Danny Puff

By Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland is preparing to officially reject accusations by U.S. Senators this week that it acts as a tax haven for large multinationals and launch a diplomatic offensive to repair the damage done to its reputation abroad.

Ireland has been forced to defend its low corporate tax rate after the Senate said last week that iPhone and iPad maker Apple paid little or no tax on tens of billions of dollars in profits channeled through Irish subsidiaries and that it had effectively negotiated a special corporate tax rate of less than 2 percent.

Irish ministers and officials have lined up to insist that their tax system is transparent and that other countries were responsible if Apple paid tax at such low rates. Finance Minister Michael Noonan said Ireland would not be the "whipping boy" for the Senate subcommittee.

The government will likely put its response on the record this week, two government sources said, and will tell the committee led by veteran tax sleuth Senator Carl Levin that Ireland is not a tax haven, nor did it cut Apple a special tax deal.

"Undoubtedly there's a risk of reputational damage if we don't defend our corner and set out the facts, so of course that's happening," Ireland's European Affairs Minister Lucinda Creighton told Reuters, referring to the response being drafted.

"I've no doubt there will be a strong response, and we will strongly defend Ireland as a safe, a legally sound and a good place to do business. What you see is what you get, and that is why so many global companies are headquartered in Ireland."

Creighton was speaking from Dublin airport ahead of a four-day trip to Washington and New York where she will meet business leaders and politicians and address the prestigious Columbia University.

While the trade mission was planned long before last week's revelations on Capitol Hill, Creighton said she and her fellow ministers would use every opportunity to put right the "misinformation" heard in the Senate last week.

Ireland has a network in place to quickly spread that message. After it took a financial bailout in late 2010, Dublin set up its Economic Messaging Unit to coordinate communications between all government agencies, departments and embassies.

Irish embassies from Beijing to Buenos Aires were issued rebuttal points last week, a normal practice for major stories, while Ireland's ambassador in Washington held a conference call with government departments and the state agency charged with attracting investment into Ireland to discuss the next steps.

DINNER JOKES IN BRUSSELS

Within weeks of coming to office in 2011, Prime Minister Enda Kenny summoned all the country's ambassadors to Dublin to brief them on how best to restore a reputation he said was in tatters.

The fresh assault will be similar, one diplomatic source said, adding that the key focus would be liaising with a strong network of contacts in the U.S. Administration and on Capitol Hill, where the leaders of Ireland and the United States traditionally meet for lunch to mark St. Patrick's Day.

While Dublin was able to call on ex-President Bill Clinton to tell U.S. companies last year that they would be "nuts" not to invest in Ireland, the task could be trickier this time with the criticism emanating from its normally friendly ally.

"That was a blindside for Ireland Inc. because we always thought we were on the same page as Anglo-American capitalism. We thought it would stick up for us," said Hugo Brady, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in Brussels.

"The PR side of it is really bad for Ireland because Ireland and tax haven are going together in mainstream conversation in Brussels. It hasn't done our image much good when people start making dinner jokes about Apple being an Irish company."

While Ireland will concentrate its energy in the United States to keep attracting jobs from the likes of Apple, Google and Pfizer, it will also need to keep an eye out for any backlash in Europe where its low corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent has drawn criticism in the past.

One influential member of the European Parliament said that while Dublin should be given time to adjust, it should adopt a standardized European Union tax system and ultimately a minimum rate of corporation tax.

"Ireland should take its hands out of other countries' pockets. Ireland's tax system is designed to tax income other people have earned," Sven Giegold told Reuters, underscoring how emotive the issue will be in elections in his native Germany.

"If you want to heat up a room in an election meeting in Germany, you have to talk about tax avoidance. It has become one of the most emotional topics. People are outraged."

(Additional reporting by John O'Donnell in Brussels; Editing by Will Waterman)

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BEIJING (Reuters) - Firefighters in eastern China have rescued an abandoned newborn baby boy lodged in a sewage pipe directly beneath a toilet commode, state television reported, in a case which has sparked anger on social media sites.

