Danny Puff

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, is slated to meet with Vice President Joe Biden as he considers recommendations on how to respond to a mass shooting last month in Newtown, Connecticut, the White House said on Tuesday.

After the Newtown school shooting, which President Barack Obama called the worst day of his presidency, he asked Biden to come up with a broad range of ideas to curb gun violence - ideas he will unveil in his annual State of the Union address, traditionally given in late January.

Obama has said he wants new gun control measures passed during the first year of his second term, but gun control is a divisive issue in the United States where the right to bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution.

Biden's task force is examining legislation that would ban assault rifles, but is also looking at the role of violent movies and videogames in mass shootings and whether there is adequate access to mental health services.

Biden and his task force are slated to hold meeting this week with victims of gun violence, gun safety groups, hunting groups, and gun owners, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

"His group will also meet with representatives of the entertainment and video-game industries," Carney said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will meet with mental health and disability advocates, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan is slated to meet with parent, teacher and education groups, Carney said.

The NRA has proposed armed guards in schools, an idea about which Obama has expressed skepticism.

The group's top lobbyist, James J. Baker, will attend the task force meeting on Thursday, an NRA spokesman said.

"We are sending a representative to hear what they have to say," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said in an e-mailed statement.

(Additional reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Sandra Maler and Jackie Frank)

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TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese-led team of scientists has captured on film the world's first live images of a giant squid, journeying to the depths of the ocean in search of the mysterious creature thought to have inspired the myth of the "kraken", a tentacled monster.

The images of the silvery, three-metre (10 feet) long cephalopod, looming out of the darkness nearly 1 km below the surface, were taken last July near the Ogasawara islands, 1,000 km (620 miles) south of Tokyo.

Though the beast was small by giant squid standards - the largest ever caught stretched 18 metres long, tentacles and all - filming it secretly in its natural habitat was a key step towards understanding the animal, researchers said.

"Many people have tried to capture an image of a giant squid alive in its natural habitat, whether researchers or film crews. But they all failed," said Tsunemi Kubodera, a zoologist at Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science, who led the team.

"These are the first ever images of a real live giant squid," Kubodera said of the footage, shot by Japanese national broadcaster NHK and the Discovery Channel.

[Slideshow: Tiniest animals on the planet]

The key to their success, said Kubodera, was a small submersible rigged with lights invisible to both human and cephalopod eyes.

He, a cameraman and the submersible's pilot drifted silently down to 630 metres and released a one-metre-long squid as bait. In all, they descended around 100 times.

"If you try and approach making a load of noise, using a bright white light, then the squid won't come anywhere near you. That was our basic thinking," Kubodera said.

[Slideshow: NatGeo's 2012 photo contest winners]

"So we sat there in the pitch black, using a near-infrared light invisible even to the human eye, waiting for the giant squid to approach."

As the squid neared they began to film, following it into the depths to around 900 metres.

"I've seen a lot of giant squid specimens in my time, but mainly those hauled out of the ocean. This was the first time for me to see with my own eyes a giant squid swimming," he said. "It was stunning, I couldn't have dreamt that it would be so beautiful. It was such a wonderful creature."

Until recently, little was known about the creature believed to be the real face of the mythical kraken, a sea-monster blamed by sailors for sinking ships off Norway in the 18th century.

But for Kubodera, the animal held no such terror.

"A giant squid essentially lives a solitary existence, swimming about all alone in the deep sea. It doesn't live in a group," he said. "So when I saw it, well, it looked to me like it was rather lonely."

(Reporting by Ruairidh Villar; Writing by Elaine Lies; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

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PARIS (Reuters) - French film star Gerard Depardieu failed to show up in court to face drink driving charges on Tuesday as he pursued a headline-grabbing world tour that has seen him set up an alleged tax haven home in Belgium and pick up a passport in Russia.

