Danny Puff

LONDON (AP) Two-time Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel has snagged the top honor at the Costa Book Awards for her novel "Bring Up the Bodies."

The British writer's blood-soaked Tudor saga, which won the Booker last year, defeated four other titles shortlisted for the 25,000 pound ($39,400) prize for 2012's book of the year.

Accepting her prize at a London ceremony on Tuesday, Mantel alluded to her recent successes by saying she was "not going to apologize" for winning another award.

"I'm happy and I shall make it my business to try to write more books that will be worth more prizes," she said.

Dame Jenni Murray, who chaired the judging panel, said Mantel was a unanimous winner and her book stood "more than head and shoulders on stilts above the rest."

Other works shortlisted for the top Costa prize included "The Overhaul," from Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie, and "The Innocents," a first novel from Francesca Segal.

"Dotter of Her Father's Eyes," written by Mary Talbot and drawn by her husband, Bryan, was also in the running, along with "Maggot Moon," a children's book from severely dyslexic writer and illustrator Sally Gardner.

All of the writers on the shortlist Mantel included will take home 5,000 pounds.

The awards, known until 2006 as the Whitbread Book Awards, were established in 1971 and recognize "outstanding and enjoyable books" by writers based in the U.K. and Ireland.

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NEW YORK (AP) Chris Cuomo is leaving ABC News to host a new morning show at CNN, where new boss Jeff Zucker is moving fast to try to turn around the cable news pioneer that has fallen on hard times.

Network managing editor Mark Whitaker announced he was quitting Tuesday, officially Zucker's seventh day on the job as CNN Worldwide president. Longtime political consultants and commentators James Carville and Mary Matalin also are leaving.

Cuomo is expected to be paired with current evening anchor Erin Burnett in the mornings. CNN said Tuesday it was discussing other job options with Soledad O'Brien, who will be ending her second stint as morning show co-host.

"Chris is an accomplished anchor who is already an established name in morning television," Zucker said. "What I love about Chris is that he is passionate about every story he tells, never forgets about the viewer and represents the type of journalism that makes CNN great."

In addition to the broadcast morning shows, CNN is competing with two distinctive cable news morning programs in Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" and MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

Zucker was the "Today" show executive producer as the show began dominating morning television in the mid-1990s, before moving up in the NBC executive suite, and he is expected to work closely in developing the new morning show. He was largely responsible for Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira getting their jobs at "Today."

Cuomo, the "20/20" co-anchor, is the second big defection from ABC to CNN in a little more than a month, the other being Jake Tapper.

Both men found their paths to higher-profile jobs at ABC blocked. Cuomo, who was news anchor at "Good Morning America" from 2006 to 2009, was passed over for George Stephanopoulos as co-host of that show while Tapper twice didn't get a shot at the anchor job on "This Week," first when Stephanopoulos left and then when he returned to the Sunday show.

Both Cuomo and Tapper will have their own daily programs on CNN, which generally runs third in the ratings behind Fox and MSNBC but improves during big news events.

Cuomo wasn't made available for comment. He said in a statement that "this is a fantastic opportunity to do what I value the most and hopefully to do the work that I do best."

CNN was scooped on the announcement of Cuomo's hiring by the newsman's older brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who mentioned it during a radio interview Tuesday morning.

ABC News moved quickly to replace Cuomo, appointing correspondent David Muir as Elizabeth Vargas' new co-host on the prime-time newsmagazine.

Whitaker came to CNN in 2011 as senior vice president and managing editor and tried to expand CNN's programming, opening a film division and hiring Morgan Spurlock and Anthony Bourdain for weekend shows that haven't started yet.

With Zucker and "his own forceful ideas" about CNN's direction and programming options, Whitaker said the new chief deserved a chance to build his own management team.

The Cajun commentator Carville, a former Bill Clinton political aide, has delivered opinions on CNN since 2002. His wife, Mary Matalin, came on at the end of the Bush administration in 2009.

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Associated Press writer Michael Gormley in Albany, N.Y. contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is planning its first major expansion since it opened in 1971 as a "living memorial" to President John F. Kennedy, with new features including pavilions to house rehearsal halls and classrooms, a memorial garden and a floating stage on the Potomac River.

