Danny Puff

BERLIN (Reuters) - Knut, the hand-reared polar bear who captured Germans' hearts before his early death in 2011, returned to his adoring Berlin public on Friday as a life-sized model bearing the animal's real fur.

Knut will stand for a month in the entrance foyer of the city's natural history museum, which has modified its entrance for the anticipated rush of visitors, a museum spokeswoman said.

The museum is keen to stress that Knut has not been stuffed. Rather, a replica of the bear was made, based on Knut's skeleton, in one of his favourite poses, and this was covered with the creature's pelt, in a procedure known as dermoplasty.

The model has expressive eyes and a damp nose, museum director Johannes Vogel said.

"I think people will accept Knut, because this is a very dignified model.. People who knew Knut very well while he was alive recognise their Knut here again."

Knut was the star attraction of Berlin zoo during his four-year life. His mother rejected him as a new-born leaving the fluffy white cub to be reared by a zookeeper. Thousands of visitors queued for hours to watch him frolic in his enclosure, and he inspired a dizzying array of merchandise.

Other German zoos have tried in vain to create celebrity animals. None have ever come close to matching Knut's fame.

The bear died suddenly of an epileptic fit in March 2011.

(Reporting by Reuters television; writing by Alexandra Hudson, editing by Paul Casciato)

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Facebook is getting an unwelcome look at the shady side of the hacking culture that CEO Mark Zuckerberg celebrates.

Intruders recently infiltrated the systems running the world's largest online social network but did not steal any sensitive information about Facebook's more than 1 billion users, according to a blog posting Friday by the company's security team.

The unsettling revelation is the latest breach to expose the digital cracks in a society and an economy that is storing an ever-growing volume of personal and business data online.

The news didn't seem to faze investors. Facebook Inc.'s stock dipped 10 cents to $28.22 in Friday's extended trading.

The main building at Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters lists its address as 1 Hacker Way. From there, Facebook serves as the gatekeeper for billions of potentially embarrassing photos and messages that get posted each month.

This time, at least, that material didn't get swept up in the digital break-in that Facebook said it discovered last month. The company didn't say why it waited until the afternoon before a holiday weekend to inform its users about the hack.

It was a sophisticated attack that also hit other companies, according to Facebook, which didn't identify the targets.

"As part of our ongoing investigation, we are working continuously and closely with our own internal engineering teams, with security teams at other companies, and with law enforcement authorities to learn everything we can about the attack, and how to prevent similar incidents in the future," Facebook wrote on the blog.

Online short-messaging service Twitter acknowledged being hacked earlier this month. In that security breakdown, Twitter warned that the attackers may have stolen user names, email addresses and encrypted passwords belonging to 250,000 of the more than 200 million accounts set up on its service.

Late last month, both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal two of the three largest U.S. newspapers said they were hit by China-based hackers believed to be interested in monitoring media coverage of topics that the Chinese government deemed important.

Facebook didn't identify a suspected origin of its hacking incident, but provided a few details about how it apparently happened.

The security lapse was traced to a handful of employees who visited a mobile software developer's website that had been compromised, which led to malware being installed on the workers' laptops. The PCs were infected even though they were supposed to be protected by the latest anti-virus software and were equipped with other up-to-date protection.

Facebook linked part of the problem to a security hole in the Java software that triggered a safety alert from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security last month. The government agency advised computer users to disable Java on their machines because of a weakness that could be exploited by hackers.

Oracle Corp., the owner of Java, has since issued a security patch that it says has fixed the problem. In its post, Facebook said it received the Java fix two weeks ago.

Facebook never mentioned the word "hack" in describing the breach. That, no doubt, was by design because hacking is a good thing in Zuckerberg's vernacular.

To most people, hacking conjures images of malevolent behavior by intruders listening to private voicemails and villains crippling websites or breaking into email accounts.

Zuckerberg provided his interpretation of the word in a manifesto titled "The Hacker Way" that he included in the documents that the company filed for its initial public offering of stock last year.

