Danny Puff

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) TBS and the makers of "Cougar Town" say they only briefly considered changing the show's title with its move to cable TV, but they didn't want to throw away years of marketing that has given the comedy starring Courteney Cox an identity.

After three seasons on ABC, "Cougar Town" begins its fourth season Tuesday on TBS.

Creator Bill Lawrence doesn't like the title because it conveys the image of older women chasing young men. Instead, it's a comedy about friends in their 40s. Cox's character is now married.

TBS has even run an advertising campaign calling it a funny show with a terrible title.

"We wear it as a badge of honor," Lawrence said. "I still enjoy mocking it."

Lawrence was unhappy with ABC for holding the show in limbo before TBS bought it. But since ABC parent Walt Disney Co. still produces the show, he said at a news conference Friday that he wasn't going to bash his old network.

Before the season premiere, Lawrence and the cast of "Cougar Town" went to bars in different cities to buy people drinks and show them new episodes. To his chagrin, Lawrence said none of the people he bought drinks for was part of the Nielsen Co.'s ratings system.

Lawrence said he hopes the switch to TBS will be seamless and fans of the show won't notice a difference this season. Actress Busy Philipps became pregnant in real life during filming of the new season, but her character did not become pregnant.

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NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) Nearly two years after being critically wounded in a mass shooting, former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on Friday met with families of victims in last month's shooting that left 26 people dead inside a Connecticut elementary school.

Giffords was accompanied by her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, at the private meeting in Newtown that was also attended by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

"As always, I was deeply impressed by the strength and courage and resolve of the families and the extraordinary caring and generosity of Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly in visiting with them," Blumenthal said.

Giffords, a Democrat, met earlier in the day with officials including Connecticut's lieutenant governor and Newtown's first selectman.

Giffords was left partially blind, with a paralyzed right arm and brain injury, when a gunman opened fire at a constituent meet-and-greet outside a Tucson grocery store on Jan. 8, 2011. Arizona's chief federal judge and five others were killed and 13 people, including Giffords, were injured.

The gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, pleaded guilty to 19 federal charges and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years.

Kelly has become a vocal advocate for gun control in recent months, most notably at Loughner's sentencing in November. He lashed out at politicians for avoiding a "meaningful debate" about gun laws and called out Arizona Republicans, including the governor, for taking a pro-gun stance in the months after the shooting.

"As a nation we have repeatedly passed up the opportunity to address the issue. After Columbine, after Virginia Tech, after Tucson and after Aurora, we have done nothing," he told the court.

He has issued strongly worded statements many times since the massacre in Connecticut, including a harsh response to the National Rifle Association's reaction to the shooting. He often begins statements with "Gabby and I" as he makes pointed comments about the direction of the gun debate in America.

Kelly said on the day of the Newtown shooting that it should lead to better gun control.

"This time our response must consist of more than regret, sorrow, and condolence," Kelly said on his Facebook page, calling for "a meaningful discussion about our gun laws and how they can be reformed and better enforced to prevent gun violence and death in America."

Blumenthal said he is eager to find allies as he pursues tougher gun control laws.

"I'm hopeful that everyone who cares about this issue or has a stake in it will be active in supporting our effort in gun violence prevention legislatively," he said.

Giffords' visit came one day after Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced the creation of an advisory commission that will review and recommend changes to state laws and policies on issues including gun control in the wake of the Dec. 14 rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The gunman, Adam Lanza, shot and killed his mother, then drove to the school and slaughtered 20 first-graders and six educators before committing suicide as police arrived.

Giffords has appeared in public a few times since the shooting. She came face-to-face with Loughner when he was sentenced and attended ceremonies for the anniversary of the shooting.

She received tributes and ovations when she returned to the House in January 2012 to say goodbye as she resigned her seat and she delivered the Pledge of Allegiance at the Democratic National Convention in September.

On Wednesday, two days before she visited the Newtown families, she and Kelly met for an hour with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a longtime and vociferous gun control advocate. Bloomberg's office tweeted a photo of the meeting but wouldn't elaborate Friday on the discussion.