The garrulous actor's lawyer said he had missed the hearing in Paris because he was now in Montenegro, holding meetings over a film in which he will play disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

The no-show means the case will turn into a full trial - guaranteeing yet another day in the spotlight for Depardieu who is already caught up in a public row with French authorities over his tax status.

It could also lead to the 64-year-old star of "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "Asterix and Obelix" getting a tougher sentence if convicted - in theory up to two years in prison.

"Despite wanting to be there and meet the judges and in no way to escape justice, Gerard Depardieu absolutely could not be present," his lawyer Eric de Caumont told a scrum of reporters outside the Paris courtroom on Tuesday.

He said his client was in Montenegro negotiating a deal for an upcoming film in which he would play Strauss-Kahn, who was seen as the next Socialist president of France before a U.S. sex scandal bought down his career last year.

A day earlier on Monday, Depardieu celebrated at a FIFA awards ceremony in Zurich.

Depardieu is accused of crashing his scooter in Paris with more than three times the legal limit of alcohol in his blood. No one else was injured in the accident.

The actor did not have to attend the hearing. But many defendants have used similar pre-trial sessions to strike a bargain with prosecutors and accept a lighter sentence in exchange for acknowledging guilt.

Depardieu hit the headlines last month after he bought a house over the border in Belgium, spurring accusations he was trying to dodge a proposed new tax on millionaires.

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called the move "pathetic" and unpatriotic.

Last week, Depardieu accepted a Russian passport, provoking even fiercer charges that he had abandoned his homeland.

Russia has a flat income tax rate of 13 percent, compared to the 75 percent on income over 1 million euros ($1.32 million) that President Francois Hollande wants to levy in France.

Depardieu on Monday denied he was leaving France for tax reasons.

"I have a Russian passport, but I remain French and I will probably have dual Belgian nationality. But if I'd wanted to escape the taxman, as the French press say, I would have done it a long time ago," he said.

Depardieu is a larger-than-life and outspoken figure who began his long career playing thugs and drop-outs before moving on to leading-man roles in films like the romantic comedy "Green Card".

A few months before the scooter incident, a car driver accused Depardieu of assault and battery during an altercation in Paris. Last year, the actor outraged passengers on an Air France flight by urinating into a bottle in the aisle.

(Additional Reporting by Thierry Leveque.; Editing by Mark John and Andrew Heavens)

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VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The ubiquitous term "spread" - a staple of financial news bulletins and one of the main measures of investor sentiment - has now penetrated even the elevated lexicon of the papacy.

In his speech to diplomats from around the world, Pope Benedict chastised those who only think of a "spread" in financial terms. He said there should be a simultaneous concern for a social "spread" - the gap between the rich and poor.

"If the differential index between financial taxes represents a source of concern, the increasing differences between those few who grow ever richer and the many who grow hopelessly poorer, should be a cause for dismay," the pope told the diplomats in his speech at the Vatican on Monday.

"In a word, it is a question of refusing to be resigned to a 'spread' in social well-being, while at the same time fighting one in the financial sector," he said.

During the financial crisis facing Italy for more than a year, hardly a week has passed without a news report about the see-sawing spread - the risk premium investors demand to hold Italian bonds rather than their safer German equivalents.

The higher the spread, the greater interest payments are for Italy to finance its public debt. The spread was at 574 basis points about 14 months ago when Prime Minister Mario Monti took office, and is now at about 279 basis points.

But in the part of his speech that centred on financial issues - most of the address was dedicated to hot spots such as Syria - the pope said politicians had to consider people as well as numbers.

"Certainly, if justice is to be achieved, good economic models, however necessary, are not sufficient. Justice is achieved only when people are just," he said.

As far as the spread is concerned, Benedict, a world-class theologian who by his own admission is not good with numbers, is only the latest person to be unexpectedly touched by the S-word.

Last month Monti told a television interviewer that talk of bond spreads had filtered down from the power lunches of bankers and brokers all the way to his grandson's kindergarten.

