BARCELONA (Reuters) - A strange phenomenon hit Hong Kong in late 2011.

As the clock hit 10 pm each night a Coca Cola ad aired on television, prompting thousands of viewers to grab their phones and start shaking them frantically to virtually "catch" the falling bottle caps on the screen and win instant prizes.

Dubbed Chok! Chok! Chok! - meaning rapid motion in local slang - the interactive campaign by McCann Worldgroup became a hit, and sent viewers at home, in cinemas and in front of giant outdoor screens into a frenzy. (http://link.reuters.com/wux36t)

Nine million people saw the ad - 380,000 downloaded the Chok! Chok! Chok! app in the first month - and its success indicates that marketers may be finally figuring out how to direct ads at consumers via mobile phones.

"The consumer is there so we as marketers start to salivate," said Mike Parker, chief digital officer for McCann, in an interview at the Mobile World Congress. "But people are so underwhelmed by banner ads on tiny screens. We are all still searching for the best way forward."

Mobile advertising is set to grow by more than 50 percent a year over the period to hit $40 billion in 2016, according to Informa research, but the figures are still tiny compared to television ads. Global ad spend in 2012 was $500 billion.

Though advertisers are keen to harness the mobile boom, no one has perfected the art of using mobile devices to target adverts to consumers.

There remains a vast discrepancy between the amount of time consumers spend on their mobile devices and the advertising dollars companies spend there. In the U.S., mobile ads only accounted for 1 percent of marketing spend in 2011, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau, even though people spent some 10 percent of their media time looking at their phones.

Mobile has long proved almost impenetrable for a host of reasons, including the small screen, poor presentation of mobile websites and consumers' resistance to the invasion of a space seen as more private than a computer.

Even Google, which dominates online search, is still grappling with how to make money from ads on smartphones, while Facebook is trying to weave marketing messages into people's newsfeeds without offending them.

WINNING FORMULA

With many brands still wary of annoying consumers with lots of tiny ads or repetitive text messages, some like Coca Cola hit upon the idea of rewarding mobile owners with coupons, prizes or free content as a way to make a connection.

Helping them make that link is Brian Wong, chief executive of San Francisco-based kiip, a mobile app rewards network that connects brands and companies with consumers. He says his startup has found a winning formula - and that people have contacted him to say thank you for the adverts.

"The rewards are a pleasant surprise for the user. It's like a gift that comes out of the blue," Wong said.

In one campaign run via kiip by Pepsi, a person logging their morning 5 kilometer jog on a fitness app like MapMyRun sees a grey band pop up on the top of their smartphone screen. If they click on it, a window appears: "What a workout! Refresh yourself with a bottle of Propel Zero" and they are emailed a coupon for the fitness drink to redeem at a local store.

Targeting such "moments of achievement", such as when a gamer passes a level or a cyclist beats his personal best, allows marketers to target people at opportune moments in ways that are relevant to them, Wong says.

Kiip only gets paid if the customer redeems the reward and as a result brands are willing to pay more for a system based on results. Although Wong won't say how much kiip charges, it is likely more than the average price for mobile ads, which in turn are cheaper than ads on PCs. A perception that banner ads on small screens are not very effective and the glut of available space has kept prices capped at around $1 per thousand views.

LOCATION TARGETING

For mobile ads to become more effective - and lucrative - marketers have to get more creative at tapping mobile's advantages, such as the direct link to a person all day and the location data.

The industry is also working on coming up with better metrics to measure effectiveness of mobile ads, which could one day boost their value.

One way to improve the effectiveness of mobile marketing is to link up a person's web browsing history on computers with their smartphone. Mark Strecker, the chief operating officer of mobile advertising technology company Amobee, said companies were in the early stages of such work.

For example, when a shopper walks into a retailer like the Gap, their phone would know they had earlier looked at jeans on the store's website from their home computer and send them details about availability of their size.

The additional information about users also means agencies now make fewer mistakes.

"If we see, from the location, that someone has gone to a car showroom then we could send them car ads," said Dani Cushion, executive at mobile ad platform Millennial Media.

"But if we see they go to the showroom every day, then they probably just work there."

(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Sophie Walker)

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NEW YORK (AP) The Tribeca Film Festival will open with a documentary about the National, along with a performance by the Brooklyn band.

The festival announced Thursday that "Mistaken for Strangers," which documents the National on tour, will premiere April 17. The film is directed by Tom Berninger, brother to lead to singer Matt Berninger.

Tribeca's Chief Creative Officer Geoff Gilmore called the film "a highly personal and lighthearted story about brotherly love."

The band will perform following the film's premiere. In 2011, Tribeca also paired a movie and concert with Elton John performing after Cameron Crowe's music documentary "The Union."

The Tribeca Film Festival runs April 17 through April 28. It will next week announce the feature film slate for its 12th annual festival.

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LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. singer Anastacia has been diagnosed with breast cancer having successfully battled the disease in 2003, she said in a statement posted on her Facebook page.

The 44-year-old, who had major success outside the United States with hits like the 2000 dance favorite "I'm Outta Love", has been forced to cancel plans to tour Europe starting in London on April 6.

"I feel so awful to be letting down all my amazing fans who were looking forward to 'It's A Man's World Tour'," she said in a statement. "It just breaks my heart to disappoint them," she said.

She added that she will continue writing and recording her new album and hopes to schedule a new tour as soon as possible.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) For a time in Cold War America, Van Cliburn had all the trappings of a rock star: sold-out concerts, adoring, out-of-control fans and a name recognized worldwide. He even got a ticker-tape parade in New York City.

And he did it all with only a piano and some Tchaikovsky concertos.

The celebrated pianist played for every American president since Harry Truman, plus royalty and heads of state around the world. But he is best remembered for winning a 1958 piano competition in Moscow that helped thaw the icy rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Cliburn, who died Wednesday at 78 after fighting bone cancer, was "a great humanitarian and a brilliant musician whose light will continue to shine through his extraordinary legacy," said his publicist and longtime friend Mary Lou Falcone. "He will be missed by all who knew and admired him, and by countless people he never met."

The young man from the small east Texas town of Kilgore was a baby-faced 23-year-old when he won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow just six months after the Soviets' launch of Sputnik embarrassed the U.S. and inaugurated the space race.

Cliburn returned to a hero's welcome and the ticker-tape parade the first ever for a classical musician. A Time magazine cover proclaimed him "The Texan Who Conquered Russia."

The win also showed the power of the arts, creating unity despite the tension between the superpowers. Music-loving Soviets clamored to see him perform. Premier Nikita Khrushchev reportedly gave the go-ahead for the judges to honor a foreigner: "Is Cliburn the best? Then give him first prize."

In the years that followed, Cliburn's popularity soared. He sold out concerts and caused riots when he was spotted in public. His fame even prompted an Elvis Presley fan club to change its name to his. His recording of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with Russian conductor Kirill Kondrashin became the first classical album to reach platinum status.

Time magazine's 1958 cover story quoted a friend as saying Cliburn could become "the first man in history to be a Horowitz, Liberace and Presley all rolled into one."

Russian pianist Denis Matsuev, who won the Tchaikovsky competition in 1998 at the age of 23, the same age as Cliburn, said Cliburn's "romantic style captured the hearts of Soviet audience."

"Everyone was in love with him," Matsuev said. "And he loved the Soviet Union, Russia and the Russian public."

Matsuev, who knew Cliburn personally, described him as an "incredibly delicate, kind and gentle man who dedicated his entire life to art."

He also used his skill and fame to help other young musicians through the Van Cliburn International Music Competition, held every four years. Created in 1962 by a group of Fort Worth teachers and citizens, it remains among the top showcases for the world's best pianists.

"Since we know that classical music is timeless and everlasting, it is precisely the eternal verities inherent in classical music that remain a spiritual beacon for people all over the world," Cliburn once said.

President George W. Bush presented Cliburn with the Presidential Medal of Freedom the nation's highest civilian honor in 2003. The following year, he received the Order of Friendship of the Russian Federation from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"I still have lots of friends in Russia," Cliburn said at the time. "It's always a great pleasure to talk to older people in Russia, to hear their anecdotes."

After the death of his father in 1974, Cliburn announced he would soon retire to spend more time with his ailing mother. He stopped touring in 1978.

Among other things, touring robbed him of the chance to enjoy opera and other musical performances.