There are frequent reports in Chinese media of babies being abandoned, often shortly after birth, a problem attributed variously to young mothers unaware they were pregnant, the birth of an unwanted girl in a society which puts greater value on boys or China's strict family planning rules.

In the latest case the infant was found in the sewage pipe in a residential building in Jinhua in the wealthy coastal province of Zhejiang on Saturday afternoon after residents reported the sound of a baby crying, state television said late on Monday.

Firefighters had to remove the pipe and take it to a nearby hospital, where doctors carefully cut around it to rescue the baby boy inside, the report said.

The child is in a stable condition and the police are looking for his parents, state television added.

The case has been widely discussed on China's Twitter-like service Sina Weibo due to the graphic nature of the footage, with calls for the parents to be severely punished.

"The parents who did this have hearts even filthier than that sewage pipe," wrote one user.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Sally Huang; Editing by Michael Perry)

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WAYNESVILLE, Ohio (AP) An 87-year-old World War II veteran has parachuted from a plane in an Ohio to support his ailing great-grandson.

Clarence Turner of Fairfield made the jump Saturday with an instructor. He says he wanted to generate attention for the plight of 10-month-old Julian Couch, who suffers from a lung disease that could require a transplant.

WLWT of Cincinnati reports that (http://bit.ly/14RYHF1) Julian is hospitalized in Columbus. A fundraiser is planned for June 2.

Turner also made a jump at age 85 to fulfill a goal to experience freefalling and landing as he did in the Army. He served from 1944-47, and his last jump was in Japan.

Turner says he also hopes to someday make a parachute jump at an older age than former President George H.W. Bush, who's 88.

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By Piya Sinha-Roy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The doors of Dunder Mifflin's Scranton branch closed for the last time on Thursday as NBC's "The Office" wrapped up after a nine-season run with a nostalgic finale featuring a long-awaited wedding and the return of the show's biggest star, Steve Carell.

Emmy-winning mockumentary "The Office," adapted from Ricky Gervais' British series of the same name, saw a documentary crew filming the daily lives of employees at the Dunder Mifflin paper company, led for several years by hapless boss Michael Scott, played by Carell.

On Thursday's 75-minute finale, set six months after the fictional documentary was released, the colleagues all reunite for the marriage of Machiavellian office manager Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), and accountant Angela Martin (Angela Kingsley).

Carell entered the episode as a surprise guest at the wedding, uttering one of Michael Scott's best-known phrases - "That's what she said."

Later as he considered the romances that had formed at the workplace, Carell's character told the camera, "It's like all my children grew up and they married each other."

Over nine seasons, audiences have been treated to numerous office fights, friendships and romances on the NBC sitcom. One of the most compelling storylines was the growing romance of Jim and Pam, played by John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer, as audiences watched them transition from friendship to marriage and parenthood.

For fans of the show, the season finale saw most of the long-standing cast members get their happy ending.

Stanley finally retires, Erin finds her birth parents, Andy capitalizes on becoming an unwilling viral video star, Kelly and Ryan run off into the sunset (albeit abandoning a baby in the process) and Jim and Pam decide to move to Austin, Texas.

The final scenes featured a montage of key moments, including Jim and Pam's romance and the numerous friendships that developed over the years.

"I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you've actually left them," Andy Bernard, played by Ed Helms, said wistfully.

The cast also reflected on the documentary that captured nine years of their lives at the company, which Jim described as "this stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing job."

"Imagine going back and watching a tape of your life. You can see yourself change ... watch yourself fall in love, become a husband, a father. You guys gave that to me," Jim said to the cameras.

LAUNCHING STARS, FALLING AUDIENCES

"The Office," which first aired in 2005, began with a relatively unknown cast, led by Carell, whose breakout film "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" came out the same year.