"The youngest of my daughter's three children was home and saw a news programme on television and they were talking about the spread," Monti said. "And he said 'Mamma, but I'm Spread'".

It seems the word has become so much a part of the common lexicon that his schoolmates gave him the nickname "Spread".

(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - David R. Ellis, the child actor and former stuntman who went on to direct gory films including "Snakes on a Plane", has been found dead in a Johannesburg hotel.

Ellis, 60, was last seen alive in a restaurant on Saturday. His body was discovered in a bathroom by a hotel manager at the weekend. There was no indication of foul play or robbery, police said in a statement on Tuesday.

"It is unknown what was the cause of death," South African police said.

Ellis was in South Africa shooting a movie.

His 2006 film "Snakes on a Plane" about reptiles slithering through a jet inflicting gruesome deaths on passengers spawned numerous parodies, massive internet hoopla and was one of the most heavily hyped films of the North American summer season.

The film's star, Samuel L. Jackson, threatened to quit when the studio considered changing the title, saying he had taken the job based on the name.

"So talented, so kind, such a Good Friend. He'll be missed. Gone too soon!" Jackson tweeted on Tuesday.

Ellis also directed other B-list thrillers including "Shark Night" and "Cellular".

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz, editing by Paul Casciato)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) During production of his final post-midnight show, Jimmy Kimmel's studio audience waited patiently while he taped a string of promotional spots.

"Hey, Denver: You, me, now at 10:35. Let's not be weird about this," the host quipped to the camera in his Hollywood Boulevard studio.

"This will be good for us," Kimmel said earnestly in another local station promo.

The message in each spot whether "Jimmy Kimmel Live" is on at 11:35 p.m. in the East and West or earlier elsewhere is that Kimmel will be playing in the same league as veterans Jay Leno and David Letterman, starting Tuesday with guests Jennifer Aniston and No Doubt.

The message Kimmel delivered to a recent teleconference was equally concise: He won't be changing his style for the move, pushing aside conventional wisdom that edgier late-night humor won't play in Peoria or elsewhere before the clock strikes 12.

It's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," after all, that has given the world such brashly funny videos as the Matt Damon-Sarah Silverman musical romp with bleep-worthy lyrics.

"There's this idea that you need to broaden the show or make it ... more wholesome or something like that. And I think that's a little bit out-of-date, that perception," Kimmel told reporters.

"I guess only time will tell," he added, in his typically low-key delivery.

Just as with Kimmel's promised approach to the most coveted time period in late-night, ABC is taking a bold step by swapping "Nightline" with his show. The news program, offering viewers a non-talk show option, has been the period's ratings leader.

But the network likely won't be sweating the early returns, according to analyst Brad Adgate of Horizon Media. He says putting Kimmel into the pre-midnight pocket, when more viewers are still up and watching, is a strategy aimed at an inevitable future.

"Leno and Letterman aren't going to be doing this forever," Adgate said, and ABC gives him a head start on establishing himself by putting him on now.

"This is something you may scratch your head at now, but in five years from now he's the incumbent and the leader" in the time period, the analyst said.

Long-term schemes, of course, don't always pan out. Despite anointing Conan O'Brien as its new "Tonight" host five years before he made the move in 2009, NBC ended up with a mess on its hands that saw O'Brien bolt to TBS and Leno retake "Tonight" in 2010 after his short-lived prime-time series.

Whether Kimmel gets a jump on his opponents-to-be with Jimmy Fallon the expected pick for "Tonight" being the late-night ruler is a far different proposition than in Johnny Carson's day. The "Tonight" institution, operating virtually unopposed, could average a nightly audience of as much as 15 million.

That's unimaginable in today's fragmented TV world. Leno claims the top talk-show spot with some 3.5 million average viewers, followed by Letterman on CBS with 2.8 million. "Jimmy Kimmel Live" was drawing under 2 million nightly viewers at 12:05 Eastern but, according to Nielsen Co. ratings, finished up 2012 with a 10-year viewership high.