"I said to myself, 'Life is too short.' I was missing so much," he told The New York Times in 2008. After winning the competition, "it was thrilling to be wanted. But it was pressure, too."

Cliburn emerged from his sabbatical in 1987, when he played at a state dinner at the White House during the historic visit of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev leapt from his seat to give the pianist a bear-hug and kisses on the cheeks. Nancy Reagan, then the first lady, has called that night one of the greatest moments of her husband's presidency.

"After not playing in public for many years, he agreed to make an exception for this occasion, and his beautiful music brought the whole room to tears," Reagan said in a statement Wednesday, adding that "the world has lost a true treasure."

Cliburn was born Harvey Lavan Cliburn Jr. on July 12, 1934, in Shreveport, La., the son of oilman Harvey Cliburn Sr. and Rildia Bee O'Bryan Cliburn. At age 3, he began studying piano with his mother, herself an accomplished pianist who had studied with a pupil of the great 19th century Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt.

The family moved back to Kilgore within a few years of his birth.

Cliburn won his first Texas competition when he was 12, and two years later he played in Carnegie Hall as the winner of the National Music Festival Award.

At 17, Cliburn attended the Juilliard School in New York, where fellow students marveled at his marathon practice sessions that stretched until 3 a.m. He studied under the famed Russian-born pianist Rosina Lhevinne.

Between 1952 and 1958, he won all but one competition he entered, including the G.B. Dealey Award from the Dallas Symphony, the Kosciusko Foundation Chopin Scholarship and the prestigious Leventritt. By age 20, he had played with the New York Philharmonic and the symphonies of most major cities.

Cliburn's career seemed ready to take off until his name came up for the draft. He had to cancel all shows but was eventually excused from duty due to chronic nosebleeds.

Over the next few years, Cliburn's international popularity continued as he recorded pieces ranging from Mozart to a concerto by American Edward McDowell. Still, having been trained by some of the best Russian teachers in the world, Cliburn's heart was Russian, with the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff concertos.

After 1990, Cliburn toured Japan numerous times and performed throughout the United States. He was in the midst of a 16-city U.S. tour in 1994 when his mother died at age 97.

Cliburn, who made his home in Fort Worth, endowed scholarships at many schools, including Juilliard, which gave him an honorary doctorate, and the Moscow and Leningrad conservatories. In December 2001, he was presented with the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors Medallion at the televised tribute held in Washington.

He practiced daily and performed limited engagements until only recently. His last public appearance came in September at the 50th anniversary of the prestigious piano competition bearing his name.

Speaking to the audience in Fort Worth, he saluted the many past contestants, the orchestra and the city: "Never forget: I love you all from the bottom of my heart, forever." The audience responded with a roaring standing ovation.

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Associated Press writer Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

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Online:

Van Cliburn Foundation: http://www.cliburn.org

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Lindsay Lohan is committed to turning her life around and wants to record public service announcements on the dangers of domestic violence, alcohol abuse and drunken driving, her attorney said Wednesday.

Mark Heller told The Associated Press that the actress' plans are independent of a criminal case that could return her to jail on charges that she lied to police about being a passenger in her car when it slammed into a dump truck in June.

The "Liz & Dick" star has been repeatedly sentenced to jail, rehab, and community service since her first pair of arrests for driving under the influence in 2007. She spent several months in court-ordered psychotherapy until a judge released her from supervised probation in March 2012.

As part of the intense psychotherapy sessions, Lohan is in the beginning stages of trying to become an inspirational speaker to young people, he said.

"I think she suddenly woke up one morning and had an epiphany and she suddenly realized and appreciated the seriousness of the events that led to her being in court," Heller said.

"She's going to try to inspire hope in people," he said. "I think it will be good for her. It certainly won't hurt others."

Heller mentioned Lohan's intent to become an inspirational speaker in a letter to prosecutors and a judge that was obtained Tuesday. He said he will meet with prosecutors on Friday to try to reach a resolution in Lohan's newest case, which includes misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and obstructing officers from performing their duties.

She has pleaded not guilty. Lohan, 26, was on probation at the time of the crash and faces up to 245 days in jail if a judge determines her conduct violated her probation in a 2011 necklace theft case.

Officers suspected alcohol might have been involved in the June accident on Pacific Coast Highway, but the actress passed sobriety tests at a hospital and she was never charged with driving under the influence.

Santa Monica police Sgt. Richard Lewis said officers did not give Lohan a field sobriety test at the accident scene because she and her assistant were injured in the crash and were taken to a nearby hospital. While officers could not rule out that Lohan might have been drinking, he noted that she did not show signs of impairment.

Celebrity web site TMZ, citing anonymous sources, reported Wednesday that a bottle of alcohol was found next to Lohan's sports car after the crash. Lewis said he could not discuss evidence in the case, but noted that the actress was not charged with drunken driving.

Heller wrote in a motion filed last week that officers found a bottle that they initially thought was urine, but might have contained wine. His filing, which seeks a delay or dismissal of charges against the actress, states that "upon information and belief" the bottle's contents were never tested.

Lohan's case returns to court on Friday, although the actress is not required to attend.

Heller is asking a judge to dismiss the case against Lohan because officers ignored the actress' request to talk to her attorney before being interviewed, court records show. He said he is prepared to defend Lohan at trial if necessary, but is hoping a deal can be worked out. He is seeking a delay in the case to have time to prepare and allow Lohan to demonstrate she is improving her life.

Threats from judges and jail sentences that are invariably cut short because of overcrowding haven't helped Lohan, Heller said. "None of it really brought closure to this predicament that led to this most recent event."

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

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WASHINGTON (AP) Four major universities are joining theater companies in Boston, Baltimore, Washington and Atlanta in a project to commission new plays, music and dance compositions about the Civil War and its lasting legacy 150 years later.

The National Civil War Project is being announced Thursday in Washington and will involve programming over the next two years to mark the 150th anniversary of the war between the North and the South. Beyond commissioning new works, organizers plan for university faculty to integrate the arts into their academic programs on campus.

Under the program, Harvard University will partner with the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass.; the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center will join CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore; George Washington University is working with Arena Stage in Washington, and Atlanta's Alliance Theatre will join Emory University.

Each collaboration will evoke unique perspectives on the Civil War in each region.

At Harvard, a new piece called "The Boston Abolitionists" about the abolitionist movement and the trial of a fugitive slave will be performed in May. Separately, Matthew Aucoin, an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, is using Walt Whitman's poetry about being a medic to develop a new opera.

In Atlanta, Alliance Theatre and Emory will develop a new theatrical production of U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey's Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Native Guard," with a workshop planned for 2014. It recounts the story of a black Civil War regiment assigned to guard white Confederate soldiers on Ship Island off Mississippi's Gulf Coast.

Arena Stage Artistic Director Molly Smith, who helped guide the project, said this is a chance to reevaluate the Civil War and consider the issues that still resonate in American life.

"This is an anniversary of what is arguably one of the most important times in American history," she said. "And the same questions behind state rights and civil rights continue to infuse who we are as a country."

In September, the University of Maryland will host a national conference on civil rights and health disparities among minority populations to mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

Choreographer Liz Lerman, a 2002 MacArthur Foundation "genius" fellow, helped in developing the partnerships between theaters and universities during a semester spent at Harvard. She said artists can help professors animate their scholarship as more traditional lectures move online, and the Civil War is a good subject to connect art and academics.

"It's something about the fact that we're still trying to understand it," Lerman said. "There are enough civil wars still going on in the world, I myself am trying to understand what it must be like."

Lerman is developing a new dance theater piece in Washington called "Healing Wars" to explore the role of women and innovations in healing for amputees from the Civil War through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Characters will migrate between past and present. The piece will feature actor Bill Pullman and eight dancers.

Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust, a Civil War historian, has been leading the university to integrate the arts with academic pursuits, through theater, exhibits or other art forms.

"Engaging students through art and art-making is one of the ways in which universities prepare young women and men for life in a world that is far better connected and far more complex than at any other point in human history," she wrote in an email about the Civil War project.

At this anniversary of the war, she said it's important to remember how the values of freedom and equality were defined in President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address as the war's purpose.

George Washington University President Steven Knapp said the Civil War transformed American history, culture and industry even the concept of American democracy by redefining equality. Tackling such a subject between academia and theater could provide a new model for learning, he said.

"It's an experiment," Knapp said, "to see how far we can go in bringing together the strengths of the university and the strengths of the theater company."