"The word 'hacker' has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed in the media as people who break into computers," Zuckerberg wrote. "In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done."

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Ryan O'Neal may have enough evidence to show that he was defamed by a man who claimed the actor stole a valuable portrait of the late Farrah Fawcett, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

A divided panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled that O'Neal's case against Craig Nevius, a former Fawcett associate, should be allowed to proceed and that the actor may be able to win some damages. One justice disagreed and wrote that the case should be dismissed.

O'Neal sued in July 2011, claiming he was defamed by Nevius' comments that the actor had stolen a Fawcett portrait created by Andy Warhol. The painting is the subject of a separate lawsuit between O'Neal and the University of Texas, which claims Fawcett left the artwork to the school after her 2009 death.

Nevius' attorney, Lincoln Bandlow, said he would appeal the ruling to the California Supreme Court. He had appealed a lower court's ruling allowing the case to go forward.

O'Neal's attorney Todd Eagan wrote in a statement that he and O'Neal were pleased with the ruling. "We look forward to a complete victory against Mr. Nevius at trial," he wrote.

O'Neal's suit seeks more than $1 million in damages. He claimed in the case that Warhol gave him the portrait and he intends to bequeath it to his only son from his longtime relationship with Fawcett, Redmond O'Neal.

Nevius' comments that O'Neal stole the artwork were made in interviews with Star magazine and "Good Morning America," and he cooperated with UT investigators searching for the portrait.

Although Nevius initially denied he accused O'Neal of stealing the painting, he acknowledged in a later court filing that he made the claim to university investigators.

"The inferences reasonably drawn from the evidence here would support a jury's finding that Nevius harbored strong ill-feelings toward O'Neal," the justices siding with O'Neal wrote. The dissent argues that Nevius' comments were constitutionally protected speech and the case should have been dismissed.

O'Neal's fight with UT over the portrait returns to court Feb. 27.

The actor and Nevius have battled in court for years.

Nevius collaborated on a documentary of Fawcett's fight with cancer but sued the actor claiming he interfered in the project and removed him from it shortly before Fawcett's death. The case was dismissed before trial.

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

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SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J. (AP) When Superstorm Sandy washed over this popular Jersey shore resort, water poured in through the heating vents and electrical outlets of Linda Polites' and Michael Riley's home. A 10-foot section of boardwalk slammed into the house as they fled to the attic. Hours later, they waded through armpit-deep water to a military truck, then headed to the first of five emergency shelters that have been their home since.

On Friday, they traveled from their current shelter to see the start of the reconstruction of the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, a town known worldwide from the MTV reality show "Jersey Shore."

"It's time to build new character," Riley said. "You don't lose your memories. It's time to make new ones."

Heavy equipment including a gigantic drill and a pile-driving machine were brought onto the sand in the south end of town Friday morning. They quickly began drilling holes in the sand and pounding wooden pilings into them, shaking the ground for blocks around.

It marked the beginning of a $3.6 million contract the borough awarded to rebuild the boardwalk. Mayor William Akers said the initial work restoring the boardwalk so that it can be walked on safely should be done by May 10. Railings, lighting and ramps will be part of a second contract that has yet to be awarded. The project is also likely to include a protective seawall, and cost between $6 million and $7 million, the mayor said.

"It's a huge day for us, a new beginning for the town," he said. "It's the culmination of a lot of hard work, starting with the rescues, the cleanup, the planning, culminating in the actual rebuilding of Seaside Heights."

The town's Jet Star roller coaster plunged off an amusement pier during the storm, coming to rest in the ocean as perhaps the most enduring image of Sandy. Plans still have not been finalized on how or when to remove it.

The entire length of the mile-long boardwalk is being rebuilt. It is the most famous of the numerous boardwalks destroyed by Sandy, known for its pizza and ice cream stands, its games of chance, arcades and bars with cheap beer specials.