The show made stars of many of its cast members, leading to high-profile movie roles, and its producers said last year that the outside success of "The Office" actors played a role in the decision to wind it down.

Carell left the show in season seven to focus on his rising film career, which has included roles in "Crazy, Stupid, Love" and "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone."

Helms also made the move to the big screen with roles in "The Hangover" franchise, and Krasinski starred in the recent film "The Promised Land" with Matt Damon.

Mindy Kaling, who plays office mean girl Kelly Kapoor, landed her own Fox sitcom "The Mindy Project," while Craig Robinson, who plays warehouse manager Darryl, scored film roles in "Pineapple Express" and upcoming "This Is the End."

After Carell's exit in 2011, audiences began to turn away from "The Office" and viewership fell to about 4 million last year per episode from a high of about 8 million in 2008.

The show's culmination comes on the heels of another NBC comedy, "30 Rock," bowing out after seven seasons in February.

Prior to the finale, an hourlong retrospective of the show featured cast members and producers talking about the impact of "The Office" on their careers and why fans were drawn to it.

"This is a perfect time for the show to come to a close," Wilson said. "There's a finality to it and a sadness to it."

Wilson had sought to create a spin-off show led by his character Dwight, but it was not picked up for broadcast.

The unlikely star of the show has been the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, which prior to the show was known for coal mining but not anymore.

As the series drew to a close, tens of thousands of people gathered in Scranton earlier this month to give a rousing send-off to the sitcom that changed the image of the city forever.

"Thank you, Scranton," Carell told the crowd. "This all is because of you."

NBC is a unit of Comcast Corp.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Bill Trott)

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JOHANNESBURG (AP) Tourists have long flocked to the home-turned-museum of former President Nelson Mandela on Vilakazi Street, a lively strip of restaurants, curio sellers and street performers in the South African township of Soweto. Now the area has a growing attraction: big snakes, and lots of them.

Resident Lindiwe Mngomezulu allows curiosity-seekers to get a close-up look at the non-venomous snakes she keeps in her home, and she drapes them over tourists' shoulders for a small fee. She and her 19-year-old daughter, Nolwandle Duma, started raising snakes three years ago after going to see a snake show and coming away impressed.

Mngomezulu, 55, has two albino pythons, a Burmese python, a boa constrictor, an anaconda and a corn snake. It costs about $30 a week to feed them. She and Duma also own a bearded dragon lizard and two spiders.

They show off their snakes in their Vilakazi Street home, where tourists and local schoolchildren have become regulars. Mngomezulu said many have since overcome their fear of reptiles, which she described as harmless if handled with care. She urged people not to think of snakes as a menace.

"People are killing snakes every day," Mngomezulu said. "That's not right."

Her smallest snake, the corn snake, measures 1.2 meters (3.9 feet). The Burmese python is 3 meters (9.8 feet) long and, at 30 kilograms (66 pounds), is her heaviest snake.

Mngomezulu said her goal is to expand her snake show beyond Soweto. She is awaiting a permit that would allow her to take her snakes to non-residential areas and hopes money raised can help her to buy more snakes and get formal training from a recognized association. She is registered with the West Rand Herpetological Association, a local club for reptile lovers.

Andre Lourens, the association's chairman, said Mngomezulu's show has been instrumental in dispelling the false notion that all snakes are dangerous.

"They are no more dangerous than any dogs running down the streets, if you take into consideration the amount of dog bites here in South Africa or number of people hit by lightning," Lourens said.

Duma is saving money for university, where she plans to study zoology or psychology. She said she hopes her experience interacting with the reptiles and educating people about them could lead to a long-term career working with animals.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) It's a blowout at the box office.

"Fast & Furious 6" is revving past "The Hangover Part III" in the No. 1 position at the Memorial Day weekend box office.

Universal Pictures' sixth installment of its muscle car franchise featuring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker debuted with $98.5 million domestically from Friday to Sunday, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Meanwhile, the final edition of the raunchy Warner Bros. comedy trilogy starring Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms opened with $42.1 million in the No. 2 spot.