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

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Managers for U.S. pop singer Anastacia say she has canceled a planned performance in Dubai and an upcoming European tour after being diagnosed with breast cancer a decade after her first battle with the disease.

A statement Thursday says the 44-year-old performer will cancel all appearances and travel until further notice.

Anastascia, who has had multi-platinum album sales in Europe, Australia and elsewhere, was scheduled to perform March 30 at the Dubai World Cup, the world's richest horse race.

Her European tour was set to begin in London on April 6.

She successfully battled breast cancer in 2003.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Kristen Kish made winning the "Top Chef: Seattle" finale look easy.

In reality, preparing her five-course meal on the fly as the Bravo cooking competition's judges and a crowd of diners spectated from the sidelines was a non-stop endeavor requiring several hours of preparation and some phony silverware.

The 28-year-old chef de cuisine at Boston restaurant Stir was crowned champion of the 10th season Wednesday and took home the $125,000 grand prize after facing off against Brooke Williamson, the 34-year-old co-executive chef of Los Angeles restaurants Hudson House and The Tripel.

Kish's winning menu consisted of chicken liver mousse, citrus and lavender cured scallop, bone marrow and red snapper with leeks, Little Gem lettuce, tarragon, uni and shellfish nage.

"At the end of the day, my cooking is not super complicated," Kish said after winning. "My goal for this menu was just to do simple, good, elegant food with precision and excellence, taking simple things like chicken liver mousse, bone marrow or a piece of fish and executing them well."

Here's a taste from behind the scenes of Kish's win at the "Top Chef" finale filmed earlier this month:

Kish and Williamson's finale battle played out in less than an hour on TV, but it actually lasted more like eight hours. The chef'testants each had a set amount of time to prepare each course, and an audio snafu delayed production by an hour. However, the clock and the cooking never stopped during the ongoing "Iron Chef"-like showdown. Even when Kish and Williamson faced critiques from the judges, their sous chefs were behind them readying the next courses.

The portions for diners were much smaller than those the judges devoured, and most of the crowd wasn't able to taste both finalists' dishes. Also, despite the presence of each winner from the previous nine seasons, they didn't have a say on who would join their ranks. ("That was more intimidating than anything," Kish later said. "It was kind of comforting because they knew what we were going through, but it was very intimidating because they can be some of the harshest critics.")

While the massive kitchen stadium erected inside a Van Nuys soundstage was impressive, the dining experience itself was more like a picnic. That's mostly because eaters had to taste the finalists' dishes with plastic flatware. "Top Chef" executive producer Dave Serwatka said they often use silver-toned plasticware instead of the real thing during filming because it doesn't make clanging and scratching noises that can be picked up by microphones.

Kish was selected as the winner before the final course, but she still managed to serve her dessert: a lemony olive oil cake.

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Online:

http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/

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

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A non-profit foundation wants to recruit a man and a woman - possibly a married couple - for a bare-bones, 501-day journey to Mars and back that would start in less than five years, project organizers said on Wednesday.

The mission, expected to cost upwards of $1 billion (659.4 million pounds), would be privately financed by donations and sponsorships.

Project founder Dennis Tito, a multimillionaire who in 2001 paid $20 million for a trip to the International Space Station, said he will pay start-up costs for two years to begin development of life-support systems and other critical technologies.

Currently, there are no U.S. human spaceships in operation, but several are under development and expected to be flying by 2017.

That leaves little time to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment that would allow a craft to loop around Mars, coming as close as about 150 miles (241 kilometres) to the planet's surface, before returning to Earth.

The launch window for the mission opens on January 5, 2018. The next opportunity is not until 2031.

"If we don't make 2018, we're going to have some competition in 2031," Tito told Reuters.

"By that time, there will be many others that will be reaching for this low-hanging fruit, and it really is low-hanging fruit," said Tito, who set up the non-profit Inspiration Mars Foundation to organize the mission.

Project chief technical officer Taber MacCallum said U.S. industry is up for the challenge.

"That's the kind of bold thing we used to be able to do," said MacCallum, who also oversees privately owned Paragon Space Development Corp.

"We've shirked away from risk. I think just seriously contemplating this mission recalibrates what we believe is a risk worth taking for America," he said.

TIGHT QUARTERS

The spacecraft will be bare-bones, with about 600 cubic feet (17 cubic meters) of living space available for a two-person crew. Mission planners would like to fly a man and a woman, preferably a married couple who would be compatible during a long period of isolation.

The capsule would be outfitted with a life-support system similar to the one NASA uses on the space station, which recycles air, water, urine and perspiration.

"This is going to be a very austere mission. You don't necessarily have to follow all of NASA's guidelines for air quality and water quality. This is going to be a Lewis and Clark trip to Mars," MacCallum said, referring to the explorers who set out across the uncharted American Northwest in 1803.

If launch occurs on January 5, 2018, the capsule would reach Mars 228 days later, loop around its far side and slingshot back toward Earth.

The return trip takes 273 days and ends with an unprecedented 31,764-mph (51,119-kph) slam into Earth's atmosphere.

Once the spaceship is on its way, there is no turning back.

"If something goes wrong, they're not coming back," MacCallum said.

The crew would spend much of their time maintaining their habitat, conducting science experiments and keeping in touch with people on Earth.

Tito said he expects the cost to be similar to a robotic mission to Mars. NASA's ongoing Curiosity rover mission cost $2.5 billion. A follow-on mission scheduled to launch in 2020 is expected to run $1.5 billion.

"You're really flying this mission without a propulsion system on the spacecraft. It's in the most simple form," Tito said.

NASA is working on its own heavy-lift rocket and Orion space capsule that could carry crews of four to an asteroid and eventually to Mars.

"We can just barely, every 15 years, fly by Mars with the systems we have right now," MacCallum said. "We're trying to be a stepping-stone."

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Xavier Briand)

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comic actor Andy Samberg and musician Joanna Newsom are engaged to be married, a representative of Samberg said on Monday.

"I can confirm that Andy Samberg and Joanna Newsom are engaged," Samberg's publicist, Carrie Byalick, said in an email.

The former "Saturday Night Live" comedian and the harpist have kept a low public profile since they began dating five years ago.

Newsom, 31, was spotted on Saturday with a diamond ring on her left ring finger at the Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, California.

A wedding date has not been announced.

Samberg, 34, rose to prominence with his parody music videos for "SNL," including "I'm on a Boat" with rapper T-Pain and "Motherlover" with Justin Timberlake, that drew a strong Internet following.

Samberg left the NBC late-night sketch comedy show in 2012 after seven years.

He starred in comedies "That's My Boy" and "Celeste and Jesse Forever" last year and is currently on the British television comedy series "Cuckoo."

Newsom, acclaimed for her idiosyncratic and baroque folk music, has released three albums, most recently "Have One On Me" in 2010.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Andrew Hay)

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Emmy-winning actress Christina Applegate quietly married rock musician Martyn LeNoble at a wedding in Los Angeles, a representative of the "Anchorman" star said on Monday.

Applegate, 41, and LeNoble, 43, exchanged vows on Sunday while the entertainment world was trained on the Academy Awards, the film industry's biggest night.

The couple was "surrounded by family in a private ceremony at their home in Los Angeles," Applegate's spokeswoman said in a statement.

The couple, who have been together since 2008, engaged in 2010 and have a 2-year-old daughter, Sadie.

It is the second marriage for both.

Applegate was most recently on the television comedy "Up All Night." She announced she was leaving the NBC series in February over the show's creative direction.

Dutch LeNoble, a bassist, was a founding member of 1990s alternative rock group Porno for Pyros.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Eric Walsh)

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Singer Janet Jackson said on Monday that she married her Qatari businessman boyfriend last year, quashing media reports of upcoming nuptials.

Jackson, 46, the younger sister of the late singer Michael Jackson, was engaged to billionaire Wissam Al Mana, 37, last year but kept the news under wraps.

"The rumors regarding an extravagant wedding are simply not true. Last year we were married in a quiet, private, and beautiful ceremony," Jackson and Al Mana said in a statement to Entertainment Tonight.

"Our wedding gifts to one another were contributions to our respective favorite children's charities."

The American singer is known for keeping her private life from the media, rarely speaking out about her ex-husbands.

She married soul singer James DeBarge in 1984, and the marriage was annulled a year later. Her 1991 marriage to music video director Rene Elizondo ended in divorce in 2000.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Mohammad Zargham)

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NEW YORK (AP) Novelist Toni Morrison, speaking Wednesday to dozens of Google employees holding laptops and smartphones, shared her vision for how she would turn the search engine leader into a literary character.