The plans unveiled Tuesday call for a $100 million addition that would create a more lively outdoor space for gatherings and performances, with a pedestrian bridge connecting the center to the river. Architect Steven Holl drafted the initial concept and was hired from among several contenders to design the expansion.

New marble pavilions made from the same Italian Carrara marble as the original building's walls would rise from a new garden situated beside the center, and the pavilions would be connected underground. Most of the new facility, totaling about 60,000 square feet of usable space, would be buried below the surface to help preserve the silhouette of the center's primary building.

Officials plan to raise private funds to build the project. To kick off the capital campaign, Kennedy Center Chairman David Rubenstein is giving $50 million to fund half the cost. The center aims to raise an additional $75 million to complete construction and establish a programming fund. Officials hope to open the new space in 2018.

Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser said the new pavilions would have windows to allow visitors to look in on rehearsals of opera, theater or dance.

"We're giving a great improvement in public access to the Kennedy Center, to our art making," Kaiser said. "It's going to allow us to engage our audience in new and different ways."

The new space for rehearsals and education programs also is desperately needed as the center has grown since 1971, Kaiser said. The center now includes a national arts education program and houses the Washington National Opera as a permanent affiliate.

In an interview, Holl said he is honored to work on a memorial to a president he saw inaugurated in 1961 and respected so much.

"The Kennedy Center is a living memorial. It's active, open to the public for performance, the arts, which he really believed in," Holl said.

Preliminary plans call for a memorial garden to honor Kennedy. It could include 46 Gingko trees to note the number of years Kennedy lived, 35 lavender rows for the 35th president, and a video wall for projections of performances from inside the Kennedy Center.

"The idea really is that the landscape is activated," a fusion of architecture and landscape features, Holl said.

It could include a reflecting pool the exact length of the PT-109 boat that Lt. John Kennedy commanded during World War II. Holl envisions a deck along the pool made from the same mahogany wood as the boat. It could also include inscriptions of Kennedy's words.

The biggest challenge in the design concept could be winning approval for a performance stage that would float on the Potomac River, Holl said. Still, he said he has successfully negotiated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a past project that fell inside a flood plain.

"I'm ready for the fight," he said.

Open-air performances were once held on a floating river stage nearby at the Lincoln Memorial in the 1930s.

The new expansion plans come more than 10 years after the Kennedy Center announced a major project to build two new buildings and a plaza over a nearby freeway to connect the center with the National Mall. The $650 million project was essentially canceled in 2005 after budget constraints forced Congress to eliminate $400 million in federal funding for the project.

Kaiser envisioned a museum of the performing arts as part of that project. Now, he said, the center can plan future exhibition galleries in its main building as education programs and rehearsals move to the new facilities.

Rubenstein, a billionaire businessman and a former vice chairman of New York City's Lincoln Center, said the Kennedy Center has been limited by its building over the years. So he wanted to plan a realistic project that could be privately funded without relying on Congress. As the federal budget tightens, Rubenstein said more Americans should consider supporting nonprofit federal entities like the center.

Rubenstein's gift is the largest in the center's history. Combined with previous gifts, he has donated $75 million, making him the center's largest donor.

Adding a garden and outdoor pavilions will make the center more inviting, Rubenstein said.

"Rarely do people say in Washington, 'I'm going to go over and spend a couple hours at the Kennedy Center,'" Rubenstein said, noting it's often an evening destination for shows. But that will change, he said. "What we wanted to do was to remind people that this is a living memorial to a president."

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Kennedy Center: http://www.kennedy-center.org

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Follow Brett Zongker at https://twitter.com/DCArtBeat

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LONDON (Reuters) - A British magazine distributed by a joint venture of Conde Nast and Hearst Corporation and aimed at primary school children has been featuring images of adult-rated video games.

The most recent issue of Cool Kidz, which is published by privately-owned LCD Publishing, contained images of five games that carried age ratings of 18 years, under the European gaming industry's PEGI rating scheme.

Screenshots appeared as double-page spreads, for use as posters, and were reproduced in spot-the-difference and other puzzles. Earlier issues also had images from 18- and 16-rated games.

