Danny Puff

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After bringing J.R.R. Tolkien 's " The Lord of the Rings " trilogy to life, filmmaker Peter Jackson is back in the world of Middle Earth with the author's prequel, " The Hobbit ."

The three-film series is due to open in U.S. theaters on Friday with " The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ."

The Oscar-winning director, 51, told Reuters about the 3D film, including the 48 frames per second (fps) format he used, which was widely debated by fans and critics.

Q: You originally intended " The Hobbit " to only be two parts. Why stretch it out to three?

A: "Back in July, we were near the end of our shoot and we started to talk about the things that we had to leave out of the movies. There's material at the end of The Return of the King' (the final part of ' The Lord of the Rings ' trilogy) in the appendices that takes place around the time of The Hobbit .'

"We were thinking, this is our last chance because it's very unlikely we're ever going to come back to Middle Earth as filmmakers. So we talked to the studio and next year we're going to be doing another 10 to 12 weeks of shooting because we're now adapting more of Tolkien's material."

Q: At what point did you decide you would direct the film yourself after originally handing it to Guillermo del Toro ?

A: "At the time (we wrote the script), I was worried about repeating myself and worried that I was competing with myself. I thought it would be interesting to have another director with a fresh eye coming in and telling the story. But after Guillermo left, having worked on script and the production for well over a year at that stage, I was very emotionally attached to it. I just thought, this is an opportunity I'm not going to say no to."

Q: You hired Gollum actor Andy Serkis to do second unit directing on the film, something he has never done before. What made you hand the task to a novice?

A: "I know how strongly Andy has been wanting to direct. One of the problems with second unit is that you tend to have conservative footage given to you by the director. They play it safe. I knew that I wouldn't get that from Andy because he's got such a ferocious energy. He goes for it and doesn't hold back. I knew that if Andy was the director I would be getting some interesting material, that it would have a life and energy to it."

Q: What inspired you to make a film in 48 fps?

A: "Four years ago I shot a six or seven minute King Kong ride for Universal Studios' tram ride in California. The reason we used the high frame rate was that we didn't want people to think it's a movie. You want that sense of reality, which you get from a high frame rate, of looking in to the real world. At the time, I thought it would be so cool to make a feature film with this process."

Q: Not everyone has embraced " The Hobbit " in 48 fps.

A: "For the last year and a half there's been speculation, largely negative, about it and I'm so relieved to have gotten to this point. I've been waiting for this moment when people can actually see it for themselves. Cinephiles and serious film critics who regard 24 fps as sacred are very negative and absolutely hate it. Anybody I've spoken to under the age of 20 thinks it's fantastic. I haven't heard a single negative thing from the young people, and these are the kids that are watching films on their iPads. These are the people I want to get back in the cinema."

Q: Why all the hoopla over a frame rate?

A: "Somehow as humans, we have a reaction to change that's partly fear driven. But there are so many ways to look at movies now and it's a choice that a filmmaker has. To me as a filmmaker, you've got to take the technology that's available in 2012, not the technology we've lived with since 1927, and say how can we enhance the experience in the cinema? How can we make it more immersive, more spectacular?"

Q: George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney for $4 billion. Do you think you will sell your New Zealand facility Weta someday?

A: "I would if I want to retire at some stage and want to have a nice easy life, which will hopefully happen one day. But in the foreseeable future, the fact that I'm an owner of my own digital effects facility is a fantastic advantage for me."

Q: How so?

A: "When we asked the studio if we could shoot The Hobbit ' at 48 fps, we promised the budget would be the same. But it actually does have a cost implication because you've got to render twice as many frames and the rendering takes more time. The fact that we owned Weta and could absorb that in-house was actually part of the reason we were able to do the 48 frames."

(Editing by Patricia Reaney)

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AMSTERDAM (AP) With the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam closed for renovations until April, the world's second-largest collection of the tortured Dutch master's work is stepping into the limelight.

The Kroeller-Mueller museum in the eastern Netherlands is lesser-known but still considered a jewel among connoisseurs. It has revamped the layout of its central rooms, giving more space and more focus to its very best works.

This week it is announcing "Vincent is Back," because after a time in which some of its 91 Vincent Van Gogh paintings, 180 drawings and other works have been on loan, they are set to return in style.

The museum has already opened "Native Soil," the first of a two-part exhibition looking at the spectacular changes that Van Gogh underwent in his artistic career, which took place almost entirely in the decade from 1880 to 1890. The appropriately wintery exhibit focuses on Van Gogh's formative years in the Netherlands, with a dark palette and simple, somber subjects.