"It's like a big, metal, claw-y machine in 'Transformers,'" she said, to much laughter, during a lunchtime gathering at Google's Manhattan offices. "When they're threatened, they turn into a little radio, they turn into a little car. And then after you pass them by they come up again.

"They can be anything and everything."

The 82-year-old Nobel laureate was the latest, and most literary in memory, of a long line of famous guests from Stephen Colbert to Lady Gaga who since 2005 have dropped in on Google Inc. in New York and the home offices in Mountain View, Calif. After her talk, she stayed on to take questions online, part of Google's "Hangout" series.

Morrison, battling the flu and sniffling through much of the afternoon, was promoting the paperback edition of her novel "Home," published last year. But she also chatted about technology, teaching and creativity.

Most of the attendees were young enough to be her grandchildren, and she clearly enjoyed startling them with candid talk about what she likes in literature (please don't bore her with stories about dating) and about how to use sex in fiction. The first lesson: Forget "boobs and butts."

"When you write about physical attraction, someone falling in love, or making love, it's just so relentlessly boring," she said.

"So why don't you do something different? When I wrote 'Beloved' I had these guys watching Sethe (the main character) in a cornfield making love to this guy. You can't see her, they can see the tops of the corn, and then the language goes on. ... It's all about corn. And I had a guy say I'll never see corn the same way."

Unlike Philip Roth, who announced recently he was done with fiction, Morrison has no plan to quit. She is working on a new novel but acknowledges she's having a hard time. The problem isn't the narrative itself but the time in which she's set the story the present, an era she's still trying to understand.

Morrison, an early endorser of Amazon.com's Kindle reading device and the author of prize winners including "Song of Solomon," said she's not a Luddite and does keep up with the Internet, enough so that she much prefers the nonfiction she reads on blogs to fiction. And she credited the Internet as an information resource.

"It shortens research enormously, months of time you would normally spend in libraries, just trying to read books," she said.

She cited an example from her most recent novel, set in the 1950s.

"I was looking for documentation for who could not rent or buy property in Seattle," she said. "And I knew black people couldn't, but I didn't have any real examples. But via Google I went through stuff and found these lease arrangements."

But the digital age can still catch her off guard. When on-stage interviewer Torrence Boone, a Google managing director, casually mentioned that their discussion would be replayed on the Internet, Morrison sounded as if caught in the act.

"You heard me say all that stuff about corn and stuff?" she asked.

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CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) Apple CEO Tim Cook sought to reassure shareholders worried about the company's sagging stock price that the iPhone and iPad maker is on the verge of inventing more breakthrough products that will prove it hasn't lost its creative edge.

"The company is working as hard as ever, and we have some great stuff coming," Cook told shareholders Wednesday before taking their questions during Apple's annual meeting at its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters.

True to Apple's secretive nature, Cook didn't provide any further product details, although at one point he said the company is considering entering other categories besides its popular line of digital music players, smartphones and tablet computers.

There has been speculation that Apple is working on an Internet-connected watch or TV that will be introduced later this year. One shareholder at Wednesday's meeting threw a new idea for Apple to ponder a computerized bicycle. Cook, an avid bicyclist, chuckled at the suggestion, along with the rest of the audience.

Although there were more moments of levity, Wednesday's meeting was less celebratory than the events in past years, when Apple's stock price was soaring to the delight and enrichment of its shareholders.

Since hitting an all-time high of $705.07 five months ago, Apple's stock has plunged by 37 percent. The decline has wiped out collective shareholder wealth totaling $240 billion. That amount exceeds the total market value of Microsoft Corp., which reigned as the most influential company in personal computing until Apple ushered in an era of mobile devices with the 2007 release of the iPhone and the 2010 introduction of the iPad.

Cook, who became CEO shortly before Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died in October 2011, has a huge incentive to get the company's stock price strong again. The 1.1 million Apple shares he owns are worth about $300 million less than they were five months ago.

"I don't like it, either," Cook said of the downturn in Apple's stock.

Apple Inc. hasn't unveiled another trailblazing product since Cook took over, raising concerns about whether the company is losing the ingenuity that has set it apart from the rest of the technology pack.

Cook told shareholders the company's commitment to innovation remains Apple's "North Star" and "the beat of its heart."

His pep talk evidently didn't inspire many investors. Apple's stock shed another $4.40 to close Wednesday at $444.57.

Shareholders still affirmed their confidence in Cook at the meeting. Preliminary results showed Cook was re-elected to Apple's eight-member board of directors with 99 percent of the vote.

Wall Street may have been disappointed that Cook didn't provide any further clarity on whether Apple might distribute some of its $137 billion in cash to shareholders in the form of a dividend increase or a special one-time payment.

Apple shareholder David Einhorn, who runs the Greenlight Capital hedge fund, turned Apple's cash hoard into a hot topic in the weeks leading up the meeting. He sued to block a proposal that would have required shareholder approval for Apple to issue preferred stock. Einhorn argued that if approved, it would create a bureaucratic hurdle that could make it more cumbersome to return cash to shareholders. He wants Apple to issue preferred shares called "iPrefs" that would yield an annual dividend of 4 percent.

A potential showdown was averted last week when a federal judge ruled that Apple had improperly bundled several corporate governance issues, including the handling of preferred stock, in the same proposal. Apple withdrew the proposal from Wednesday's agenda, to the chagrin of two shareholders who said they would have voted for it. Supporters of the measure included the California Public Employee Retirement System, or CalPERS, which urged Cook to do what's best for Apple's long-term interests.

"I would say the message is, 'Keep calm and carry on,'" said Anne Simpson, who oversees corporate governance for CalPERS.

Einhorn, whose fund owns 1.3 million Apple shares, didn't appear at Wednesday's meeting.

In response to a question Wednesday, Cook said Einhorn's resistance to a shareholder vote on preferred stock remains "a silly sideshow, regardless of how a judge ruled on it." Cook remarks echoed the derisive description he used during an appearance at an investor conference earlier this month.

Cook also sounded a familiar refrain when he discussed Apple's pile of cash. "This is a serious subject, and one we deliberate on as a board and a management team. We are in very, very active discussions on it," Cook said.

Not long after Cook made similar remarks at last year's annual meeting, Apple announced plans to start paying a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share and to spend $10 billion buying back its stock in the fiscal year that began last October. Even though the dividend commitment costs Apple $10 billion annually, the company now has $39 billion more cash than it did year ago.

The prosperity underscores the ongoing popularity of Apple's products.

Although Apple is selling more gadgets than ever before, the company's profits and sales aren't growing as robustly because of fiercer competition from a multitude of other smartphones and tablet computers, including ones costing less. Apple's biggest headaches have been caused by Android, a mobile operating system that Internet search leader Google Inc. gives away to a long list of device makers led by Samsung Electronics Co.

There are now an estimated 600 million devices running on Android, giving it a lead over Apple.

Cook said Apple remains more interested in the quality of its products than the quantity sold.

"We want to make the best," Cook said. "That's why we are here."

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NEW YORK (AP) Singer Scott Weiland said he learned that he'd been fired by the Stone Temple Pilots when the band released a one-sentence statement to the media Wednesday.

"I learned of my supposed 'termination' from Stone Temple Pilots this morning by reading about it in the press," he wrote in a statement. "Not sure how I can be 'terminated' from a band that I founded, fronted and co-wrote many of its biggest hits, but that's something for the lawyers to figure out."

The statement by the band said: "Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland." No other information was provided.

Weiland said he's focusing on his solo tour, which kicks off Friday in Flint, Mich.

Stone Temple Pilots' 1992 debut, "Core," has sold more than 8 million units in the United States. Their hits include "Vasoline," ''Interstate Love Song" and "Plush," which won a Grammy in 1993 for best hard rock performance with vocal.

Weiland was also in the supergroup Velvet Revolver with Slash and other musicians. The 45-year-old has dealt with drug addiction, run-ins with the law and two failed marriages. He released his memoir, "Not Dead & Not for Sale," in 2011.

The Stone Temple Pilots' latest album is their self-titled 2010 release.

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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Almost Famous" star Patrick Fugit has signed on for the ABC drama pilot "Reckless."