The demographics also have changed, with more advertiser-favored young viewers gravitating to cable options such as Adult Swim or Comedy Central and increasingly likely to catch up online with the best moments of network late-night.

But the 11:35 p.m. East-West sweet spot remains the prize, and Kimmel may have more than the desire to succeed in mind. While he's a long-time admirer of Letterman, he's taken sharp public jabs at Leno, including blaming him for O'Brien's ill-fated tenure at "Tonight."

So Kimmel is humble about competing directly with Letterman (calling him a "legend in broadcasting" who shouldn't bat an eye at the prospect of new competition) but is throwing elbows at Leno, especially over the "Tonight" plan to get out ahead of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" by airing at 11:34 p.m. Eastern.

"Well, I think NBC has had a lot of success moving Jay Leno earlier so it makes perfect sense," he said, dryly, referring to Leno's short-lived prime-time stint. Kimmel dismissed the time-shifting as likely a brief "trick" to protect "Tonight" ratings, one that ultimately won't matter.

"This really isn't about the first month or about the first week or about the first night, it's a long-term thing," Kimmel told reporters. "If we do well the first week, I'm sure there will be a lot of press given to that. But what really matters is how you do in May, and that's when we'll really know ... where we stand."

___

Online:

http://abc.go.com/

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PARIS (AP) French actor Gerard Depardieu will not show up at a Paris court Tuesday to face drunken driving charges because he has clashing professional commitments abroad, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Depardieu's lawyer Eric de Caumont said his client was not trying to dodge French justice, but is abroad "meeting the producers of a movie," whose filming in the United States will begin in January.

The 64-year-old star of films such as "Green Card" and "Cyrano de Bergerac" was picked up last November by police after he fell off his scooter in northwest Paris.

The drunken driving hearing will now be deferred to a criminal court, and he could lose his driving license and could face up to two years in jail, Caumont said.

Depardieu has caused controversy in recent weeks for other reasons. On Saturday he received a Russian passport from President Vladimir Putin, after threatening to return his French passport after Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called him "pathetic" for deciding to move to tax-friendly Belgium.

In a much publicized letter in December, Depardieu also made reference to his headline-grabbing lifestyle: "I won't cast a stone at (people) who have cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes or too much alcohol or those who fall asleep on their scooter: I am one of them, as you dear media outlets like so much to repeat."

Back in 1998, Depardieu also crashed his motorcycle when his blood-alcohol limit was five times over the legal limit, escaping with leg and face injuries.

_____

Follow Thomas Adamson at http://Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP

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LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Sony Corp. is finally pressing its advantage as a conglomerate that owns both high-tech gadgets and the content that plays on them by being the only electronics maker to offer ultra-HD TVs and a way to get movies to the new super clear screens.

Ultra-high definition TVs, which quadruple the number of pixels of current high definition technology, have been the talk of the International CES gadget show so far. But only Sony has offered a content solution to go with them.

With 84-inch ultra-HD set it launched in November, Sony threw in a tablet and computer server that has 10 movies preloaded on the device for $25,000. The movies came from the library of Sony Pictures or its subsidiary Columbia Pictures, like "The Amazing Spider-Man" and "The Karate Kid."

On Monday, Sony unveiled 55-inch and 65-inch ultra-HD sets that will sell this spring for an undisclosed price believed to be below $10,000. The Japanese electronics maker said it would launch a download service this summer in the U.S. so buyers of the smaller sets would have access to movies in the clearer format.

For now, it will offer the same 10 movies from its library for download.

After unveiling the service, Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai told reporters that the ultra-HD movies could be made available to other makers like Samsung or LG later. The company is eyeing coordination with other movie studios, but not immediately.

"That's a key differentiator from a Sony perspective that really speaks to the advantage of what we have in terms of both the electronics business and the content business," he said. "For the time being, that's something we bring exclusively to our customers."

