Scary movie "Dream House" loses ratings appeal (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap) – "Dream House," a thriller starring real-life newlyweds Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, has lost a bid to have its "R" rating softened.

The appeals board of the Motion Picture Assn. of America said Wednesday that the movie merited the rating -- which requires U.S. viewers under 17 to be accompanied by an adult -- because of "some violence."

The film's producer still believes it will ultimately receive a PG-13 rating.

"They gave us a list of several things in the movie that they thought should be cut," Greg Mielcarz, Morgan Creek's executive VP of marketing, told TheWrap. "We're going to ... work with them together to ensure that we receive a PG-13."

The Universal Pictures release revolves around a family who discover that their new home was the murder scene of a mother and her children. It was directed by Jim Sheridan, and is set for release on September 30.

In order to have a rating changed, two-thirds of the members of the appeals board have to agree that the rating is "clearly erroneous." The MPAA says that the board reviews between 800 and 900 films each year and that fewer than a dozen ratings are appealed each year.

(Edited by Dean Gooodman)

(To read more about our entertainment news, visit our blog "Fan Fare" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)

Republican Huntsman to announce White House run (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman will announce his bid for the White House next Tuesday, bringing a moderate Republican and expert on America's fastest growing competitor into the race to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012.

"I intend to announce that I will be a candidate for the presidency a week from today," Huntsman, former U.S. ambassador to China, said at an event hosted by Thomson Reuters.

The formal announcement of his candidacy will be made on June 21 near the Statue of Liberty, a source close to Huntsman said.

Huntsman, 51, is one of the few Republican hopefuls who worries Obama's re-election team, though his name recognition across the country is low.

Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, he upset the White House in April by quitting his job as ambassador in Beijing to return to the United States and plan his election campaign.

If he picks up traction in the polls, Huntsman could be a rival to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney for the role of the moderate Republican candidate.

Huntsman left his governorship in August 2009 with sky-high approval ratings and a reputation for fiscal conservatism, but his more moderate views on social issues could make his path to winning the Republican nomination difficult.

Familiarity with voters is also a problem.

A recent look by the University of New Hampshire's survey center showed Huntsman favored by only 1 percent of voters in the state, which has an early February primary that can help a candidate build momentum.

Seventy-one percent of those polled had never heard of him despite Huntsman campaigning there.

CHINA AND THE REPUBLICAN FIELD

Huntsman was absent from the first major Republican debate on Monday, where Romney was seen to have performed well.

So far, Huntsman has been reluctant to criticize his fellow competitors, and he has painted his background in China as a strength.

Many conservative voters his having worked in the Obama administration as a liability, and Obama himself has touted his work as a not-so-subtle way of highlighting those ties.

Asked at the Thomson Reuters event how that background would help him win the White House, Huntsman sounded out a likely campaign theme, saying the United States had to fix its own economic and fiscal problems to compete.

"Because ... we have a very weak economic core, we are less able to project the goodness and the power and the might of the United States," he said.

"We sit diminished and discounted at the negotiating table and everybody knows that. So if you want a strong U.S.-China relationship, I would argue that we probably have a little bit of work here in our own backyard."

Congressional Republicans and Democrats are currently negotiating ways to bring down the deficit and reduce federal spending, talks that are being watched by investors worldwide.

Huntsman dropped out of high school to play in a rock band. He learned to speak Chinese while on a Mormon mission to Taiwan during his college years. He and his wife Mary Kaye Cooper have seven children,

(Additional reporting by Alistair Bell and Paul Eckert; Editing by Jackie Frank)

House Speaker Boehner urges Weiner to resign (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top Republican in the Congress Tuesday joined a growing chorus of bipartisan calls for Democratic lawmaker Anthony Weiner to resign in the face of an Internet sex scandal.

A day after the House of Representatives granted Weiner a two-week leave of absence to receive unspecified professional help, House Speaker John Boehner said simply, "Yes," when asked by reporters if the 46-year-old liberal should step down.

Weiner has defied calls from leaders of both parties to relinquish his $174,000-a-year job after his belated admission last week that he sent online messages and lewd photos of himself to at least a half dozen women and lied about it.

Democrats say Weiner has become a troublesome distraction for their party as it gets ready to try to win back the House from Republicans in next year's election.

Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, 35, a senior aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is expected to return Wednesday from a trip to Africa with Clinton.

"His wife is coming back, and the message is loud and clear that he has to go," a senior Democratic aide said. "The sooner the better."

House Democrats have options to try to increase pressure on Weiner -- such as passing a non-binding resolution urging him to go, booting him from their caucus or even removing him from the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer said: "He is now hopefully considering what action he ought to take .... I believe it would be very difficult for him to proceed (as a member of Congress) given the circumstances.'

"I hope he is seriously considering taking a course that will take him out of this context ... and deal with his own personal life and not be burdened by being a member," Hoyer said.

President Barack Obama weighed in during an interview on Monday, saying he would resign if he were in Weiner's position.

(Additional reporting by Donna Smith, Richard Cowan and Deborah Charles; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Perry: Still time to decide on a White House run (AP)

NEW YORK – Texas Gov. Rick Perry stirred speculation Tuesday that he would seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, championing his state's economy before a packed GOP gathering in New York and telling a television interviewer he would engage in a "thought process" before deciding whether to join the field.

Perry traveled to New York to address the Lincoln Dinner, an annual fundraising event for the New York GOP. He replaced celebrity real estate developer Donald Trump, who cancelled his appearance after deciding against a presidential bid.

"I find it ironic to be filling in for Donald Trump tonight," Perry said. "He's known for saying `You're fired.' We're known for saying `You're hired.' That's what we do in Texas."