Fugit will play the lead role of David, whose wife is imprisoned during a political uprising overseas. When the U.S. government stymies his efforts to secure her release in the name of diplomacy, David pursues less-than-legal solutions, crafting an elaborate scheme to topple a brutal dictator.

The pilot, inspired by real events, is being written by Chris Black and executive-produced by Martin Campbell for ABC Studios.

In addition to the Fugit casting, child "Bless Me, Ultima" actor Luke Ganalon has been cast in ABC's untitled John Leguizamo comedy pilot.

Co-created by and starring Leguizamo, the pilot is based on the actor's life as a husband and father who feels like a fish out of water on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Balancing his life of privilege with friends from back home in the Bronx and relatives trying to keep Leguizamo grounded to his Latin roots, he also worries that his kids are becoming spoiled.

Ganalon will play Toby in the pilot, which is being executive produced by David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Jeff Goldenberg.

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SEOUL (Reuters) - Former NBA star Dennis Rodman appears to have mixed up his Koreas on a visit to Pyongyang, tweeting that he expected to run into South Korean rapper Psy on his trip to the North.

Rodman, famed for his tattoos, piercings and radical hair colours from his time on court, arrived in North Korea on Tuesday to shoot some hoops and a documentary to be aired on HBO in April.

"Maybe I'll run into the Gangnam Style dude while I'm here," the 51-year old tweeted (@dennisrodman) after his arrival.

Psy, a 35-year old roly-poly rapper, shot to global fame with his Gangnam Style song last year, garnering more than a billion YouTube hits for his portrayal of the ritzy and shallow Gangnam enclave in the southern part of the South Korean capital of Seoul.

While Pyongyang is by far the richest part of North Korea, Rodman is unlikely to see the kind of wealth and designer chic on display in Gangnam.

The North's economy is 1/40th the size of South Korea's, according to most independent estimates, and is smaller than it was 20 years ago according to the United Nations.

The only bling that Rodman may encounter in North Korea appears to come from third generation of the country's ruling family.

Jowly 30-year old dictator Kim Jong-un has a penchant for Disney shows and fun-fairs, while his young wife - rumoured to have given birth recently - has been seen sporting a Dior bag.

Many North Koreans struggle to put adequate amounts of food on the table each day and recent reports suggested there had been a famine in the country's food-basket area in 2012.

(Reporting by David Chance, editing by Elaine Lies)

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NEW YORK (AP) The desire to produce a quick documentary on Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius (pihs-TOHR'-ee-uhs) and the shooting death of his live-in girlfriend has led to a new partnership between two television networks.

The Investigation Discovery Network on Sunday will premiere a special, "Beauty & The Blade Runner," about the South African athlete and his role in the shooting death of model Reeva Steenkamp. ID is making the special with the help of NBC News and that company's Peacock Productions.

ID even coined a new phrase to describe the quick specials, calling them instamentaries.

People close to both Pistorius and Steenkamp talk on the special, which examines evidence in the case.

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NUTLEY, N.J. (AP) A New Jersey woman widely known as "the tanning mom" is celebrating a grand jury's refusal to indict her on a charge she unlawfully let her 5-year-old daughter into a tanning booth.

Patricia Krentcil addressed reporters outside her Nutley home Tuesday night by yelling: "cha-ching!" Prosecutors announced earlier in the day she no longer faced a child endangerment charge.

She says her life has been "a living hell" and she plans to move to London for a year to decompress while her husband and kids stay in New Jersey.

Krentcil became a tabloid sensation because of her own deep tan and professed love of tanning. She says "tanning is not a crime" and she'll keep at it.

Asked what she learned from the whole episode, she replied, "People suck."

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(Reuters) - American pianist Van Cliburn, who awed Russian audiences with his exquisite Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff concertos and won fame and fortune back home, died on Wednesday at the age of 78.

Cliburn passed away at his home in Fort Worth, Texas, after suffering from advanced bone cancer, his publicist Mary Lou Falcone told Reuters. Cliburn announced in August 2012 that he had been diagnosed with the disease.

The lanky, blue-eyed Texan, who began taking piano lessons at the age of 3 and later trained at New York's prestigious Juilliard School, burst onto the world stage at the height of the Cold War and was the surprise winner of the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958.

His performance at the finale led to an eight-minute standing ovation, and the Russian judges asked Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev for permission to give the top prize to the 23-year-old American.

Cliburn's triumph helped spur a brief thaw in U.S.-Soviet relations and made him an overnight sensation in the United States, where his name was known even among those who did not follow classical music.

"It was he that was the symbol of peace for the Cold War," Falcone said. "He was embraced by both Eisenhower and Khrushchev in the 1950s and the only musician to have a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan."

Time magazine dubbed him "The Texan Who Conquered Russia" in a cover story following his victory, and New York City gave the pianist a hero's welcome upon his return from Russia.

Taken on by the powerful impresario Sol Hurok, Cliburn was able to command high fees and practically had carte blanche in the recording studio.

His recording of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, which he had played in Moscow, became the first classical album to go platinum and was the best-selling classical album for more than a decade.

Fans adored him for his innocence and charm more than for his music-making. In Philadelphia, a shrieking crowd tore the door handles off his limousine. In Chicago, the Elvis Presley fan club changed its name to the Van Cliburn fan club.

"He was an international legend," Falcone said. "Personally, he was a giant and publicly he was a giant."

But in 1978, Cliburn walked off the stage, professionally exhausted. He played occasionally in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including a performance in the White House for President Ronald Reagan and visiting Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.

TAUGHT PIANO BY HIS MOTHER

Critics said the publicity-fueled demand and the public's taste had kept him from growing beyond a relatively narrow collection of romantic pieces, such as his signature Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff concertos.

"Despite his fame, the Texas-sized pianist has been widely regarded among serious musicians as an immensely gifted but rather unreflective artist of unfulfilled and probably unfulfillable potential," a New York Times critic wrote after Cliburn's retirement.

Born on July 12, 1934, in Shreveport, Louisiana, Harvey Lavan Cliburn Jr. was taught piano by his mother. He gave his first public recital at 4. By age 5, even though he could not read or write, he was completely literate in music.

He won several local and regional awards and in 1951 began studies at Juilliard under Rosina Lhevinne. She schooled him in the traditions of the great Russian romantic composers, setting the stage for Cliburn's victory in Moscow seven years later.

"My relationship with the Russians was personal, not political," he said in a 1989 interview. He played in Moscow and St. Petersburg when he briefly returned to the concert stage years later.

Cliburn, a lifelong Baptist who did not smoke or drink, became a prominent and popular figure in the Fort Worth, Texas, area and was well known for his generosity, contributing vast sums to the Broadway Baptist Church and other causes.

He lived on what friends called "Van Cliburn time." He rose in the early evening, would dine at midnight and preside over after-dinner conversations at 4 a.m. Usually heading the dinner table was his mother, Rildia Bee, who lived with him until her death at 97.

In 1996, Cliburn was named in a palimony lawsuit by Thomas Zaremba, who claimed a portion of Cliburn's income and assets and accused Cliburn of possibly exposing him to the AIDS virus during a 17-year relationship. The lawsuit eventually was dismissed.

Cliburn also supported the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, a private and nonprofit-based enterprise that offers winners cash prizes, a Carnegie Hall debut and two years of touring arranged and promoted by the competition.

He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in 2003 and was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama in 2011.

Cliburn is survived by his long-standing friend, Thomas L. Smith.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey and Paul Simao; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Alden Bentley, Gary Hill)

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CUPERTINO, California (Reuters) - Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook acknowledged on Wednesday that his shareholders were disappointed with a five-month slide of more than 30 percent in the company's share price, but urged a focus on the longer term.

The world's most valuable technology corporation headed into its annual meeting at its Cupertino headquarters on shakier ground than it has been accustomed to in years, since the iPhone and iPad helped elevate the company to premier investment status.

Its southward-heading share price has lent weight to Wall Street's demand that it share more of its $137 billion cash and securities pile, a debate now spearheaded by outspoken hedge fund manager David Einhorn.

Einhorn was not spotted at the meeting on Wednesday. Cook repeated that the company's board remained in "very very active" discussions about options for cash sharing.

"I don't like it either. The board doesn't like it. The management team doesn't like it," Cook told investors at the company's headquarters on 1 Infinite Loop.

But by focusing on the long term, revenue and profit will follow, he said.

Cook added that the company was working on new product categories, but, as usual, would not elaborate.

Speculation is rife on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley that the iPhone maker is working on a project to revolutionize the television and TV content, or a smart "iWatch."