Universal estimates that by the end of the four-day holiday weekend Monday, "Fast & Furious 6" will have pulled in $122.2 million domestically and $275.5 million worldwide. That would give it the second-biggest opening of the year behind "Iron Man 3."

Paramount Pictures' sci-fi sequel "Star Trek: Into Darkness" earned $38 million at No. 3 in its second weekend at the box office, while the Fox animated film "Epic" opened at No. 4 with $34.2 million.

Overall domestic receipts for the four-day Memorial Day weekend are expected to come in ahead of 2011's record-breaking $276 million.

Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com, estimated that four-day revenues this time will total $323 million, about 15 percent above Memorial Day weekend in 2011, when "The Hangover Part II" delivered a $103.4 million debut.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.

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LONDON (Reuters) - The wedding dress worn by film star Elizabeth Taylor for her first marriage to hotel heir Conrad Hilton in 1950 will go up for sale next month, auction house Christie's said on Friday.

The simple, but elegant garment created by Hollywood costume designer Helen Rose for the then 18-year-old Taylor is an oyster shell-colored, floor-length satin gown with a fine silk gauze off-the-shoulder illusion neckline.

The dress, which was a gift from MGM film studios, has a top estimate of 50,000 pounds ($75,300). Rose also designed Grace Kelly's wedding dress for her marriage to the Prince of Monaco.

By the time Taylor married Hilton she was already a veteran actress and was just a year away from her Oscar-nominated performance in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's "A Place in the Sun".

The A-list of old Hollywood - Greer Garson, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Esther Williams, and Van Johnson - were among the many stars who came to congratulate the bride.

The star of "Cleopatra" surpassed Michael Jackson as the highest-earning deceased celebrity in a survey released by Forbes in October 2012, with her estate pulling in $210 million, much of it from a 2011 auction of jewels, costumes and art work.

The auction of Taylor's jewels took in $116 million, more than double the record for a single collection, and set new marks for pearls, colorless diamonds and Indian jewels.

Taylor, who died in 2011 at the age of 79, was married eight times, twice to actor Richard Burton, and had a career spanning seven decades.

She first gained fame in 1944's "National Velvet" at age 12, and was nominated for five Oscars, winning best actress for "Butterfield 8" (1960) and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), which also starred Burton.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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CANNES, France (AP) Jerry Lewis, so beloved in France, isn't quite overcome with emotion now that he's back at the Cannes Film Festival.

The festival, he says, is "for snobs," and when he meets a reporter from his native land, he exhales, "It's so nice to hear an American." To him, Cannes isn't an epicenter of rabid Lewis fandom, it's simply "business," he says, chomping on gum.

And at 87, Lewis is back in business. Nearly two decades since his last film, he's at Cannes with "Max Rose," a modest independent film in which he stars as an elderly man reconciling himself to life without his late wife.

"I'm very happy to relax and stay home with my family, and if something comes up, I'll consider it," Lewis, in an interview, said of his return to movies. "That's the nice part about 87. You just tell people: Oh, you're very tired."

At Cannes, Lewis has been anything but tired, both burnishing and tarnishing his legacy as a brilliant comedic performer. His Cannes tribute the festival paid "homage" to him in an out-of-competition screening of "Max Rose," as well as with a screening of his 1961 classic "The Ladies Man" has been overshadowed by his views about female comedians.

In a press conference, Lewis told reporters that his earlier-stated feelings haven't changed in recent years: Comedy isn't for women, he claims. A day after his comments roiled women across the Internet, Lewis wasn't apologetic, saying he sees females as mothers, not stand-ups.

"It's the truth. I can't help it," Lewis says, shrugging. "Women, it's just wrong. I don't care that the audience laughs at it and likes it. I don't happen to like it. I have too much respect for the gender. And I think that they are wrong in doing it. I can't expect them to stop working, but just don't work anywhere where I have to look at it."