Children's campaigners said the images reflected a growing problem of young children being exposed to violent video games, thereby increasing the chance they start playing them earlier.

It also highlighted what some critics describe as an apparent gap in regulation of children's magazines since LCD does not appear to have broken any law or industry rule.

LCD Publishing, which is based in Exeter, southwest England, said it took its responsibilities to young readers seriously.

"We censor the images we use to ensure that there is no blood or apparent body damage," owner Allen Trump said in an emailed statement.

He said the images used were suitable for children 12 or older, although he added the magazine was targeted at children up to 12 years.

The pictures printed depicted life-like computer generated images of men carrying weapons including assault rifles, Bowie knives, an axe, an anti-tank weapon and pistols.

The images showed explosions but not the visceral, bloody combat or scenes of a sexual nature for which the games are frequently criticized by parents' groups and women's rights advocates.

Cool Kidz is distributed by Comag, which is controlled by privately-owned U.S. magazine publishers Conde Nast, owners of Vogue magazine, and the Hearst Corporation, owner of Cosmopolitan magazine.

All three groups declined repeated requests for comment.

London-based Comag is one of the largest magazine distributors in the UK with annual turnover of around 230 million pounds ($360 million), according to its most recent accounts.

FREE PROMOTION

Trump said LCD downloaded the game images from the Internet although he was also occasionally approached by public relations firms seeking coverage of their clients' games.

Games publishers regularly post images on their websites, for use by online and print publishers, thus helping create awareness of their game.

Games firms contacted by Reuters said they were unaware Cool Kidz, which has been published for seven years, had been using their images.

The adult games Cool Kidz featured included Hitman: Absolution, Call of Duty Black Ops II, Assassins Creed III, Farcry 3 and Dishonored.

Representatives for Japan's Square Enix, publisher of the Hitman series, privately-owned Bethesda Softworks, publisher of Dishonored, and Ubisoft Entertainment, publisher of Assassins Creed III and Farcry 3, said they opposed the use but declined to say whether they would take any legal action against LCD.

Call of Duty publisher Activision declined to comment.

Alison Sherratt, senior vice-president of teachers union ATL, said publishers and government needed to do more to limit children's' exposure to games.

"It puts peer pressure on children .. If they see these images, it gives them the idea it's ok, it's all right to play these games," she added.

A spokeswoman for the Advertising Standards Authority said games companies could not advertise 18 rated games in children's magazines and a spokesman for the Video Standards Council (VSC), the UK affiliate of PEGI, said its rules also prohibited this.

However, since the images were not paid-for advertising, or supplied to Cool Kidz by the games publishers, these rules do not apply.

The Press Complaints Commission can adjudicate on complaints against magazines but only in respect of its members. LCD is not one.

The Office of Fair Trade and the Professional Publishers Association, trade group for magazine publishers, said they were unaware of any bodies that had regulatory powers over the content of children's magazines.

(Reporting by Tom Bergin; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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NEW YORK (AP) On the ABC Family series "Pretty Little Liars," Lucy Hale's character, Aria, has a passion for fashion. She wears lots of layers, textures and patterns.

"All credit goes to our costume designer, Mandi Line, who calls Aria her mini-me," Hale said in a recent interview. "This is how she dresses so it comes easy to her. This character has become her baby. Aria's the one that wears stripes and leopard print and neon all at once. Where one person will wear one trend, she'll wear all of the above but she's just fun."

"Pretty Little Liars," which airs Tuesdays (8 p.m. Eastern), is about a group of teenage girls who are being blackmailed by a mysterious group of people who go by the name A.

While Aria loves to express herself through clothes, Hale channels her emotions through music.

The 23-year-old was among the winners in 2003 of "American Juniors," a spinoff of "American Idol," where the final five formed a vocal quintet. They recorded an album but broke up in 2005.

Hale laughs that she was "just convinced I was the second coming to Kelly Clarkson."

She went into acting, landing roles on the short-lived TV show "Privileged," movies like "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" and "Scream 4."

Now she's decided to give music another go.

Hale signed with Hollywood Records and is recording a country album, produced by Mark Bright who's worked with Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood and Sara Evans. She's expected to release a single, followed by an album later this year.