President Barack Obama invoked the Tucson and Newtown elementary school shootings when he spoke at Newtown shortly after the attack. He said four shootings, including those two plus the attacks at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., marked his first term in office.

A recent Pew Research Center report says gun policy accounted for almost 30 percent of discussions examined on blogs and Twitter in the three days after the school massacre. It compares the response to the Newtown rampage with the Arizona shooting, saying that in the three days after that, just 3 percent of social media conversation was about gun laws.

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Associated Press writer Susan Haigh contributed to this report from Hartford, Conn.

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MARION, Mass. (AP) A stray cat that spent at least a week stuck in a Massachusetts tree before plunging 80 feet to the ground and fleeing has been found, and all things considered, appears to be in good health.

A Marion Animal Hospital veterinarian said Wednesday it's "unbelievable" that the cat dubbed Fortunate has just a couple of pulled muscles and a possible parasitic infection.

The cat was spotted in a Rochester, Mass., tree on Christmas Eve. Several rescue attempts failed before firefighters cut the branch it was perched on Sunday. Cat shelter founder Pam Robinson finally trapped the skittish feline on Tuesday.

Robinson tells The Standard Times (http://bit.ly/Wngz47 ) she will keep the cat for a few weeks so it can regain weight before putting it up for adoption.

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Information from: The (New Bedford, Mass.) Standard-Times, http://www.southcoasttoday.com

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LONDON (AP) In a sea of flapping black and white flippers, Ricky is hard to miss: He's got spiky yellow feathers, a flamboyant character, and he's the only rockhopper among the dozens of penguins living in the London Zoo.

That's a big help for keepers embarking on their annual stock-taking of all the zoo's residents. It's no easy task, when there are more than 17,500 creatures to count. All animals have to be accounted for, including the tarantulas, locusts and snails.

Zoo managers started the painstaking process on Thursday, and the final tally could take weeks.

Officials hope this year will bring new partners and families to a range of animals. An all-female family of nine otters has been waiting for a new male to arrive, and Ricky, who has been the lone rockhopper in the zoo since 2011, would also appreciate a mate.

"Ricky's quite a unique character he was rejected by his parents and was hand-reared. He's more interested in zoo keepers than in other penguins," said zoological director David Field. "It's time to get him some rockhopper partners."

The census is required as part of the zoo's license terms, and the data is used for zoo management and international breeding programs for endangered animals.

Most animals in the zoo have microchips in their bodies, making counting a little less daunting. Fish and animals with camouflage properties like leaf insects are trickier, and the tiniest ones such as ants are counted in colonies, not as individuals.

New additions to the zoo being counted for the first time included baby Ziggy, an endangered white-naped mangabey monkey, and Maxilla, a black-and-white colobus monkey.

The zoo also welcomed a pair of new Sumatran tigers male Jae Jae from a zoo in Ohio in the U.S. and female Melati, from Perth, Australia.

The tigers were matched by an international breeding program to ensure a genetically diverse population of animals. They will soon be properly introduced to each other and meet visitors in a newly expanded enclosure in spring.

"We breed them in the zoo because they are running out of time in the wild," said Field, who's hopeful the tigers will soon produce cubs.

The World Wildlife Fund says there are now fewer than 400 of the big cats, which are native to Indonesia.

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NEW DELHI (AP) The companion of a woman who was gang-raped aboard a bus in New Delhi recounted in a television interview for the first time Friday how the pair was attacked for 2 1/2 hours before being thrown on the side of the road, where passersby ignored them and police debated jurisdiction issues before helping them.

The Dec. 16 attack has outraged Indians and led to calls for tougher rape laws and reforms of a police culture that often blames rape victims and refuses to file charges against accused attackers. The nation's top law enforcement official said the country needs to crack down on crimes against women with "an iron hand."

The 23-year-old woman died over the weekend from massive internal injuries suffered during the attack. Authorities charged five men with her murder and rape and were holding a sixth suspect believed to be a juvenile. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Saturday.

The woman and her male friend had just finished watching the movie "Life of Pi" at an upscale mall and were looking for a ride home. An autorickshaw driver declined to take them so they boarded the private bus with the six assailants inside, the companion told the Indian TV network Zee TV.