It's a clearly out-of-date attitude that has turned many away from Lewis. In Cannes, "Max Rose" didn't help his reputation. The film, by first-time filmmaker Daniel Noah, drew terrible reviews at the festival. Variety said only "the most irrationally charitable of Lewis' fans" will appreciate it.

But such opinions mean little to Lewis. He made the film with Noah purely because he liked the script the best he's ever read, he says. It's the rare film to tell a story about the struggles of growing older, featuring a downbeat performance from Lewis far from the elastic farce his fans are accustomed to seeing.

Asked why he hadn't made a film since 1995's "Funny Bones," Lewis responds: "You see the movies they're putting out? What am I going to do, discuss that?"

Noah, who wrote the script based on his grandfather, sought out Lewis with little expectation of landing him. Months after sending the screenplay, Lewis called him and committed over the phone. Lewis told him he hadn't planned to make another film, but decided, "I gotta give them one more Jerry picture."

"I was braced for a difficult experience," says Noah. "I saw nothing but horror stories about how he was controlling and irascible and unpredictable and moody. . But I cannot explain to you the chasm between the man that othjcoers seem to know and the man that I know. I have not had a single moment of tension with him, of difficulty. He has been like a grandfather to me."

Noah says Lewis who helmed more than a dozen films in his career, including 1963's "The Nutty Professor" left the directing completely to him. He gave his famous star little direction, save for the occasional reminder to be more minimal, more "sad clown," says Noah.

"He's a wonderful kid," says Lewis. "When you're 87, almost everybody's a kid."

Lewis has continued to perform concerts "a wonderful way to make a fortune," he says. Retirement is not on the table. "I'm happiest when I'm on the stage," says Lewis, who was honored with the Academy Awards' humanitarian award in 2009 after years of telethon hosting for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

"Wherever the audience is is where you want to go," he says. "And if you're a ham, like me, you go wherever the action is. You see a lens and a crew and say, 'Yeah!'"

At the press conference in Cannes, Lewis proved that he still has his pugnacious wit and eagerness for laughs.

Asked about Dean Martin, Lewis' famed comedy partner in the '50s, he responded: "He died, you know. When I arrived here and he wasn't here I knew something was wrong." (Martin, with whom Lewis parted acrimoniously, died in 1995.)

"I've worked hard to sustain a reputation of: If you buy a ticket, you know you're going to get entertained," says Lewis. "That's what I was taught."

Lewis may be many things talented, funny, honest, out-of-touch, sexist but perhaps above all else, he's an entertainer. "Max Rose" marks his 82nd year performing.

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jake_coyle

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FRANKFURT, May 25 - An Austrian man tip-toed along a line strung 185 meters (607 feet) off the ground in Frankfurt on Saturday, attempting to set a new world record for "highlining" despite his fear of heights.

Reinhard Kleindl, 32, used only his arms to balance as he walked twice along a 30-metre-long polyester rope anchored to the two wings of Frankfurt's U-shaped skyscraper Tower 185 above hundreds of cheering supporters.

Kleindl said he was trying to set a new record for walking the highest urban highline, but no one was immediately available from the World Slackline Federation to confirm if this was a new record.

According to Kleindl, the previous record was set by a group of French adrenaline junkies on a line about 120 meters above the ground, between the Les Mercuriales twin towers in Paris, two years ago.

Unlike tightropes, slacklines are not held rigidly taut, making it harder to balance.

After completing his walks, Kleindl whooped with joy and admitted he was a bit afraid of heights.

"The effect of the height was worse than I had expected. The straight lines of the building just seem to drop down into infinity," said the long-haired and bearded Austrian.

Kleindl, who studied particle physics before becoming a professional slackliner, was due to repeat his walk three times during a two-day skyscraper-themed festival that started on Saturday.

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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By Chris Francescani

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)

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