"(The album) is something I wanted to do way before 'Pretty Little Liars' or anything. I grew up singing, and acting sort of came up along the way. ... (Recording) is a lot of weekends, it's a lot of long nights but I'm so passionate about it ... I'm just really excited," she said.

Hale, who was "born and bred in Tennessee," says she listened to country music as she was growing up.

"Country music to me is the best music in the world. It's storytelling and it means something and it can make you feel any emotion in the world and it's just where my heart is," she said.

Kristian Bush of the country duo Sugarland is writing songs with Hale for her album. In a recent phone interview, Bush said he tried to discourage Hale because of all the hard work involved.

"I've had multiple record deals. ... Even when you're great it doesn't guarantee success," he said.

But Hale showed she was fearless, committed and has an impressive knowledge of country music.

"I would drive around in the car with her ... and she always flips the station to the country station and always sings along louder than the radio. I'm like, 'How do you know that song? I don't even know that song. I've just heard of (the band) Florida Georgia Line. How did you get that? Did you get an advance copy?' She just obsessively listens. Nothing creates a better writer or an artist than a great listener," Bush said.

Hale hopes country fans will accept her.

"Once you get in the circle of country music, you're in and they will stay with you for life," said Hale. "It's just going over the hurdle of getting in there because they don't just let anyone in. Look at the careers. You don't make one album. You make 25 albums. They're just behind your back always."

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Online:

http://beta.abcfamily.go.com/shows/pretty-little-liars

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Alicia Rancilio covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow her online at http://www.twitter.com/aliciar

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rising R&B artist Frank Ocean wants fellow singer Chris Brown prosecuted following a brawl over a parking space at a Los Angeles-area recording studio, authorities said on Monday.

Brown is serving five years probation for assaulting his on-and-off girlfriend Rihanna in 2009 and risks having his probation revoked should charges be filed.

In the incident on Sunday, sheriff's deputies responded to a call about a fight involving six men in West Hollywood. The deputies cited witnesses as saying that the Grammy-winning Brown, 23, punched Ocean during the brief altercation.

No charges have yet been filed, but Ocean "is desirous of prosecution in this incident," said Los Angeles County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore.

Ocean, 25, who is nominated for best new artist and best record for "Thinkin Bout You" at the Grammys in February, said on Twitter on Sunday night that he "got jumped by Chris and a couple guys." He said this resulted in a cut finger.

A representative for Brown has yet to comment.

The "Look at me Now" singer has attempted to rebuild his career and public image since 2009, but his entourage and that of Canadian rapper Drake were involved in a June 2012 brawl in a New York nightclub. No arrests or charges were brought in that case.

Brown and Ocean are both nominated in the best urban contemporary album category at the Grammys, which take place on February 10 in Los Angeles.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey and Colleen Jenkins; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

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North Korea maps Search for "North Korea" in Google Maps today, and you'll get a whole new perspective.

Citizen cartographers have helped label landmarks in that enigmatic and repressive state, which Google pushed live late Monday. Charting North Korea using its Map Maker software was a four-year process, David Marx, head of product PR for Google Asia-Pacific, tells Yahoo!. The vetting process for a nation once labeled part of an "axis of evil" isn't much different from other countries: To guard against misleading information, users have to be signed into their Google account to contribute and are reviewed by fellow mapping volunteers. "However, we do also have a small team of reviewers across the globe that may review and moderate updates in Map Maker to ensure data quality," Marx added.

"We know this map is not perfect," wrote senior product manager Jayanth Mysore in the company blog Google Lat Long. "While many people around the globe are fascinated with North Korea, these maps are especially important for the citizens of South Korea who have ancestral connections or still have family living there."

Related: Google Unveiled Detailed Map of N. Korea

Deep dives into North Korea The use of North Korean satellite maps, however, has been geared less to matters of kinship and more about its human rights abuses and nuclear armament. DPRK Digital Atlas based on Google Earth recently debuted a detailed satellite overview of North Korea. The project, based out of the U.S.-Korea Institute at John Hopkins School of Advanced International studies (SAIS), emerged as a partnership with 38 North and North Korean Economy Watch (NKEW). NKEW editor Curtis Melvin, a Ph.D. student in economics at George Mason University, released an incredibly detailed map back in 2009, documenting railroad systems, compounds complete with water slides belonging to that country's elite, breweries, ostrich farms, and gulags.