Authorities have not named the man because of the sensitivity of the case. The TV station also declined to give his name, although it did show his face during the interview. The man has a broken leg and was sitting in a wheelchair during the interview.

After a while, the men on the bus starting harassing and attacking the pair, he said.

"I gave a tough fight to three of them. I punched them hard. But then two others hit me with an iron rod," he said. The woman tried to call the police using her mobile phone, but the men took it away from her, he said. They then took her to the rear seats of the bus and raped her.

"The attack was so brutal I can't even tell you ... even animals don't behave like that," he said.

Afterward, he overheard some of the attackers saying she was dead, he said.

The men then dumped their bleeding and naked bodies under an overpass. He waved to passers-by on bikes, in autorickshaws and in cars for help.

"They slowed down, looked at our naked bodies and left," he said. After about 20 minutes, three police vans arrived and the officers began arguing over who had jurisdiction over the crime as the man pleaded for clothes and an ambulance, he said.

The man said he was given no medical care. Instead, he spent four days at the police station helping them investigate the crime. He said he visited his friend in the hospital, told her the attackers were arrested and promised to fight for her.

"She has awakened us all by her courage," he said. "People should move ahead in the struggle to prevent a similar crime happening again as a tribute to her."

On Friday, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said crimes against women and marginalized sections of society are increasing, and it is the government's responsibility to stop them.

"This needs to be curbed by an iron hand," he told a conference of state officials from across India that was called to discuss how to protect women.

He called for changes in the law and the way police investigate cases so justice can be swiftly delivered. Many rape cases are bogged down in India's overburdened and sluggish court system for years.

"We need a reappraisal of the entire system," he said.

In the wake of the rape, several petitioners appealed to the Supreme Court to take an active role in the issue of women's safety.

On Friday, the court dismissed a petition asking it to suspend Indian lawmakers accused of crimes against women, saying it doesn't have jurisdiction, according to the Press Trust of India. The Association for Democratic Reforms, an organization that tracks officials' criminal records, said six state lawmakers are facing rape prosecutions and two national parliamentarians are facing charges of crimes against women that fall short of rape.

However, the court did agree to look into the widespread creation of more fast-track courts for accused rapists across the country.

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HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's No.2 telecom equipment maker, expects a 2012 profit gain after reporting a sharp drop a year ago, thanks to new projects and increased sales in high-end mobile phone markets such as Japan.

Net profit is expected to be around $2.4 billion, rotating and acting Chief Executive Officer Guo Ping said in a New Year message to employees on Friday. That would be a rise of 29 percent from 11.6 billion yuan ($1.86 billion) in 2011, based on his forecast.

Revenue is expected to exceed $35 billion, Guo said. In 2011, sales rose 11.7 percent to 203.9 billion yuan, or about $32 billion.

Privately held Huawei and its crosstown rival ZTE Corp have been expanding their footprint in the global telecom equipment and mobile phone sectors over the past few years.

While Huawei has boosted sales and gained market share in Europe, Africa and Asia, it ran into a few obstacles last year in other markets such as the United States and Australia due to national security and cyber espionage concerns.

Slower telecom spending stemming from a weak global economy and stiff competition in the increasingly crowded mobile phone sector have also weighed on the outlook of equipment providers and handset manufacturers.

"We should devote our limited energy to specific business objectives, and avoid the impulse to expand business blindly," Guo said. "Managers who expand business blindly must be held accountable."

Last October, ZTE, the world's fourth-biggest maker of mobile phones and No.5 telecom equipment maker, reported its biggest quarterly loss since it was listed due to narrowing margins, project delays and accounting changes in China.

Guo did not provide a breakdown of the revenue figures by business segment. Huawei is expected to announce audited figures in the next few months, although no date has been set yet.

Rival Ericsson has yet to report its full-year figures, so it is unclear whether the Chinese company had surpassed the Swedish giant as the top telecom equipment maker in the world.

Huawei was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, a former People's Liberation Army officer. Huawei has denied repeatedly any links with the Chinese military and says it is a purely commercial enterprise.