Seaside Heights was famous long before MTV came to town, but Snooki, The Situation and Pauly D presented it to the world in a fist-pumping, hard-drinking blur. It angered some and delighted others until the show ended last year.

Michael Loundy, a real estate agent who rents out the house where the "Jersey Shore" cast lived while filming, could not overestimate the importance of getting the boardwalk back. (The cast's house was not seriously damaged in the storm.)

"This is a proud moment for all of us, after everything we went through with Sandy," he said. "We're excited about rebuilding. We loved Seaside the way it was and we'll love it again."

He said potential tourist want to know if Seaside Heights will be ready in time for vacation season.

"Our phones are ringing," he said. "People want to know: 'Is the town open? Will you be ready? Will the beach be ready?' We absolutely will be ready."

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Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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WASHINGTON (AP) In a spectacular fall from political prominence, former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife agreed Friday to plead guilty to federal charges growing out of what prosecutors said was a scheme to use $750,000 in campaign funds for lavish personal expenses, including a $43,000 gold watch and furs.

Federal prosecutors filed one charge of conspiracy against the former Chicago congressman and charged his ex-alderman wife, Sandra, with one count of filing false joint federal income tax returns for the years 2006 through 2011 that knowingly understated the income the couple received. Both agreed to plead guilty in deals with federal prosecutors.

Both face maximum penalties of several years in prison; he also faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and forfeitures. But the government did not immediately release the text of its plea agreements. Such agreements almost invariably call for prosecutors to recommend sentences below the maximum.

The son of a famed civil rights leader, Jackson, a Democrat, entered Congress in 1995 and resigned last November. Sandi, as she's known, was a Chicago alderman, but resigned last month amid the federal investigation.

Jackson used campaign money to buy such things as a $43,350 on a gold-plated, men's Rolex watch and $9,587.64 on children's furniture, according to court papers filed in the case. His wife spent $5,150 on fur capes and parkas, the document said.

"I offer no excuses for my conduct, and I fully accept my responsibility for the improper decisions and mistakes I have made," the ex-congressman said in a written statement released by his lawyers. "I want to offer my sincerest apologies ... for my errors in judgment and while my journey is not yet complete, it is my hope that I am remembered for things that I did right."

Several messages left with Jackson's father, the voluble civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, were not returned Friday. The elder Jackson has often declined to comment about his son's health and legal woes over the past several months.

The government said, "Defendant Jesse L. Jackson Jr., willingly and knowingly, used approximately $750,000 from the campaign's accounts for personal expenses" that benefited him and his co-conspirator, who was not named in the one-count criminal information filed in the case. The filing of a criminal information means a defendant has waived the right to have a grand jury consider the case; it is used by federal prosecutors when they have reached a deal for a guilty plea.

The prosecutors' court filing said that upon conviction, Jackson must forfeit $750,000, plus tens of thousands of dollars' worth of memorabilia items and furs. The memorabilia includes a football signed by U.S. presidents, a Michael Jackson and Eddie Van Halen guitar, a Michael Jackson fedora, Martin Luther King Jr. memorabilia, Malcolm X memorabilia, Jimi Hendrix memorabilia and Bruce Lee memorabilia all from a company called Antiquities of Nevada.

The conspiracy charge carries a maximum statutory penalty of up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and other penalties. U.S. District Judge Robert L. Wilkins is assigned to the case.

Tom Kirsch, an attorney for Jackson's wife said she has signed a plea agreement with federal prosecutors and would plead guilty to one tax count.

Kirsch said his client and her husband have supported each other. He said the episode has been stressful for Sandi Jackson, but she "expected to be held responsible ... and wants to put (it) behind her and her family."

The charge against Sandi Jackson carries a maximum of three-year prison sentence. But Kirsch says the agreement "does not contemplate a sentence of that length."

The court papers said that Jackson filed false financial reports with the U.S. House of Representatives in an attempt to conceal his and his wife's conversion of campaign funds for their personal benefit.