"Satellite imagery is one of the few ways for foreigners to comprehend North Korea s economic and security infrastructure, because information is so restricted," SAIS research associate Jenny Town notes in an email to Yahoo!. "Through satellite imagery we can see changes not only in the North s missile and nuclear sites, but also markets and roads and other infrastructure which help us better understand how the North is developing. It is a good thing that Google Maps has become interested in North Korea, and we hope they will continue to refine their information."

Intense satellite scrutiny For its part, 38 North has been closely monitoring satellite imagery to track the development of long-range missiles at North Korea's Sohae Satellite Launching Station and a possible upcoming nuclear test at Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Facility.

Analysis of new satellite imagery from January 23, 2013 and previous images dating back a month reveal that the site appears to be at a continued state of readiness that would allow the North to move forward with a test in a few weeks or less once the leadership in Pyongyang gives the order. Snowfall and subsequent clearing operations as well as tracks in the snow reveal ongoing activity at buildings and on roadways near the possible test tunnel. A photo from January 4 identifies a group of personnel, possibly troops or security guards, in formation in the yard of the administrative area near the test tunnel entrance, perhaps to greet visiting officials or for some other more routine purpose. (Jan. 25, 38 North)

The scrutiny's especially intense these days, after the United Nations's threat of sanctions if North Korea follows through with its test. A war of words has been launched, with a China editorial warning of reduced aid, South Korea's support of the resolution, and North Korea's fury directed at its southern neighbor, warning of "merciless retaliatory blows."

Yet in the meantime, leader Kim Jong Un reportedly plans to open North Korea to foreign investment, similar to Vietnam's economic development, to turn around the impoverished nation. He has already invited German economists and lawyers to plot that direction. With all this, map-watching North Korea may become a whole new online sport.

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NEW YORK (AP) A conference on how to make the Broadway experience better for theatergoers has come up with some prescriptions: Be brave in the stories that are told onstage and embrace youth and technology.

"Broadway, I don't think, has boldly gone where it needs to," said "Star Trek" actor George Takei, riffing off his old show's motto. "I have a sense that Broadway hasn't entered into the 21st century."

The second TEDxBroadway conference on Monday brought together 16 speakers producers, marketers, entrepreneurs, academics and artists to try to answer the question: "What is the best Broadway can be?"

"We use the word 'best' because the goal of today is to go right past better all the way to the extent of what is possible, even if it seems a little bit outlandish," said co-organizer Jim McCarthy, the CEO of Goldstar, a ticket retailer.

TEDx events are independently organized but inspired by the nonprofit group TED standing for Technology, Entertainment, Design that started in 1984 as a conference dedicated to "ideas worth spreading." Video of the Broadway event will be made available to the public.

While the health of Broadway is good, with shows yielding a record $1.14 billion in grosses last season, some speakers noted that total attendance 12.3 million last season hasn't kept pace, meaning Broadway isn't always attracting new customers.

Three speakers one the sister of Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg argued that new technology means the stage experience doesn't need to be confined to the four walls of the theater and so can grow new audiences.

David Sabel, who has helped drive the National Theatre of Great Britain into the digital age, pointed out that broadcasts of his stage shows on movie screens across the world haven't dampened demand at the box office and have actually have themselves become profitable.

"I think in our business, digital is uniquely not a threat but an opportunity," he said. "What if we could open it up and invite a much greater audience in to speak with us?"

Randi Zuckerberg said the Broadway community could increase visibility by having auditions for minor parts via YouTube, have live tweeters backstage, offer crowd funding to knit people to productions, give walk-on parts for influential figures or even make the Playbills electronic.

"Why should Broadway be limited by physical space? By ticket prices? By the same shows, over and over?" she asked. "Instead of having just a small sliver of the world come to Broadway, why not bring a small piece of Broadway to the entire world?"