Apple's stock was down 1.2 percent to $443.60 in early afternoon trade. It is now down more than 35 percent from its $702.10 September peak.

Despite a slip-sliding share price, dissatisfaction on the Street over its cash allocation strategy and uncertainty over its product pipeline, shareholders re-elected the entire board on Wednesday, and Cook won more than 99 percent of the vote in preliminary results.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Tim Dobbyn)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) The Hallmark Channel is making a new Friday night home for family movies.

The channel announced Wednesday that it will launch the showcase March 15 with the debut of "Return to Nim's Island," starring Bindi Irwin, the 14-year-old daughter of the late Steve Irwin, the Australian crocodile hunter who hosted a popular show on Animal Planet.

The film is a sequel to the 2008 action-adventure movie "Nim's Island." It will air as part of the new "Walden Family Theater" series, a Hallmark Channel collaboration with producer Walden Media, ARC Entertainment studio and sponsors Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble, the channel said.

The team effort "allows us a unique opportunity to further revive the practice of families regularly gathering to enjoy television entertainment as a shared experience," said Bill Abbott, chief executive of Crown Media Family Networks, owner of Hallmark Channel.

The half-dozen original Friday night movies will include "Space Warriors," with Dermot Mulroney, Danny Glover, Josh Lucas, Mira Sorvino and Thomas Horn, set to air in May. The showcase also will include films from the Hallmark Channel library.

Walden Media's films include the "Narnia" franchise and "Amazing Grace."

Bindi, who appeared on TV with her father, has made a career of her own with series including "Bindi, the Jungle Girl" and "Bindi's Boot Camp." Steve Irwin died in 2006 after being injured by a stingray barb during underwater filming.

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NEW YORK (AP) The party's over for Fashion's Night Out.

The annual shopping event has been part of New York Fashion Week each September since 2009, when it was created in response to the recession. It was masterminded by Vogue's Anna Wintour and championed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

The event expanded to 500 U.S. cities and 30 cities globally. Celebrities mingled with shoppers, champagne was served and designers sang karaoke and played pingpong to drum up business for the important fall retail season.

CFDA CEO Steven Kolb said Wednesday that he was proud of what had been accomplished. However, there was grumbling from some stores and designers that it cost money they weren't sure they saw back in sales.

Fashion's Night Out will still be held in select international cities.

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Singer Bobby Brown, the ex-husband of the late Whitney Houston, was sentenced to 55 days in jail on Tuesday after admitting to driving drunk last year.

Brown pleaded no contest, an admission of guilt under California law, to driving under the influence and driving on a suspended license in October in a Los Angeles suburb.

Police said they stopped Brown after seeing him driving erratically, and that he failed a field sobriety test. It was his second arrest for drunken driving in 2012.

Brown did not appear in court on Tuesday and his plea was entered by his attorney. He must report to jail on March 20

The New Edition singer was also sentenced to four years probation, ordered to install an ignition interlock device and to attend an alcohol counseling program.

Brown and Houston divorced in 2007 after 15 years of what Houston later described as a drug- and alcohol-fueled marriage. Houston drowned accidentally in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub on February 11, 2012, from the effects of heart disease and cocaine.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iranian state media has run altered images of first lady Michelle Obama's Oscars appearance, making her gown look less revealing.

The first lady wore a sleeveless, scoop neck gown. The semi-official Fars news agency ran an altered photo that covered her shoulders and neckline with added material. State TV showed images that blurred the parts of her body that were exposed.

Under Iran's Islamic dress code, women are required to cover their bodies in public. Films showing foreign women without a headscarf are considered acceptable, but revealing clothes are forbidden.

For the Oscars ceremony, Michelle Obama at the White House joined Jack Nicholson via video link to help present the best picture prize for "Argo," a film based on the escape of six American hostages from the besieged U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

Fars said the first lady's announcement suggested that the film was made with U.S. government support. Iranian officials have dismissed "Argo" as a CIA commercial.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Lindsay Lohan's attorney has suggested to prosecutors that the actress serve as a motivational speaker and perform non-jail activities to resolve her latest criminal case, according to a letter obtained Tuesday.

The letter from lawyer Mark Heller proposed several alternatives for Lohan, who could be sent to jail if a judge determines her actions in a traffic crash violated terms of her probation in a previous theft case.

His letter states that Lohan's turbulent home life has deeply impacted her and requires a different approach in the case.

The actress plans to spend time recording public service announcements and make "periodic visits to schools, hospitals, and other venues where she may provide inspirational talks, encouraging children to pursue positive goals and avoid bad habits," states the letter filed on Friday and released by the court Tuesday.

Heller also proposed the establishment of a nonprofit foundation in Lohan's name to benefit young people.

The actress "has made a commitment to herself to elevate her life and participate in activities which will advance her desire to lead a model life," Heller wrote in a motion seeking a delay in the case that returns to court on Friday. Trial is now set for March 18.

Lohan is charged with three misdemeanor charges of reckless driving, lying to police and obstructing officers from performing their duties. She has pleaded not guilty.

The actress could face 245 days in jail if she is found to be in violation of her probation.

The star of "Mean Girls" and "Freaky Friday" was sentenced to psychotherapy in November of 2011 in cases involving theft and drunken driving charges, but she has not been required to attend counseling since being placed on informal probation in March 2012.

Those terms were imposed by Judge Stephanie Sautner, who is retiring and will no longer handle Lohan's case.

The crash that prompted the current charges occurred in June on Pacific Coast Highway while Lohan was on the way to a movie shoot.

Terry White, chief deputy city attorney in Santa Monica, declined comment on the letter. He said discussions about a possible resolution are scheduled to take place this week.

Lohan, 26, was on her way to a beach shoot with another person for the TV movie "Liz and Dick" when her car crashed into the back of a dump truck. Police allege she lied about being behind the wheel.

Heller is also seeking dismissal of the charges against Lohan, arguing that police ignored her when she said she didn't want to be interviewed without her attorney present.

Lohan was at the hospital at the time, not in custody, and showed no signs of impairment when officers gave her a field sobriety test, the lawyer said.

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Australian mining entrepreneur Clive Palmer on Tuesday unveiled blueprints for Titanic II, a modern replica of the doomed ocean liner, although he stopped short of calling the vessel unsinkable.

The ship will largely recreate the design and decor of the fabled original, with some modifications to keep it in line with current safety rules and shipbuilding practices, and the addition of some modern comforts such as air conditioning, Palmer said at a press conference in New York.

The three passenger classes, however, will be prevented from mingling, as in 1912, Palmer said.

"I'm not too superstitious," Palmer said when asked whether recreating a ship best known for sinking was tempting fate.

White Star Line, the operator of the original ship, had said the Titanic was designed to be unsinkable. Some 1,500 people died on Titanic's maiden voyage in 1912 from Southampton to New York after the ship collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic.

Palmer, who created the company Blue Star Line last year, declined to make a similar boast.

"Anything will sink if you put a hole in it," Palmer said. "I think it would be very cavalier to say it."

Unlike the original, Titanic II will have more than enough space in its lifeboats for every person on board and will have additional escape staircases. Markku Kanerva, sales director at Deltamarin, the Finnish company designing the ship, said it would be the "safest cruise ship in the world."

Palmer declined to answer questions about the project's cost. Although the Titanic was the world's largest ship in her time, she would be smaller than many of today's modern cruise ships.

"It's not about the money," Palmer said. "I've got enough money for it, I think that's all that matters."

Forbes estimated Palmer's net worth to be $795 million (525.5 million pounds) in 2012. He describes himself as a billionaire.

Titanic II will be built by Chinese state-owned CSC Jinling Shipyard, which is already building four ore carriers for Palmer's mining business, he said. The contract to build Titanic II has not yet been signed, Palmer said.

"Oh, probably next week, something like that," Palmer said, when asked when that would happen. "Most things I say I'll do I do."

He hoped construction would begin later this year, and that the maiden voyage, recreating the trans-Atlantic crossing of the original, would take place in 2016, he said.

"But if it takes longer, it takes longer," he said. "But we'll do it. We've got a big pile of money."

Jaime Katz, an analyst who tracks the cruise industry, said Titanic II may find it difficult to compete with established cruise lines, particularly the economies of scale of their larger fleets. She said the Titanic II could be marketed to wealthier passengers and could draw repeat business by varying its routes rather than focusing on trans-Atlantic crossings.