"Native Soil" culminates in what is widely regarded as Van Gogh's first great masterpiece, the 1885 "Potato Eaters." It also shows smaller works that presage the colorful brilliance to come, such as the 1885 "Head of a Woman Wearing a White Hat," which may have been part of Van Gogh's preparations for "Potato Eaters," and the emotive 1882 study "Sorrowful Old Man" in black chalk.

Beginning in April, the "Land of Light" exhibition will show off the incredible range of color and energy in Van Gogh's late works. Much of the collection from both periods will remain on display throughout the year, including later jewels such as his 1888 "Terrace of a Cafe at Night." Also remaining on display are a series of excellent portraits, including a famous 1887 self-portrait, and others such as the 1889 "Portrait of Joseph Roulin."

Although the Kroeller-Mueller Museum is profiling its Van Gogh works, its collection ranges well beyond that with important paintings by Georges Seurat , Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger, Piet Mondrian and Giorgio de Chirico . It also features one of Europe's best sculpture gardens, with works by Auguste Rodin , Henry Moore, Niki de Saint Phalle and many others.

The museum is located in Otterlo, Netherlands , not far from the German border.

For the more adventurous, one of the museum's special attractions is the option to begin a visit at one of three park entrances rather than the museum itself. It's easy to borrow one of hundreds of free bicycles and cycle several kilometers (miles) on well-marked paths through the park's gentle dunes and pine trees to the museum.

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On the Net: http://www.kmm.nl

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LOS ANGELES (AP) The James Bond blockbuster "Skyfall" has risen back to the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office, taking in $10.8 million.

That brought its domestic total to $261.4 million and its worldwide haul to a franchise record of $918 million.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "Skyfall," Sony , $10,780,201, 3,401 locations, $3,170 average, $261,400,281, five weeks.

2. "Rise of the Guardians," Paramount, $10,400,618, 3,639 locations, $2,858 average, $61,774,192, three weeks.

3. " The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2," Summit, $9,156,265, 3,646 locations, $2,511 average, $268,691,029, four weeks.

4. "Lincoln," $8,916,813, 2,014 locations, $4,427 average, $97,137,447, five weeks.

5. "Life of Pi," Fox, $8,330,764, 2,946 locations, $2,828 average, $60,948,293, three weeks.

6. "Playing For Keeps," FilmDistrict, $5,750,288, 2,837 locations, $2,027 average, $5,750,288, one week.

7. "Wreck-It Ralph," Disney, $4,859,368, 2,746 locations, $1,770 average, $164,402,934, six weeks.

8. "Red Dawn," FilmDistrict, $4,236,105, 2,754 locations, $1,538 average, $37,240,920, three weeks.

9. "Flight," Paramount, $3,130,305, 2,431 locations, $1,288 average, $86,202,541, six weeks.

10. "Killing Them Softly," Weinstein Co., $2,806,901, 2,424 locations, $1,158 average, $11,830,638, two weeks.

11. "Silver Linings Playbook," Weinstein Co., $2,171,665, 371 locations, $5,854 average, $13,964,405, four weeks.

12. "Anna Karenina," Focus, $1,544,859, 422 locations, $3,661 average, $6,603,042, four weeks.

13. "The Collection," LD Entertainment, $1,487,655, 1,403 locations, $1,060 average, $5,455,328, two weeks.

14. "Argo," Warner Bros., $1,482,346, 944 locations, $1,570 average, $103,160,015, nine weeks.

15. "End of Watch," Open Road Films, $751,623, 1,259 locations, $597 average, $39,989,766, 12 weeks.

16. "Hitchcock," Fox Searchlight , $712,544, 181 locations, $3,937 average, $1,661,670, three weeks.

17. "Talaash," Reliance Big Pictures, $449,195, 161 locations, $2,790 average, $2,397,909, two weeks.

18. "Taken 2," Fox, $387,227, 430 locations, $901 average, $137,700,304, 10 weeks.

19. "Pitch Perfect," Universal, $305,765, 387 locations, $790 average, $63,517,408, 11 weeks.

20. "The Sessions," Fox, $218,973, 197 locations, $1,112 average, $4,948,342, eight weeks.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp. ; Sony , Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc. ; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co. ; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc. ; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. ; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc. ; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African President Nelson Mandela , who is 94 and has been in hospital since Saturday for tests, has suffered a recurrence of a lung infection but is responding to treatment, the government said on Tuesday.