In a message to employees a year earlier, Ren said Huawei had initiated a system that allows top executives to take turns acting as chief executive, paving the way for a smooth management handover when Ren eventually retires. ($1 = 6.2303 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Lee Chyen Yee; Editing by Ryan Woo)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Oscar won't be the only chiseled man in the spotlight at the 85th Academy Awards.

Telecast producers say the show will also feature a celebration of Bond, James Bond.

Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron announced Friday that the show will pay tribute to the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film franchise, which they describe as "the longest-running motion picture franchise in history and a beloved global phenomenon."

The most recent Bond film, "Skyfall," was released in November and has made more than $1 billion worldwide a franchise record.

Nominations for this year's Academy Awards will be announced Jan. 10. The Oscars will be presented Feb. 24 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

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Online:

www.oscars.org

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PARIS (Reuters) - Former French screen goddess Brigitte Bardot on Friday threatened to follow Gerard Depardieu in asking for a Russian passport, in protest not at tax hikes, but at the treatment of two circus elephants.

The animals, named Baby and Nepal and owned by a touring circus, are thought to be carrying tuberculosis and were ordered to be put down by a court in Lyon, southern France, on Friday as a precautionary measure.

Bardot's threat comes a day after fellow actor Depardieu caused a storm in France by becoming a Russian citizen in protest at high tax rates proposed by the Socialist government, which he accuses of penalising success.

"If those in power are cowardly and impudent enough to kill the elephants... then I have decided I will ask for Russian nationality to get out of this country which has become nothing more than an animal cemetery," Bardot said in a statement.

Owners Cirque Pinder also said on Friday they would appeal to save the elephants, which first tested positive for tuberculosis in 2010 but have since been kept in a zoo in Lyon away from the general public.

Bardot, who first rose to fame as a screen siren in the 1956 Roger Vadim film "And God Created Woman", has become an increasingly controversial figure with her outbursts on animal rights, but also on gays, immigrants and the unemployed.

Since retiring from the screen in the 1970s she has become a semi-recluse, devoting herself to her Brigitte Bardot Foundation for animal rights, and has frequently taken aim at Eid al-Adha festivities when Muslims ritually slaughter sheep.

In 2008 she was convicted for a fifth time in 11 years for for incitement to religious hatred, over a 2006 tract on Eid al-Adha in which she said the Muslim community in France was "destroying our country by imposing its acts'.

(Reporting By Vicky Buffery, editing by Paul Casciato)

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LONDON (AP) In a sea of flapping black and white flippers, Ricky is hard to miss: He's got spiky yellow feathers, a flamboyant character, and he's the only rockhopper among the dozens of penguins living in the London Zoo.

That's a big help for keepers who embarked Thursday on their annual stock-taking of all the zoo's residents. It's no easy task, when there are more than 17,500 creatures to count. All animals have to be accounted for, including the tarantulas, locusts and snails.

The same scene was being repeated at zoos throughout Britain Thursday the census is nationwide. No stone is left unturned, lest there be a beetle below.

At the London Zoo, keepers hope the new year will bring some company to Ricky, who has been the zoo's lone rockhopper since 2011.

"Ricky's quite a unique character he was rejected by his parents and was hand-reared. He's more interested in zoo keepers than in other penguins," said zoological director David Field. "It's time to get him some rockhopper partners."

In the meerkat enclosure, 11 of the small mammals were only too happy to be counted, climbing onto a keeper's clipboard seeking attention and food.

An all-female family of nine otters likewise rushed forward at the sight of their favored delicacies: Mice and crayfish. In the invertebrates section, a palm-sized red-kneed tarantula called Jill caused a stir among visitors when she was lifted out of her box for inspection.

"This is quite a docile one," said keeper Amy Callaghan, who held the spider out in her hand for photographers. "I was a little bit wary of them at first, but now I think they're brilliant."

The census is required as part of the license terms of British zoos, and the data is used for zoo management and international breeding programs for endangered animals. The final tally could take weeks.

Most animals in the zoo have microchips in their bodies, making counting a little less daunting. Fish and animals with camouflage properties such as leaf insects are trickier, and the tiniest ones such as ants are counted in colonies, not as individuals.