"People are going to be really cautious or superstitious regarding getting on a second version of the Titanic, or it could be a really compelling idea for history buffs who really want to live the story or the legend behind it," Katz said.

"There's an audience for all sorts of cruises," she said.

Titanic II will operate as a cruise ship, and passengers will find 1912-style clothing in their rooms should they wish to dress up and pretend they are living in an earlier era as they visit facsimiles of the original gilded first-class dining and smoking rooms, if they have the appropriate ticket.

Although the classes will be kept largely separate, Palmer said he was considering offering ticket packages that would allow passengers to experience all three classes during a typical six-day Atlantic crossing.

Prices for the tickets will be announced later.

Helen Benziger, a descendant of Titanic survivor Margaret Brown, better known as the Unsinkable Molly Brown, said at the press conference that the ship would be a chance to experience the sort of grace and civility she said was sometimes lacking in the modern world.

"I think it's a chance to go back in time," said Benziger, who has joined the project's advisory board.

Palmer said he plans to travel in third class on Titanic II's maiden voyage.

"I'll be looking forward to it as you bang the drum and play the fiddle, twirling around like Leonardo does," he said, meaning actor Leonardo DiCaprio, in one of the repeated references he made to the 1997 James Cameron film Titanic.'

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Phil Berlowitz)

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SEATTLE (Reuters) - A top Microsoft Corp executive side-stepped questions on Tuesday about any plans the software maker may have to bring its Office suite of applications to Apple Inc's iPad.

Talk has circulated for more than a year that Microsoft wants to bring native versions of its most profitable product to the hot-selling iPad, which one analyst estimates could generate $2.5 billion in extra revenue for Microsoft per year, but would remove an incentive to buying Windows-based tablets.

"We don't take it from the point of view, 'Do we need to have the PC software that's running on every single device?', we look very much at 'What is the experience that we are looking to have on those devices'," said Kurt DelBene, head of Microsoft's Office unit, asked about Office on the iPad at the Morgan Stanley technology investor conference in San Francisco, which was Webcast.

DelBene, who took over leadership of Office from Stephen Elop who left to lead phone maker Nokia in 2010, did not directly address putting native versions of Office applications on the iPad, a subject Microsoft has steered clear of in public.

Asked specifically about the availability of Office on Apple's iOS mobile system - which powers iPads and iPhones - DelBene instead stressed online versions of Office apps, which can be accessed via a browser but do not offer the full richness of installed software or an app.

"We've actually done a lot of work on iOS devices this time around," said DelBene. "We have enhanced the web applications pretty substantially, in partnership with Apple."

Microsoft does offer native iOS versions of some Office applications, including its OneNote note-sharing software, Lync communication suite and SharePoint collaboration site, as well as its SkyDrive online storage service.

But the more than 100 million iPad owners, many of whom want to bring their devices to work, have to use the limited online versions of desktop staples Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Holt estimated earlier this month that Microsoft could generate $2.5 billion in extra annual revenue from Office on iPad by next year, less the commission Apple would take on sales of Office through its App Store.

But the risk for Microsoft is that putting Office on the iPad takes away one of the key advantages of its own Surface and other Windows tablets, that already run Office natively.

Removing incentives to buy Windows tablets would be a blow to Microsoft's flagship Windows unit, which although less profitable than Office, is still key to the company's overall strategy.

Asked by one investor at the conference when he would be able to use Excel on his iPad, DelBene instead pointed the questioner toward Microsoft's own Surface RT and Surface Pro tablets and urged him to use Web-based versions of Office apps.

"I think we've done a great job on both the consumer side, particularly with the Web apps that we are building, and on the enterprise side as well," said DelBene.

(Reporting By Bill Rigby; Editing by Bernard Orr)

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LONDON (Reuters) - David Bowie's first album of new music in a decade sees the influential musician back to his best, critics said in reviews rushed out on Tuesday, two weeks before its release.

"The Next Day", which hits stores in Britain on March 11 and a day later in the United States, could even be the "greatest comeback in rock'n'roll history", according to The Independent's Andy Gill.

As well as a series of glowing reviews, this week also saw the launch of the second single from the 14-track album called "The Stars (Are out Tonight)", accompanied by a surreal video starring the Starman himself and Tilda Swinton as his wife.

In it the middle-aged couple's daily routine is upset by the arrival of a group of mysterious, androgynous celebrities next door who enter their dreams and reawaken old desires and fears.

"They burn you with their radiant smiles/Trap you with their beautiful eyes" read the lyrics on Bowie's official website.

As befits an "event" album with so much hype surrounding it, several newspapers gave The Next Day a track-by-track analysis.

"David Bowie's The Next Day may be the greatest comeback album ever," said Gill in his five-star assessment.

"It's certainly rare to hear a comeback effort that not only reflects an artist's own best work, but stands alongside it in terms of quality," he added.

Neil McCormick of the Telegraph also gave the record top marks, calling it "an ... emotionally charged, musically jagged, electric bolt through his own mythos and the mixed-up, celebrity-obsessed, war-torn world of the 21st century."

BOWIE MANIA

Even in an age when veteran musical comebacks are a daily occurrence, the fascination with Bowie appears to be huge.

Music magazine NME is dedicating a six-page cover feature to the singer, while the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is staging a major exhibition looking at his music, art and groundbreaking fashion.

More than 26,000 tickets have already been sold to the show, which opens on March 23.

Alexis Petridis, writing in the Guardian, argued that, while containing references to Bowie's past work, it largely avoided becoming a sonic memoir of a stellar musical career.

And he said that the secrecy surrounding the making of the album, and genuine media surprise when it was announced on Bowie's 66th birthday last month, risked overshadowing the quality of the music itself.

"That doesn't seem a fair fate for an album that's thought-provoking, strange and filled with great songs," he said. "Listening to it makes you hope it's not a one-off, that his return continues apace."

Songs singled out by critics included "Valentine's Day", couched, according to Gill, "in one of the album's most engaging pop arrangements", and "Dancing Out In Space", described by Will Hodgkinson of The Times as a "nightclub smash".

"You Feel So Lonely You Could Die", the penultimate track, provides the climax which McCormick calls "fantastic, a lush companion piece to Ziggy's Rock'n'roll Suicide that drips vitriol in place of compassion."

Now that the album is complete, the question on many fans' lips is whether Bowie will return to the stage to perform live.

The singer himself has dodged the limelight altogether since the comeback, but guitarist Gerry Leonard told Rolling Stone magazine that he thought it was "50-50" that Bowie would tour.

The glam-rock star, born David Jones in south London in 1947, shot to fame with "Space Oddity" in 1969, and later with his alter ego Ziggy Stardust, before establishing himself as a chart-topping force in the early 1980s.

His long absence from the music scene led to speculation he had retired, with British newspapers reporting as recently as October that he had disappeared from the limelight for good.

Bowie's last album of new material was "Reality", released a decade ago, and he underwent emergency heart surgery while on tour in 2004. His last stage performance was as a guest at a charity concert in New York in 2006.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) The TV series "Duck Dynasty" is coming between Morrissey and Jimmy Kimmel.

The singer and animal rights activist says he canceled his appearance Tuesday on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" because "Duck Dynasty" cast members will be on the talk show.

Morrissey says he can't perform on a show with what he called people who "amount to animal serial killers."

A&E's "Duck Dynasty" reality show follows a Louisiana family with a business selling duck calls and decoys.

A&E did not immediately respond to requests for comment from it and the Robertson family.

A person familiar with the Kimmel show's plans confirmed that Morrissey was to appear. The person lacked authority to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The person says Morrissey's performance will be rescheduled.

ABC says the Churchill band will perform Tuesday on Kimmel's show but declined comment on the switch.

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Reach AP Television Writer Lynn Elber at http://www.twitter.com/lynnelber .

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PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) Flamboyant former NBA star Dennis Rodman is heading to North Korea with the VICE media company tattoos, piercings, bad-boy reputation and all.

The American known as "The Worm" is set to arrive Tuesday in Pyongyang, becoming an unlikely ambassador for sports diplomacy at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.

Rodman, three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, a VICE correspondent and a production crew from the company are visiting North Korea to shoot footage for a new TV show set to air on HBO in early April, VICE told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview before the group's departure from Beijing.

It's the second high-profile American visit this year to North Korea, a country that remains in a state of war with the U.S. It also comes two weeks after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test in defiance of U.N. bans against atomic and missile activity.

Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a surprise four-day trip to Pyongyang, where he met with officials and toured computer labs in January, just weeks after North Korea launched a satellite into space on the back of a long-range rocket.

Washington, Tokyo, Seoul and others consider both the rocket launch and the nuclear test provocative acts that threaten regional security.

North Korea characterizes the satellite launch as a peaceful bid to explore space, but says the nuclear test was meant as a deliberate warning to Washington. Pyongyang says it needs to build nuclear weapons to defend itself against the U.S., and is believed to be trying to build an atomic bomb small enough to mount on a missile capable of reaching the mainland U.S.

VICE said the Americans hope to engage in a little "basketball diplomacy" in North Korea by running a basketball camp for children and playing pickup games with locals and by competing alongside North Korea's top athletes for a game Rodman said he hopes leader Kim Jong Un will attend.

"Is sending the Harlem Globetrotters and Dennis Rodman to the DPRK strange? In a word, yes," said Shane Smith, the VICE founder who is host of the upcoming series. "But finding common ground on the basketball court is a beautiful thing.

"These channels of cultural communication might appear untraditional, and perhaps they are, but we think it's important just to keep the lines open," he said. "And if Washington isn't going to send their Generals then we'll send our Globetrotters."

The Washington Generals were the Globetrotters' regular, long-suffering opponents in a long-running series of comic exhibition games. DPRK is an acronym of North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

VICE, known for its sometimes irreverent journalism, has made two previous visits to North Korea, coming out with the "VICE Guide to North Korea." The HBO series, which will air weekly starting April 5, features documentary-style news reports from around the world.

The Americans also will visit North Korea's national monuments, the SEK animation studio and a new skate park in Pyongyang.

The U.S. State Department hasn't been contacted about travel to North Korea by this group, a senior administration official said, requesting anonymity to comment before any trip had been made public. The official said the department does not vet U.S. citizens' private travel to North Korea and urges US citizens contemplating travel there to review a travel warning on its website.

In a now-defunct U.S.-North Korean agreement in which Washington had planned last year to give food aid to Pyongyang in exchange for nuclear concessions, Washington had said it was prepared to increase people-to-people exchanges with the North, including in the areas of culture, education and sports.

Promoting technology and sports are two major policy priorities of Kim Jong Un, who took power in December 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.

But the often over-the-top Rodman, with his maze of tattoos, nose studs and neon-bleached hair, seems like an unlikely diplomat to a country where male fashion rarely ventures beyond military khaki and growing facial hair is forbidden.

During his heyday in the 1990s, Rodman was a poster boy for excess. He called his 1996 autobiography "Bad as I Wanna Be" and showed up wearing a wedding dress to promote it.

Shown a photo of a snarling Rodman, piercings dangling from his lower lip and two massive tattoos emblazoned on his chest, one North Korean in Pyongyang recoiled and said: "He looks like a monster!"

But Rodman is also a Hall of Fame basketball player and one of the best defenders and rebounders to ever play the game. During a storied, often controversial career, he won five NBA championships a feat that quickly overshadowed his antics for at least one small North Korean group of basketball fans.

Along with soccer, basketball is enormously popular in North Korea, where it's not uncommon to see basketball hoops set up in hotel parking lots or in schoolyards. It's a game that doesn't require much equipment or upkeep.

The U.S. remains Enemy No. 1 in North Korea, and North Koreans have limited exposure to American pop culture. But they know Michael Jordan, a former teammate of Rodman's when they both played for the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s.

During a historic visit to North Korea in 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright presented Kim Jong Il, famously an NBA fan, with a basketball signed by Jordan that later went on display in the huge cave at Mount Myohyang that holds gifts to the leaders.

North Korea even had its own Jordan wannabe: Ri Myong Hun, a 7-foot-9 star player who is said to have renamed himself "Michael" after his favorite player and moved to Canada for a few years in the 1990s in hopes of making it into the NBA.

Even today, Jordan remains well-loved here. At the Mansudae Art Studio, which produces the country's top art, a portrait of Jordan spotted last week, complete with a replica of his signature and "NBA" painted in one corner, seemed an odd inclusion among the propaganda posters and celadon vases on display.

An informal poll of North Koreans revealed that "The Worm" isn't quite as much a household name in Pyongyang.

But Kim Jong Un, also said to be a basketball fanatic, would have been an adolescent when Rodman, now 51, was with the Bulls, and when the Harlem Globetrotters, an exhibition basketball team, kept up a frenetic travel schedule worldwide.

In a memoir about his decade serving as Kim Jong Il's personal sushi chef, a man who goes by the pen name Kenji Fujimoto recalled that basketball was the young Kim Jong Un's biggest passion, and that the Chicago Bulls were his favorite.

The notoriously unpredictable and irrepressible Rodman said he has no special antics up his sleeve for making his mark on one of the world's most regimented and militarized societies, a place where order and conformity are enforced with Stalinist fervor.

But he said he isn't leaving any of his piercings behind.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington contributed to this report from Washington. Follow AP's bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul at www.twitter.com/newsjean.

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(Reuters) - Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, whose anti-smoking campaign and outspoken, controversial positions on abortion, AIDS and drugs, elevated the obscure post to one of national influence, died at his home in Hanover, New Hampshire, on Monday. He was 96 years old.

Koop, a pediatric surgeon, served as the leading U.S. spokesman on public health matters and adviser to President Ronald Reagan from November 1981 until October 1989. His death was announced by Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, where he founded the C. Everett Koop Institute.

"Dr. Koop was not only a pioneering pediatric surgeon but also one of the most courageous and passionate public health advocates of the past century," said Dr. Wiley W. Souba, dean of the Geisel School.

The gray-bearded Koop, known for his bow ties and suspenders, became one of most recognizable figures in the Reagan administration.

He took stern and sometimes controversial stands on abortion, AIDS, fatty foods, drugs and cigarettes, and moved through the halls of power convinced that he knew what was best for the nation's health.

Koop enraged the powerful tobacco industry and lawmakers grateful for the industry's generous campaign funds with his insistence that smoking kills and should be banned.

Then, in the midst of a heated national debate about how best to halt the spread of AIDS, Koop blocked the Reagan administration's plans for extensive testing. To the applause of gay rights groups, Koop said the disclosure of the test results, intentional or otherwise, could ruin the careers of those tested.

He spearheaded the drive to make education about AIDS the primary means of preventing the disease, writing a brochure about AIDS that was distributed to millions of American households. Attired in the authoritative white military dress uniform of the Public Health Service and its 7,000-member medical corps he disclosed to the public the glum, often indelicate, details of the disease and how to avoid it.

He urged men to use condoms - if they were unable to abstain from sex - to prevent the spread of AIDS, which is transmitted through semen or blood.

At the time, conservative activist and Koop critic Phyllis Schlafly blasted Koop and his attempts at educating the public as "teaching of safe sodomy in public schools." She demanded, unsuccessfully, that Koop stop preaching about safe sex.

At his confirmation hearings before the Senate, he was blasted by one feminist leader as "a monster" for his deeply held position against abortion.

"He saved countless lives through his leadership in confronting the public health crisis that came to be known as AIDS and standing up to powerful special interests like the tobacco companies," U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, said on Monday.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 14, 1916, Koop was badly injured as a child in a skiing accident and in playing football, which led him to an interest in medicine.

At 16, he entered Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and later graduated from Cornell Medical School.

Koop was preceded in death by his first wife, Elizabeth, and by their son David, according to Dartmouth.

He is survived by their children Allen Koop, the Rev. Norman Koop and Elizabeth Thompson, as well as by his wife, Cora, whom he married in 2010. He is also survived by eight grandchildren, according to Dartmouth.

(Reporting by Paul Thomasch and Corrie MacLaggan; editing by Christopher Wilson and Jackie Frank)

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NEW YORK (AP) Janet Jackson knows how to keep a secret: The singer has been married since last year.

A representative for Jackson confirmed Monday that the musician and Wissam Al Mana wed last year.

This is Jackson's second secret marriage. She secretly married Rene Elizondo Jr. in 1991. They separated in 1999.

The 46-year-old Jackson first tied the knot when she was 18 to singer James DeBarge, which lasted three months in 1984.

In a joint statement to Entertainment Tonight, Jackson and Al Mana said their wedding was a "quiet, private and beautiful ceremony."

The couple also said they would like privacy and "are allowed this time for celebration and joy."

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