And Internet guru Josh Harris said producers need to open the entire process to the outside world, including video cameras backstage to capture actors getting ready and even having the orchestra pit filled with people interacting with the audience via their electronic devices.

The annual gathering centered on Broadway is the brainchild of three men: McCarthy; Ken Davenport, a writer and producer; and Damian Bazadona, the founder of Situation Interactive. It drew 400 people to the off-Broadway complex New World Stages and into the theater where "Avenue Q" usually plays.

Takei in the past few years has grown 3.3 million Facebook friends and leveraged them into audience members to "Allegiance," his new musical about Japanese-Americans during World War II,

"If I can do it, Broadway certainly can," the 65-year-old said. "Broadway is at its best when it embraces all of the technological advancements of the time and starts making a lot of friends on social media. Then, as we say on 'Star Trek,' Broadway will live long and prosper."

Thomas Schumacher, the president of the Disney Theatrical Group, slammed the pretentious way some in the theatrical community look at more mainstream shows and scoffed at their disdain for making the audience experience more fun.

"Populism has its own manifest destiny and we need to embrace that," said Schumacher, who called for a big tent of theatrical options on Broadway and especially shows for children who will return as adults. "What I ask you to do is embrace this audience and maybe even embrace the sippy cup."

Terry Teachout, drama critic at The Wall Street Journal, soberly pointed out that 75 percent of all Broadway shows fail and then asked that more producers roll the dice on quality.

"If you can't count on getting rich, then forget playing it safe. Why not take a shot at being great?" he asked. "If there's ever a time for you to shoot high, this is it. Don't start out settling for safe. Gamble on great."

Kristoffer Diaz, the playwright of the Pulitzer Prize finalist "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity," urged producers to embrace different voices, as they did with "In the Heights" and "Rent."

"Women, writers of color, transgender, lesbian, gay and bisexual we need to keep hearing these stories. We need to hear them on Broadway," he said. "It becomes a lot harder to dismiss somebody out of hand if you've spent a couple of hours investing in their story."

Two speakers with specialty knowledge outside Broadway urged the community to not just focus on putting on a great show.

Susan Reilly Salgado, who has worked with famed restaurant owner Danny Meyer, said his success is not only about creating tasty dishes. Meyer, she said, makes the whole evening fun.

"To say that, in a restaurant, it's all about the food discounts everyone else who touches the customer experience," she said. "The best way to get people to come back to you over and over is to create an all-encompassing experience."

Erin Hoover, the vice president of design for Westin and Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, said Broadway theaters could take a page out of the innovations brought to hotel lobbies, which are now comfortable, inviting and offer new sources of revenue. "The experience for the show really starts at the door."

Customer service was also a theme touched on by Zachary A. Schmahl, an actor-turned-baker who created Schmackary's Cookies in his apartment and has watched it grow into a thriving business.

"Customer service is something that people are missing in New York," he said. "It's so important in our single-serving culture to be that business that has a heart and a soul alongside a quality product."

One returning speaker was Vincent Gassetto, the principal of a high-performing public middle school in a tough area of the Bronx, who urged those in attendance to make sure Broadway was on the radar of his best and brightest students.

"It's in everybody in this room's best interest that they have an awareness of this industry or we're never going to win that talent war," he said. "We're all going to be competing for them."

Though the speakers came from different backgrounds and emphasized different prescriptions, they did seem to agree with Daryl Roth, the Pulitzer Prize-winning producer of seven plays, including "Clybourne Park." She challenged the crowd to think of Broadway in more than just dollars and cents.

"If we share the deep belief that theater matters, that theater can change us and ultimately change the world, then isn't that the best Broadway can be?" Roth asked.

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Online:

http://www.goldstar.com/tedxbroadway

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Follow Mark Kennedy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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(Reuters) - The burning of a library housing thousands of ancient manuscripts in Mali's desert city of Timbuktu is just the latest act of destruction by Islamist fighters who have spent months smashing graves and holy shrines in the World Heritage site.

The United Nations cultural body UNESCO said it was trying to find out the precise damage done to the Ahmed Baba Institute, a modern building that contains priceless documents dating back to the 13th century.