The revered anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace laureate is spending his fourth day in a hospital in the South African capital Pretoria . He remains a hero to many of South Africa 's 52 million people and two brief stretches in hospital in the last two years made front page news.

"Doctors have concluded the tests, and these have revealed a recurrence of a previous lung infection, for which Madiba is receiving appropriate treatment and he is responding to the treatment," the government said in a statement.

Mandela, whose clan name is 'Madiba', was admitted to the Pretoria military hospital on Saturday after being flown from his home village of Qunu, which is in a remote, rural part of the Eastern Cape province.

Until now, South African authorities had given few details about the reason for his latest visit to hospital.

In an interview late on Monday with South Africa's eNCA television channel, Mandela's Mozambican-born wife Graca said the former president's "sparkle" was fading.

When he was admitted to hospital on Saturday, officials stressed there was no cause for concern although domestic media reports suggested senior members of the government and people close to him had been caught unawares.

Mandela, South Africa's first black president and a global symbol of resistance to racism and injustice, spent 27 years in apartheid prisons, including 18 years on the windswept Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town.

He was released in 1990 and went on to be elected president in the historic all-race elections in 1994 that ended white-minority rule in Africa's most important economy.

He used his unparalleled prestige to push for reconciliation between whites and blacks, setting up a commission to probe crimes committed by both sides in the anti-apartheid struggle.

Mandela's African National Congress has continued to govern since his retirement from politics in 1999, but has been criticised for perceived corruption and slowness in addressing apartheid-era inequalities in housing, education and healthcare.

Mandela spent time in a Johannesburg hospital in 2011 with a respiratory condition, and again in February this year because of abdominal pains. He was released the following day after a keyhole examination showed there was nothing serious.

He has since spent most of his time in Qunu.

His fragile health prevents him from making any public appearances in South Africa, although he has continued to receive high-profile domestic and international visitors, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton in July.

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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. (AP) A holiday tradition in this upstate New York resort town has a peppermint twist: pig-shaped hard candies are sold with little metal hammers to smash them at Christmas.

The peppermint pigs, which can weigh up to a pound, are considered good luck charms by some. Family members will take turns whacking the piggy tokens of holiday cheer into little candy shards.

"We do find that some people are a little taken aback: 'What's the whole idea of the pig and the hammer? What are you doing? And is someone insulting me by giving me a pig?'" said Mike Fitzgerald , owner of Saratoga Sweets , which makes the pigs that can be the size of a big bar of bath soap.

Fitzgerald has pigs on his brain this time of year. A small crew at his shop south of Saratoga Springs in Halfmoon makes the hard candy from dawn to dark in a shop distinguished by boiling red pots of candy and an overwhelming scent of peppermint. Fitzgerald is hurrying to fill thousands of pig orders around the country.

Why pigs?

It could be related to the marzipan pigs northern European confectioners make at holiday time as good luck symbols. Fitzgerald said it's possible chefs at the old hotels in Saratoga Springs in the late 19th century couldn't easily make marzipan, so they improvised with peppermint hard candy.

In the old days, the pig was placed on the Christmas dinner table. Father would wrap it in a napkin and crack it with the steel rod used to sharpen knives so the family could share the sweet-tasting bits, Fitzgerald said. But by the mid-20th century, the area holiday tradition went the way of lit candles on Christmas trees.

In 1988, Fitzgerald made a first run of 60 peppermint pigs at the request of the local historical society. He was surprised to see people lining up to buy them, many of them older people who fondly recalled smashing pigs when they were young. He sold out his run and never looked back.

"It's been a pig race ever since. This year we'll make about 130,000 pigs," he said.

As Fitzgerald spoke, workers stirred bubbling tea pots filled with a Pepto-pink mix of sugar and corn syrup. The candy mix is hand-poured into cast aluminum molds to make one of three pigs: Holly (3 ounces and 3 1/2-inches long), Noel (a half pound and 5 1/2 inches) or the big man, Clarence (1 pound and 6 inches).

The hardened pigs have a shiny, glassy quality other hard candies with a higher corn syrup content lack. A quick strike by Fitzgerald's hammer shattered a pig.

"It has to break like glass," Fitzgerald said with satisfaction.