A black and red cashmere cape cost $1,500, a mink reversible parka cost $1,200 and a black fox reversible cost $1,500, prosecutors wrote.

According the government's court papers:

Jackson and his wife carried out the scheme by using credit cards issued to Jackson's re-election campaigns to pay personal credit card bills for $582,772.58 in purchases by Jackson. Jackson provided his wife and a long-time campaign treasurer $112,150.39, solely for having the two carry out transactions that personally benefited Jackson.

In a false filing with the House, the owner of an unidentified Alabama-based company issued a $25,000 check to pay down a balance on one of Jackson's personal credit cards. Jackson's financial disclosure statement with the House omitted the payment made on Jackson's behalf.

In a false campaign filing with the Federal Election Commission, an unidentified treasurer for Jackson's campaigns reported that the campaign spent $1,553.09 at a Chicago Museum for "room rental-fundraiser." In fact, said the court papers, Jackson spent those funds to buy porcelain collector's items.

Jackson's resignation ended a once-promising political career tarnished by unproven allegations that he was involved in discussions to raise campaign funds for imprisoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in exchange for appointment which never came to President Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat. The House Ethics Committee, which no longer has any power over Jackson, may choose to issue a report on the matter.

Jackson denied any wrongdoing in the Blagojevich matter. But the suspicions, along with revelations that he had had an extramarital affair, derailed any aspirations for higher political office. It wasn't clear from the court papers whether the woman with whom he had the affair was among the half dozen people identified the documents by letters of the alphabet rather than by their names.

Since last June, Jackson has been hospitalized twice at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for treatment of bipolar disorder and other issues, and he stayed out of the public eye for months, even during the November elections.

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Associated Press writer Michael Tarm in Chicago contributed to this report.

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NEW YORK (AP) From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama, C-SPAN is taking a look at first ladies.

On Monday, the public service network is launching a 35-part series on first ladies that will stretch for a year. Almost all of the first ladies will get a single 90-minute episode.

Executive Producer Mark Farkas says the stories are an interesting way to look at political and social history. Dolly Madison and Eleanor Roosevelt were very influential. There also have been tragic figures, like Jane Pierce, whose son was killed shortly before husband Franklin's inauguration. She didn't make an appearance as first lady for two years.

C-SPAN is working with the White House Historical Association on the series.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Jerry Trainor was wrapping up five seasons as goofy big brother Spencer on Nickelodeon's "iCarly" when his next job popped up in the same TV neighborhood.

This time, Trainor moves from sidekick to star in the channel's new "Wendell & Vinnie." The sitcom features the lanky actor as a carefree single guy who becomes guardian to his orphaned nephew, Wendell (Buddy Handleson, "Shake It Up").

Vinnie is a "real dude," Trainor said, whose time is spent on video games, comic books and looking for hot dates. Wendell is a 12-year-old who's well above his uncle on the maturity scale.

Together, they're an odd couple who get by with help from each other and their extended family, including Vinnie's sister Wilma (Nicole Sullivan, "MadTV") and divorced neighbor and Vinnie's potential love interest Taryn (Haley Strode).

The 20-episode season, debuting 8 p.m. EST Saturday, will include guest appearances by Dan Castellaneta ("The Simpsons"), Robin Givens ("House of Payne") and Willie Garson ("Sex and the City").

Trainor, 36, said he was weighing pilot scripts when the one for "Wendell & Vinnie" came his way from writer-producer Jay Kogen ("Frasier," ''Malcom in the Middle").

"I was blown away," Trainor said. "It was hilarious. ... I immediately called my manager and said this is the one."

The series has an added bonus because it's a traditional multi-camera show taped in front of a studio audience: "The fact I get to go up in front of an audience week after week, that is my drug," he said.

Trainor has made a comfortable home at Nickelodeon, with hit "iCarly," the Crazy Steve character he played on "Drake & Josh," the 2010 TV movie "Best Player" and his ongoing work on the animated comedy "T.U.F.F. Puppy" as the voice of Dudley Puppy.