The manuscripts are "uniquely valuable and testify to a long tradition of learning and cultural exchange," said UNESCO spokesman Roni Amelan. "So we are horrified."

But if they are horrified, historians and religious scholars are unlikely to have been surprised by this gesture of defiance by Islamist rebels fleeing the ancient trading post on the threshold of the Sahara as French and Malian troops moved in.

"It was one of the greatest libraries of Islamic manuscripts in the world," said Marie Rodet, an African history lecturer at London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

"It's pure retaliation. They knew they were losing the battle and they hit where it really hurts," she told Reuters.

Turban-swathed Tuareg rebels first swept into Timbuktu back in April 2012 to plant the flag of their newly declared northern Mali homeland.

Before the occupation, Timbuktu and its ancient mosques and burial grounds had become an obligatory stop for budget backpackers seeking the desert experience and scholars looking for historical wisdom from rare Islamic texts.

Written in ornate calligraphy, these manuscripts form a compendium of learning on everything from law, sciences, astrology and medicine to history and politics, which academics say prove Africa had a written history at least as old as the European Renaissance.

For years, people came to experience what locals called "the mystery of Timbuktu". They also came for camel rides at the gates of the desert, boat rides on the Niger river to spot hippos, and to visit the city's famous mud-built mosques with their distinctive turrets and protruding timber beams.

But soon after the Tuareg invasion, the city of the 333 Saints fell under the sway of Islamist radicals. Bars and hotels closed and the tourists, already spooked by earlier incidents of abduction and murder by al Qaeda linked militants, stayed away.

CAMPAIGN OF DESTRUCTION

It was not long before the Islamists imposed severe Sharia law and set about a campaign of destruction of centuries-old Sufi sites that prompted international outrage.

Shrines, graves and mausoleums were attacked with pick-axes, shovels and even bulldozers. The bones of Sufi saints were dug up, and the hard-liners tore down a mosque door that locals believed had to stay shut until the end of the world.

The militants from the Malian Ansar Dine militant group that occupied Timbuktu (the name means Defenders of the Faith in Arabic) espouse an uncompromising version of Islam that rejects what it sees as idolatry and aims to destroy all traces of it.

In Timbuktu, their targets have been sites revered by Sufis, a mystical school of popular Islam which honours its saints with ornate shrines. At least half of 16 listed mausoleums in the city have been destroyed, along with a substantial part of the history of Islam in Africa.

A spokesman for Ansar Dine, asked to comment last year on the smashing of Sufi mausoleums in Timbuktu, said their actions were ordained by faith. "We are subject to religion and not to international opinion," the spokesman said.

Similar episodes have been recorded in Libya following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, when Islamists used a bulldozer to dig up Sufi graves in a cemetery in the city of Benghazi.

Most notoriously, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban blew up two giant 6th century statues of Buddha at Bamiyan in 2001, despite outcry from around the world.

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova has made appeals for the warring parties to spare "Timbuktu's outstanding earthen architectural wonders". These include the Sankore, Sidi Yahia and Djingarei-ber mosques, the last Timbuktu's oldest, built from mud bricks and wood in 1325.

The origins of Timbuktu - the name is believed to derive from the words Tin-Boctou (meaning the place or well of Boctou, a local woman) - date back to the 5th century.

The site on an old Saharan trading route that saw salt from the Arab north exchanged for gold and slaves from black Africa to the south, blossomed in a 16th century Golden Age as an Islamic seat of learning, home to priests, scribes and jurists.

A 15th century Malian proverb proclaims: "Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuctoo."

RUMOURS OF GOLD

It was rumours of gold that drove European explorers to cross the trackless sands of the Sahara to search for the legendary city, already known for centuries to local inhabitants who traversed the deserts on camelback and navigated the muddy brown waters of the Niger by canoes.

Some of these foreign explorers died of thirst in the desert or were robbed and slain by fierce Tuareg warriors, while Timbuktu's mirage-like renown - no doubt enhanced by thirst-crazed, feverish imaginations - reached glittering proportions in the consciousness of 19th century Europe.

Scottish explorer Gordon Laing was the first European to arrive in Timbuktu in 1826, but he did not live to tell the tale, perishing at the hands of desert robbers.