It's not as though sales of candy canes more than 1.8 billion are made a year are being threatened. But the pigs are a popular item in gift stores in Saratoga Springs and other retailers, dressed in red velvet bags with a shiny, silver hammer. (Once you get the hammer, you can order a refill without one.)

"Thanksgiving sort of kicks it off and from here on in, it gets crazy," said Marianne Barker of Impressions of Saratoga.

And the pigs have extended beyond their upstate New York habitat through online sales and catalogs. In Georgia, Lynn Barlow bought a pig on a lark in 1997 and shared it with her family on Christmas. A good luck streak followed that included a raise for her husband, one son bagging the biggest buck of his life and another son's team winning a basketball tournament.

The White, Ga., resident said pigs have been passed around at the holiday table ever since, now with grandchildren taking a turn with the hammer.

"My husband hits it first," Barlow said, "and then the peppermint is hard, so we usually go around the table twice just because the kids enjoy doing it so much."

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LOS ANGELES (AP) The mother of " Modern Family " actress Ariel Winter sued an associate of her adult daughter for defamation Monday, claiming he falsely labeled her an "abusive monster" in an online comment about an ongoing custody struggle for the teenage star.

Chrisoula Workman filed the defamation and false light lawsuit against Matthew Borlenghi , claiming his comment attached to a Nov. 9 Los Angeles Times online story was false and has harmed her reputation.

Borlenghi is an actor who teaches at a studio operated by Shanelle Gray , Winter's adult sister who currently has custody of the 14-year-old actress. A judge temporarily stripped Workman of custody amid allegations she had been physically and emotionally abusive to the star.

A trial on whether Workman will be completely lose custody is scheduled to begin Wednesday.

Borlenghi said he had not yet seen the lawsuit and declined to say whether he posted a comment about the story on the Times website. The story centered on Workman's allegations that Winter was having an improper relationship with an 18-year-old actor.

"This is a total falsehood," the comment attributed to Borlenghi states. "The mother is grasping and clawing to find a way not to lose her money-maker, and hide the fact that she is an abusive monster."

The comment cites personal interactions with Workman for forming the opinions in the post.

"All I can say is that David (Gray) and Shanelle Gray are very close friends of mine and comments that Chris has made are absolutely fabricated," Borlenghi said when contacted about the case. "The negative comments she's made about her own daughter in order to try to get custody back of Ariel are truly disgusting."

Workman's lawsuit includes several pages of sworn declarations from tutors and other friends and associates denying she has been abusive to her daughter. The declarations have been filed in the guardianship case and may be considered by a judge who has to determine whether to allow Gray to continue caring for her sister.

A judge said last month that child protective investigators had evidence of emotional abuse toward Winter.

Workman has denied she has been abusive toward her daughter.

Guardianship cases in California are public record. Attorneys for Winter's sister requested the case and its proceedings be sealed, but a judge refused. The case was filed under Winter's birth name, Ariel Workman , in part to avoid attention.

Although The Associated Press does not generally name underage victims of abuse, Winter's name is being used because it is included in the public guardianship case.

Besides playing Alex Dunphy on ABC's "Modern Family," Winter's credits include appearances on several TV series, including "ER" and "Phineas and Ferb," and movies such as "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," ''Ice Age: The Meltdown" and "ParaNorman."

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

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Kathryn Bigelow 's Osama bin Laden thriller "Zero Dark Thirty," Steven Spielberg 's Civil War epic "Lincoln" and Christopher Nolan 's superhero tale "The Dark Knight Rises" are among the American Film Institute 's top-10 movies of the year.

Also on the AFI top-10 announced Monday: Ben Affleck 's Iran hostage-crisis drama "Argo;" Benh Zeitlin's low-budget hit "Beasts of the Southern Wild;" Quentin Tarantino 's slavery saga " Django Unchained ;" Tom Hooper's Victor Hugo musical "Les Miserables;" Ang Lee's shipwreck story "Life of Pi;" Wes Anderson's first-love romance "Moonrise Kingdom;" and David O. Russell's misfit love story "Silver Linings Playbook."

The AFI also picked its top-10 television shows for the year: "American Horror Story;" ''Breaking Bad;" ''Game Change;" ''Game of Thrones;" ''Girls;" ''Homeland;" ''Louie;" ''Mad Men;" ''Modern Family;" and "The Walking Dead."

Creative ensembles for the films and TV shows will be honored Jan. 11 at a luncheon in Los Angeles.

