifker said a complete audit would reduce tensions on both sides of Venezuela's political divide.

"The country wants to end the election chapter, but with the truth," Scharifker, a former student leader, said in an email sent to The Associated Press.

As Capriles turned up pressure on the council, Maduro's allies threatened to prosecute him over violence that erupted after the vote.

Iris Varela, an official responsible for overseeing Venezuela's penitentiary system, suggested that Capriles would soon be behind bars.

"We are preparing a cell for you because you must pay for your crimes," Varela said.

Capriles vehemently denies responsibility for isolated acts of violence committed by some of his supporters. On numerous occasions since his narrow election defeat, Capriles has said he's leading "a peaceful struggle" to force the council to agree to a complete audit.

However, many of those purchases involved properties that were subject to foreclosures or short sales, indicating the housing market is far from recovered.

The survey by San Diego-based DataQuick also showed the median sales price in the region fell nearly 3 percent last month from December to $326,000 less than half the peak price of $665,000 reached in 2007 but up from the low of $290,000 recorded in 2009.

A total of 5,479 new and existing homes were sold in the nine-county area, according to DataQuick. The figure was down nearly 27 percent from December but marked a 10.3-percent improvement over January 2011.

The December-to-January drop was normal for the season, while the January-to-January jump showed real improvement, DataQuick said.

The year-over-year increase in January marked the seventh annual jump in a row,the firm said.

Home sales were buoyed by "lower prices, ultra-low mortgage rates, a modestly improved economy and a record level of investor purchases," DataQuick said in a statement.

The lower median price in January was "a reflection of how skewed the market has become toward distressed, lower-cost properties," DataQuick President John Walsh said in the statement. "The higher-end sales have slowed in recent months as many struggle to qualify for loans and others just sit tight."

Distressed property sales the combination of foreclosure and short sales made up more than half of all sales of existing homes. Absentee buyers, who mostly are investors, bought more than a quarter of all homes sold, DataQuick reported