It was not until two years later that Frenchman Rene-Auguste Caillie became the first European to see Timbuktu and survive to recount what he saw. "I have been to Timbuktu!" he is said to have breathlessly told the French consul in Tangier after he staggered back from his epic Saharan journey.

But after all his dreams of glittering minarets and palaces filled with gold, Caillie was disappointed to find in Timbuktu what it has largely remained for centuries: a dun-coloured town in a dun-coloured desert.

"I had a totally different idea of the grandeur and wealth of Timbuctoo," he wrote. "The city presented, at first view, nothing but a mass of ill-looking houses, built of earth. Nothing was to be seen in all directions, but immense quicksands of yellowish white colour," he added.

This initial sense of disappointment for outsiders, the myth not matching reality, seems to have traversed the centuries.

Normally loquacious Irish rocker and anti-famine campaigner Bob Geldof is reported to have been somewhat underwhelmed when he arrived in Timbuktu during the 1980s. "Is that it?" he said.

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Wednesday will be the day Research In Motion Ltd. holds an official launch for its much-delayed BlackBerry 10 smartphones. RIM says that the phones will be released not long after that.

RIM previously announced delays to its upcoming BlackBerry 10 system, which the company considers crucial to its future. The delay means the phones missed the holiday shopping season and come months after the launch of a new iPhone. The delay could make it even harder for RIM to regain market share lost to Apple's iPhone and devices running Google's Android operating software.

Here's a look at developments surrounding the BlackBerry 10 in recent months:

Oct. 18, 2011: RIM unveils a new operating system, combining existing BlackBerry elements with RIM's previously announced QNX operating system for phones and tablet computers.

Dec. 6: RIM says "BlackBerry 10" will be the new name for its next-generation system after the company loses a trademark ruling on its previous name, BBX.

Dec. 15: RIM says new phones running BlackBerry 10 won't be out until late 2012, instead of early 2012 as previously expected. The company says the phones will need a highly integrated chipset that won't be available until mid-2012, so the company can now expect the new phones to ship late in the year.

May 1, 2012: RIM unveils a newly designed smartphone prototype powered by BlackBerry 10. The prototype BlackBerry has a touch screen, but no physical keyboard like most BlackBerry models. No update is given on the new system's launch date.

May 2: Company stresses that while the prototype has no physical keyboard, RIM will continue to make some models with one.

June 21: Company says the first BlackBerry device running BlackBerry 10 will not have a physical keyboard, only a touch-screen one. Ones with hard keyboards will eventually be made, but the company declines to say when.

June 28: RIM says it's delaying the launch of BlackBerry 10 yet again, to the first quarter of next year. CEO Thorsten Heins says RIM's top priority is a successful launch of the new BlackBerrys. He adds, "I will not deliver a product to the market that is not ready to meet the needs of our customers. There will be no compromise on this issue."

July 10: At its annual shareholders meeting, Heins asks disgruntled investors for patience as it develops BlackBerry 10. He says the product's quality is more important than rushing out the software, and he argues that some telecom carriers prefer a 2013 launch because next-generation wireless networks will be more widely operational by then.

Aug. 23: RIM says it has begun showing its new BlackBerry smartphones to wireless carriers around the world, but it remains "months and months" away from starting to sell them. The company says feedback from those carriers has been positive, and it will begin to discuss product launches and other business aspects with the carriers soon.

Sept. 25: Heins promises to restore the BlackBerry phone's stature as a trailblazing device even as many investors fret about its potential demise. Heins speaks at a conference for mobile applications developers to rally support for BlackBerry 10.

Oct. 31: RIM says its BlackBerry 10 smartphones are now being tested by 50 wireless carriers around the world. The company calls it a key step.

Nov. 12: RIM says it will hold an official launch event for BlackBerry 10 smartphones on Jan. 30.

Nov. 13: RIM says the phones will be released "not too long" after the launch event.

Nov. 29: RIM's stock rises after Goldman Sachs upgraded the company's shares, saying there's a "30 percent chance" that BlackBerry 10 smartphones will be a success.

Dec. 13: RIM says the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency will launch a pilot program with its smartphones using BlackBerry 10.

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