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CUAUHTEMOC, Mexico (Reuters) - More than a century after Mennonite farmers left Russia for North America in search of new lands and religious freedom, hundreds of their descendants in Mexico are thinking about completing the circle.

Shortage of farmland, drought and conflict with rivals have made some Mennonites in northern Mexico wonder if the best way of providing for their families is to go back to the plains of eastern Europe their ancestors left in the 19th century.

This summer a delegation of 11 Mexican Mennonites went to Tatarstan on the southern fringe of European Russia to look at land that could help them protect their spartan way of life from the impact of population growth and climate change.

"We're looking for a future for our children and grandchildren," said Peter Friesen, 59, one of the farmers who traveled to the town of Aznakayevo in August, himself the great-grandson of Mennonites born in the Russian Empire.

Descendants of 16th century Protestant Anabaptist radicals from Germany, the Low Countries and Switzerland, Mennonites rejected Church hierarchy and military service, suffering years of persecution and making them reliant on the patronage of rulers keen to exploit their dedication to farming and thrift.

Many Mennonites like Friesen living in the colonies around the city of Cuauhtemoc trace their origins to families that settled parts of Imperial Russia in modern Ukraine in the 18th century during the reign of Catherine the Great.

During the age of European nationalism, their freedoms came under threat and they began to leave for North America in the 1870s. More followed in the years of turmoil that convulsed Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution and the World Wars.

Still speaking Plautdietsch, a unique blend of Low German, Prussian dialects and Dutch, the Mennonites that came to Chihuahua state from Canada in the 1920s have helped turn some of the most barren expanses of northern Mexico into model farmland yielding tonnes of golden corn, beans, milk and cheese.

But as the fields in Chihuahua grew more plentiful, so did the Mennonites, who are named after 16th century Anabaptist leader Menno Simons, a Frisian. Anabaptists say believers should only be baptized once old enough to understand their faith.

WATER DISPUTE

Dressed in plain cotton trousers, a dark shirt and cap, Friesen uses short, simple sentences in Spanish, his face tanned from years spent harvesting crops under the cloudless skies of Chihuahua, which covers an area bigger than Britain.

Only when Friesen's mobile phone rings and he switches to Plautdietsch does the tempo change. Words trip off his tongue in a much softer cadence than High German, and are all but unintelligible to speakers of the modern language.

"You know we Mennonites always want to grow. And that's what we can't do here. Everything's already taken up," said the father of 13 and grandfather of 25.

Enrique Voth, who also went to Tatarstan, said farmland can be purchased there for a tenth of the price in Mexico. "We need ten times more than what we have," said the father of 11.

The "100 or so" families interested in Russia are still undecided about whether to go, partly because they did not find a single bloc of land big enough for them, said Friesen.

But his blue eyes glitter when he talks of the dark soil, mild climate and rich water supplies the Mennonites found in Tatarstan. Once part of the Mongol Golden Horde, an empire spanning Central Asia and eastern Europe, the republic harbors flat, fertile terrain fed by the Volga and Kama rivers.

Originally about 7,000 strong in Mexico, the Mennonites today farm about three quarters of the irrigated corn fields in Chihuahua. But much of the land is leased and their holdings have increased far slower than their population.

About 1,000 of the first settlers in Mexico returned to Canada, but the Mennonite population in Chihuahua alone is now probably about 60,000, said Peter Stoesz, director of a local Mennonite credit union known as UCACSA.

The Mennonites in Chihuahua started with around 100,000 hectares of land. Today, that holding may not be much more than 250,000 hectares, according to the state government.

Since last year's drought, the land shortage has been felt more keenly, and the Mennonites have been accused by a group of rival farmers known as Barzonistas of sinking 200 illegal wells to irrigate fields, damaging the local water supply.

Chihuahua's government says it has found a few dozen illegal wells, drilled using fake permits. It is still investigating how the permits were issued, and the Barzonistas are not happy.

"We're at a disadvantage, but we're Mexicans," said Barzonista Jacko Rodriguez, who believes the Mennonites have had preferential treatment in the water dispute. "We're going to stay here and we're going to live here. They are not."

The row has taken a number of ugly turns, giving further impetus to the Mennonites' desire to find new farmland.

This summer, one Barzonista declared the pacifist Mennonites were Germans, burning up Mexican lands like the Nazis burned Jews. And when a Barzonista leader was shot dead with his wife in October, some of them pointed the finger at the Mennonites.