New additions to the zoo being counted for the first time included baby Ziggy, an endangered white-naped mangabey monkey, and Maxilla, a black-and-white colobus monkey.

The zoo also welcomed a pair of new Sumatran tigers male Jae Jae from a zoo in Ohio and female Melati, from Perth, Australia. The endangered tigers were matched by an international breeding program to ensure a genetically diverse population of animals.

"We breed them in the zoo because they are running out of time in the wild," said Field, who's hopeful the tigers will soon produce cubs.

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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - After nine days in theaters, "Django Unchained" is on pace to be Quentin Tarantino's highest grossing movie ever.

That's right, if the trend holds, the blood-soaked slave-revenge fable will rack up more at the box office than "Pulp Fiction" ($213.9 million worldwide), "Kill Bill Vol. 1" ($180.9 million worldwide), "Kill Bill Vol. 2" ($152.1 million worldwide) and previous record holder, "Inglourious Basterds" ($321.4 million worldwide).

Even though "Django Unchained" has only debuted stateside, with $82.4 million through January 2, it is outstripping all of the previous Tarantino movie mash-ups. At a similar point in its rollout, "Inglourious Basterds" had netted $67.6 million domestically, according to Box Office Mojo.

"It's the Quentin Tarantino brand," Phil Contrino, vice president and chief analyst with Boxoffice.com, told TheWrap. "People appreciate what he's doing. He makes these purely cinematic movies that allow even casual moviegoers to feel like they get to be a film snob and the great cast helps."

With a Cinemascore rating of A- (something of an imperfect arbiter of quality given that "Parental Guidance" has the same score) and a RottenTomatoes ranking of 89 percent "fresh," the film has been embraced by both audiences and critics, which bodes well for the proverbial "word of mouth" business.

"The exit polls are fantastic, the results have been outstanding and we're looking forward to a long run," Erik Lomis, head of theatrical distribution at The Weinstein Company, told TheWrap.

Not that "Django Unchained" has been immune to criticism. A fierce debate has erupted over Tarantino's proclivity for using a certain racial epithet that begins with "N," with directors like Spike Lee boycotting the film and decrying it for making light of slavery.

However, the red-hot controversy does not appear to have singed ticket sales.

And Fandango Chief Correspondent Dave Karger argues that the controversy may be helping the film. He notes that the plethora of opinion pieces on the subject as well as a viral video of star Samuel L. Jackson trying and failing to get an interviewer to use the racist term have kept "Django Unchained" in the public eye.

"This is the kind of movie that, as the best movies do, really inspires conversation and debate afterward and that only helps it," Karger said. "There are going to be people turned off by the use of the word, but they're going to just avoid the movie, and clearly it hasn't been a huge deterrent."

Indeed, as of 7 a.m. PT, "Django" was the number-one ticket seller on Fandango, ahead of other holiday hits like "Les Mis rables" and "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey." It currently accounts for 21 percent of the ticketer's sales and, based on studio tracking, it should add another $18.5 million to its haul over the weekend.

That will likely push it over the $100 million mark after two weeks in theaters.

In contrast, it took "Inglourious Basterds" 23 days to hit a similar figure domestically. Moreover, by that point in its release schedule, "Inglourious Basterds" was never showing in less than 3,165 theaters whereas "Django Unchained" has never unspooled across more than 3,010 since it debuted, giving the Nazi drama a major per-screen advantage.

Starting on January 16, "Django Unchained" will find out if its film grindhouse humor translates abroad when it opens in France and Belgium and then rolls out across Russia, most of Europe and much of Latin America later that week. Sony will handle the international launch, while The Weinstein Company is overseeing the movie's domestic release.

Of course, highest grossing doesn't mean most successful. Adjusted for inflation, "Pulp Fiction," which amassed its $200 million-plus nearly 20 years ago, would be the top earner among the Tarantino oeuvre. Moreover, it still ranks as the director's most successful film having been produced for a meager $8 million.

Operating under the principle you have to spend money to make it, the Weinstein Company shelled out $87 million to produce "Django Unchained." Still if foreign audiences embrace the picture and the film picks up Oscar nominations, the studio will ride out of the holiday season with an awful lot of green-backs in its saddlebags.

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