Sony is betting big on ultra-HD, and is a leading supplier of a high-end cameras that shoot in the format, which renders moving images at a resolution of 3,840 pixels wide and 2,160 pixels tall. That is twice the length and width of high definition, resulting in four times as many pixels, or more than 8 million.

The company also makes projectors that show movies in so-called 4K, and Hirai said that anyone who has been to the movies lately has probably experienced it firsthand without realizing it.

Getting these higher resolution files to home televisions is no small matter. A Blu-ray disc format has not been created yet and broadcasters are years away from offering TV signals at the higher resolution.

Sony representatives said that buyers of its 55-inch and 65-inch TVs may be asked to buy an ultra-HD server separately, although a final decision hadn't been made. It is also unclear how much downloadable movies will cost.

The company said it would offer Blu-ray discs that are mastered in 4K but compressed to fit on a current Blu-ray disc. The TV's embedded technology presents the compressed movie at close to 4K resolution, but not quite as good as when they are played from the 4K media player.

But with all new technologies, there were glitches.

Hirai had an embarrassing moment Monday when he introduced the world's first ultra-HD TV using organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), only to see the screen go blank as the computer running it had an error.

"This revolutionary TV combines the world's largest OLED display with dazzling 4K resolution, including this beautiful ... interface screen," he said, then turned to see a blank screen as chuckles rippled through the crowd.

Later, Hirai looked back at the 56-inch display only to see the error continue.

"Excellent," he said.

A Sony staffer rolled the TV further away and Hirai carried on his presentation. He later appeared to be good-natured with journalists.

Hirai said the ultra-HD OLED set is a prototype and didn't announce price or availability.

In the Sony booth after the presentation, other ultra-HD OLED screens played without a problem.

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NEW YORK (AP) "Mary Poppins" is closing up its big umbrella on Broadway.

An official close to the show's producers said Monday that the 6-year-old musical will end performances in March at the New Amsterdam Theatre and eventually be replaced by a musical adapted from the film "Aladdin."

The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak before the official announcement. The New York Post first reported the news, citing an anonymous source. A Disney representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Mary Poppins," co-produced by Disney and Cameron Mackintosh, is based both on the children's books by P.L. Travers and the 1964 movie starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. It tells the story of the world's most practically perfect nanny in Edwardian London.

With a big cast, lavish sets and stunts that include Mary flying with her umbrella and Bert the chimney sweep tap dancing upside-down, the show was a hit after opening in 2006, two years after debuting in London.

The show is part of Disney Theatrical Productions' five big Broadway hits from seven attempts since 1994 a profitable list that includes "The Lion King" and the more recent "Newsies." That's way above the 3-in-10 average recoupment of most Broadway shows. "Mary Poppins" routinely grosses over $1 million every week despite the presence of touring versions.

When it closes, it will have been performed 2,619 times and have been seen by more than 4 million people. It recouped its initial Broadway investment within a year, and has gone on to be among the top 10 grossing shows for the past six years and top five for attendance. It will rank as the 22nd longest-running show in Broadway history.

Its soon-to-be vacant home at the New Amsterdam Theatre will be taken by the musical "Aladdin," which has melodies by Alan Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice the same team who created the animated film version that starred Robin Williams. The musical, with a book by Chad Beguelin, had its premiere in Seattle in summer 2011.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted citizenship to Gerard Depardieu, the French movie star whose decision to quit his homeland to avoid a tax hike prompted accusations of national betrayal.

The "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "Green Card" actor bought a house across the border in Belgium last year to avoid a new tax rate for millionaires planned by France's Socialist President Francois Hollande, but said he could also seek tax exile elsewhere.

Putin said last month that Depardieu would be welcome in Russia, which has a flat income tax rate of 13 percent, compared to the 75 percent on income over 1 million euros ($1.32 million) that Hollande wants to levy in France.

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called Depardieu's decision to seek Belgian residency "pathetic" and unpatriotic at a time when the French are being asked to pay higher taxes to reduce a bloated national debt.