"This has caused us a lot of worry," said Johan Peters, 45, a farmer, who said Mennonites were also looking at land in Argentina.

The Mennonites have denied any involvement in the deaths.

PACE OF CHANGE

During the 20th century, Mennonites fanned out into South America, Africa and India. Many preserved a lifestyle tied to tilling the soil, while adopting newer technology often still eschewed by their Anabaptist Amish cousins in America.

Lacking pasture and fields to sow, some in Chihuahua have given up farming, turning to services and handicrafts. A few have drifted into drug trafficking and prostitution, locals say.

But UCACSA estimates over two-thirds work in agriculture, which still dominates the rhythm of daily life. Sons may join fathers to work the fields from the age of 12 or younger.

"Farming is the healthiest work a person can have," said Voth from the Tatarstan delegation. "It's peaceful work without competition. With a business, you have to fight all the time."

Plenty of Mennonites in the area are skeptical the answer to the land shortage lies in Russia. Some say the families considering a move half way across the world have fallen behind. Others worry Mennonites are being swamped by the pace of change.

Though Chihuahua's Mennonites now use mobile phones, many still reject television. Some fret about the impact of the Internet on their children, who can see more and more of the world from the confines of their modest, monochrome bungalows.

"Some people are losing the true reason of being a Mennonite," said corn farmer Corny Kornelsen, 52. "They grab every new thing that comes their way. But they can't cope with all the new technologies."

(Additional reporting by Bernd Debusmann Jr.; Editing by Kieran Murray and Todd Eastham)

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MIAMI (AP) Another man on Monday sued the former Elmo puppeteer who resigned amid sex abuse allegations , claiming the voice actor befriended him in Miami and promised to be a father figure before flying the teen to New York to have sex with him.

The alleged victim is now the fourth to accuse Kevin Clash , who resigned from " Sesame Street " last month after 28 years. The three legal actions filed so far have been civil cases seeking financial compensation.

But the incident with the latest victim, referred to only as S.M., could involve criminal charges because the lawsuit claims Clash transported him across state lines for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity.

Attorney Jeff Herman said he encouraged his client to report the incident to authorities but it's unclear if the now-33-year-old alleged victim has done so.

Sexual abuse allegations against Clash triggered a media frenzy last month. He quickly denied the first claim, which was recanted the next day. But Clash then resigned after a 24-year-old college student, Cecil Singleton, sued him for $5 million, saying the actor engaged in sexual behavior with him when he was 15.

Singleton claims the voice actor met him in New York a dozen years ago after trolling gay telephone chat lines and seeking underage boys for sex.

In the latest case, the plaintiff said Clash approached him on Miami Beach, complimented his appearance and struck up a friendship. Clash returned home to New York, but stayed in touch with the teen, promising to be a dad to him. The youth, who was 16 or 17 at the time, had been molested by a teacher and was considering running away from home, according to the lawsuit.

"These are all vulnerable boys. None of them had father figures in their lives and they were looking for that father figure," said Herman, who represents three of the alleged victims .

The lawsuit says Clash paid for a plane ticket from Florida to New York in 1996 and arranged for a car service to pick up the teen and bring him to his upscale apartment, where he gave him cash and showered him with "attention and affection" and ultimately engaged in numerous sexual acts.

Herman said he is poring over receipts and other documents to see if the car service was paid for by Clash's employers at Sesame Street.

Messages left with a publicist for Clash were not immediately returned Monday.

"We're confident in the actions that we took, but because this is now an issue between litigants, we're not going to comment further," said Ellen Lewis, a publicist for Sesame Street.

Herman said the alleged victims didn't come forward sooner because they were afraid, but have found courage as others have spoken up.

He said they are compliant victims who participated in the sexual acts, but didn't consent because it's illegal for a minor to do so.

"Because they participated in the sex they feel like they're doing something wrong ... they're ashamed, they're embarrassed, not something they really want to talk about," he said.

Herman said he's been contacted by several other possible victims and is vetting their cases.

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NEW YORK (AP) Bruce Springsteen , Lady Gaga and The Black Keys will join the Rolling Stones on Saturday for the final concert marking the band's 50th anniversary .

The concert will be held at the Prudential Center in Newark , N.J.

The band said Monday the concert will be telecast live on pay-per-view.

The Stones have played in London and New York on their "50 and Counting" tour. They will also play in Newark on Thursday.

The Stones will perform Wednesday at the "12-12-12" concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City to raise money for victims of Superstorm Sandy.

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