Perry, a three-term governor popular with tea party activists, used the speech to touch on several of his longstanding state campaign themes. He promoted his state's jobs record and economic climate, which he said were a reflection of conservative principles. He urged Republicans to stand firm in opposition to abortion rights and criticized the federal government for excessive regulation and interfering in states' decisions.

"Washington isn't supposed to be the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-spending Oz, pulling the levers behind the curtain while limiting the freedom of our citizens. Instead, the states are supposed to lead the way," he said.

Earlier, Perry told Fox News that was still considering a presidential bid and didn't have to jump into the field yet.

"We have some time," he said. "I'm not sure you have to make a decision in a month."

Perry's closest advisers say he has no intention of running, but last month he said he was "going to think about it."

Perry would bring conservative bona fides, a proven fundraising record and a fresh voice to a field in which many conservatives are looking for an alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor is making his second bid for the GOP nomination.

Perry didn't address the presidential speculation directly at the New York gathering. But he urged supporters to send a text message to his political team to receive updates on his efforts to battle federal incursion into state activities.

Perry was joined in New York by his wife, Anita, and by his longtime political adviser, Dave Carney, who recently resigned from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign.

Perry, the Republican Governors Association chairman, is doing several political events around the country this week. He is attending a private RGA event in North Carolina on Wednesday and will travel to New Orleans for the Republican Leadership Conference on Saturday. He is scheduled to go to St. Louis for another RGA event next week.

On Fox News, Perry took a swipe at the sexting scandal rocking congressional Democrats in which Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York sent lewd photos of himself and messages to several women.

Asked if Weiner should resign, Perry called him a "sick fella who made some really bad decisions."

Perry said politicians and public officials should be held to higher standards than others and that if he were elected president and one of his Cabinet members did the same thing, he would "most likely" ask that person to resign.

"We have moral rules we live with every day. We have rules of conduct every day," he said. "It's like that definition of pornography: I know it when I see it."

Perry also was asked whether Republicans should reach out to Hispanics on immigration enforcement issues.

"I think the Hispanic population in the country is no different from the Anglo population or the Asian population," he said. "They want to live in a state where they can be free from overtaxation (and) overlitigation. They want to be able to have good schools for their kids and have a wide-open future. That's what the Republican Party is all about."

___

Associated Press writers April Castro and Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

White House wants business to aid in debt cap fight (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Worried that Congress will not act in time to raise the country's borrowing cap, the Obama administration is enlisting the business community to persuade lawmakers that a default will have dire consequences.

Outgoing White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee is set to talk to a slew of business representatives this week, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting.

The meeting will mark the second time in less than a month that Goolsbee has tried to get businesses to ratchet up the pressure on Congress to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit before August 2, when the Treasury says it will no longer be able to pay the government's bills.

"The White House wants the business community to pull its weight," said one person familiar with the administration's thinking who was on Goolsbee's initial conference call on the subject.

There is a "profound misperception" among some lawmakers that a temporary default will not imperil the fragile economy, said the person, who was not authorized to speak on behalf of the administration.

Calls to the White House seeking comment on the effort were not immediately returned.

The flash point for the White House came when famed investor Stanley Druckenmiller said he could tolerate a brief debt default if it forced lawmakers to reach a deal to slash future budget gaps. This year's deficit is projected to hit $1.4 trillion.

The comments from Druckenmiller, a former hedge fund manager and longtime ally of George Soros, appeared to lend credibility to the belief of some Republicans that the administration was fear mongering about the consequences if Congress failed to move quickly to raise the limit on how much the government can borrow.

Less than a week after Druckenmiller told the Wall Street Journal that a default would not be the "catastrophic" event administration officials claimed, the White House called on some of its Democratic friends in corporate America.

"It really scared the administration that a brand name was saying that (default) was not a big deal," said a financial services industry source who also was on the Goolsbee call in May.

During the call with about 60-70 executives from large and small firms across the country from financial services to manufacturing, Goolsbee likened the debt talks and potential market fallout to a smoldering fire pit in Iran and said one could only get so close before his clothes would catch fire.

The message from Goolsbee, according to the participant, was, "We know markets will react negatively, but don't know how close we can get before they start reacting negatively."

The White House economic adviser cited a study by centrist think tank Third Way that said default would drive the country into a second recession -- a statement Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner would later make in a letter to Congress.

So far, U.S. markets have shown little concern over the budget stalement in Washington with investors apparently confident lawmakers will lift the debt ceiling in time. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note hovered around 3 percent on Tuesday, indicating strong demand.

Still, the United States' largest foreign creditor, China, warned that U.S. lawmakers contemplating a technical default, or a delay in interest payments, are "playing with fire".

UNCONVINCED

Conservative Republicans, who helped shift control of the House of Representatives to their party in elections in November, remain unconvinced that there will be terrible fallout if the August 2 deadline is missed.

"A lot of my supporters, a lot of my friends... are making sure that I know that I can't raise the debt ceiling until there is a good plan moving forward to (curb spending,)" said Representative Stephen Fincher of Tennessee.

Fellow Republican Mike Pompeo said there were bankers in his district in Kansas who were watching the negotiations closely and wanted to make sure Congress "got it right," adding that he was more convinced than ever that raising the debt limit without big spending cuts would be wrong.

Publicly, President Barack Obama and his economic team have been warning lawmakers for months that missing payments on any of the government's obligations could push interest rates sharply higher and throw the economy back into recession. They say Republicans would shoulder the blame if that happened.

Lobbying groups for powerful companies such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Caterpillar Inc, have tried with little success to persuade lawmakers -- and the public -- that a debt default would be unthinkable.

Republican Representative Nan Hayworth of New York said the majority of her constituents have told her that they would prefer that the debt ceiling not be raised.

"I have assured them that it will be accompanied by substantial measures to stop adding to the debt as fast as possible," she said.

(Additional reporting by Laura MacInnis)