"I am leaving because you believe that success, creation, talent, anything different must be sanctioned," the actor retorted in a letter published by a newspaper, saying he would hand in his passport and social security card.

Depardieu is well known in Russia, where he has appeared in many advertising campaigns. He worked in the country in 2011 on a film about the eccentric Russian monk Grigory Rasputin.

French media teased Depardieu, showing clips of the actor's Russian work that were unknown at home, including the Rasputin film and a commercial for ketchup.

Magazine L'Express put together a slideshow on its website of other countries that he could flee to, suggesting Italy where he has starred in commercials for Barilla pasta, or Japan, given that the actor owns a Japanese food shop in Paris.

Depardieu welcomed the move to grant him Russian citizenship, according to excerpts of a letter published by a Russian state TV website.

"I love your culture, your intelligence," the letter read. "My father was a communist of that era. He listened to Radio Moscow! That is my culture too."

Depardieu's publicist Francois Hassan Guerrar was not immediately available to comment on the letter.

Depardieu was one of several Western celebrities invited to celebrate the birthday of Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's Kremlin-backed leader, in 2012.

Depardieu, 63, had told friends he was considering three options to escape France's new tax regime: settling in Belgium, relocating to Montenegro, where he has a business, or moving to Russia, French daily Le Monde reported in December.

Putin told a news conference last month: "If Gerard really wants to have either a residency permit in Russia or a Russian passport, we will assume that this matter is settled and settled positively.

"I know that he (Depardieu) considers himself a Frenchman. He loves his country very much, its history its culture - this is his life, and I'm sure he is going through a tough time now," Putin said.

The Kremlin's website said on Thursday that Putin had signed a decree granting Depardieu citizenship. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was not necessary for Depardieu to move to Russia - that would be the actor's decision.

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Westerners still knew little of Russia's tax regime.

"When they find out, we can expect a mass migration of rich Europeans to Russia," Rogozin, a nationalist politician and former envoy to NATO, said on Twitter.

WELCOME TO RUSSIA

Muscovites said they would welcome Depardieu. "He is a normal guy. He is fond of drinking too, I suppose, the Russian way, so let him come here," said one resident, Lev Nikolaevich.

Putin has in the past spoken of good relations with France, which he visited last June, but he is a frequent critic of the West. He had a tense summit with the European Union last month and wants the bloc to move faster toward visa-free travel.

Since the Cold War, Moscow has often expressed support for Westerners at odds with their governments - a way to counter what Putin says is hypocritical U.S. and European criticism of the Kremlin's treatment of its own citizens.

In 2010, a Kremlin official suggested Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should be nominated for a Nobel Prize.

News of the decree granting Depardieu citizenship set off a frenzy of wry commentary on Russian social networking sites, some musing on why a Westerner would want a Russian passport.

One cartoon posted on the Internet depicted Putin and Depardieu as characters from the French comic books Asterix.

Another showed what appeared to be a nude photo of Depardieu on vacation, with a caption that referred to him as "our compatriot", playing on foreign criticism of how Russians behave on holiday.

Russia does not require people to hand in their foreign passports once they acquire a Russian one. Many Russians have citizenship of other countries and travel without problems.

Depardieu could also request Belgian nationality but has not yet made such a request, said Georges Dallemagne, head of Belgium's parliamentary committee that oversees naturalizations.

"As a Russian he could certainly remain in Belgium, he would possibly need the necessary visas but for a short period he could stay here," said Dallemagne.

France's Constitutional Council last month blocked the planned 75 percent tax rate due to the way it would be applied - but Hollande plans to propose redrafted legislation which will "still ask more of those who have the most".

(Additional reporting by Steve Gutterman, Nikolai Isayev and Alexander Fedorov in Moscow, Catherine Bremer in Paris and Robert-Jan Bartunek in Belgium; Writing by Megan Davies; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

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