Did he feel like busting out post-"iCarly" with an adult-oriented series at a broadcast network channel? It's something he thought about.

Such a series could come with more money and "more street cred," he acknowledged. "But that is all empty compared to doing something you genuinely enjoy, and this is that in spades."

Will viewers see "it being Nickelodeon and me being the character of an (immature) person and go, 'Well, he's just doing 'iCarly' again,'" he said. "Or will they see what I saw, which is the content of it, which is very different."

Nickelodeon is trying to capitalize on Trainor's following from "iCarly" by airing "Wendell & Vinnie" on the same night, Saturday, (with an encore Sunday). But it aims for a wider audience, with a high ratio of adult characters to children introduced in episode one, along with grown-up dating quandaries.

"Jerry has had a huge following with our kid and family audience for many years," said Russell Hicks, Nickelodeon's president of content development and production. He predicted that viewers will connect with Vinnie's challenges in the "broad physical comedy."

The series balances laughs with inherent sadness: Vinnie and Wendell are together because the boy's parents died. But that event happened three months before we meet the pair, and it's touched on carefully in the pilot.

The shared tragedy Vinnie and Wilma lost a sibling, Wendell his mom and dad provides emotional depth to the show, said Trainor: "We don't belabor it, but it's there."

If "Wendell & Vinnie" scores with viewers, the actor could be comfortably employed for some time. But does he want to mix it up with weightier projects? Maybe someday, he said, singling Tom Hanks as a role model for his evolution from the comedy of "Bosom Buddies" and "Money Pit" to the drama of "Philadelphia" and beyond.

"That's not part of me that I have to do something dark to prove to people that I'm an actor. The fuel for me is the laugh," Trainor said. "Maybe later I'll want to show people the darker side. ... But right now, I'm having too much fan making people laugh. And it really makes me feel good."

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Lynn Elber is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. She can be reached at lelber(at)ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/lynnelber .

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ATLANTA (AP) Stevie Wonder is not happy with Lil Wayne's vulgar lyrics that reference Emmett Till, a black teen who was killed in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

The R&B legend says the rapper's disturbing verse should not have made it beyond the recording studio for the world to hear.

"You can't equate that to Emmett Till," Wonder said. "You just cannot do that. ... I think you got to have someone around you that even if they are the same age or older is wiser to say, 'Yo, that's not happening. Don't do that.'"

Wonder, who says he is a fan and friend of Lil Wayne, made the comments when asked what he thought of Lil Wayne's controversial lyrics in an interview Thursday.

On a remix to Future's song "Karate Chop," Lil Wayne compared a rough sex act to the tortuous death of 14-year-old Till in Mississippi, an incident that ultimately helped change the national conversation on race. Following a crude reference to rough sex, Lil Wayne indicates that he wanted to do as much damage as had been done to Till.

Till's family has asked the rapper for an apology, and Epic Records, Future's label, said the official song will not feature the vulgar words and is employing "great efforts" to pull it down.

Wonder, 62, hopes the 30-year-old Grammy winner understands the perspective of the Till family and chooses his words wisely in the future.

"Sometimes people have to put themselves in the place of people who they are talking about," Wonder said. "Imagine if that happened to your mother, brother, daughter or your son. How would you feel? Have some discernment before we say certain things. That goes for me or any other (song)writer."

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Follow Jonathan Landrum Jr. on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MrLandrum31

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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Sarah Palin, ever-eager to skewer the "lamestream media," took Washington Post blogger Suzi Parker to task Tuesday after the writer mistakenly claimed the former Alaska governor was hired by the TV network Al Jazeera America.

Parker, who writes for the She The People blog, cited the satirical news site the Daily Currant in a story that claimed Palin had joined the Qatari-owned network as a talking head.

"Hey @washingtonpost, I'm having coffee with Elvis this week," Palin quipped on Twitter, claiming she was meeting with the long-dead King of Rock. "He works at the Mocha Moose in Wasilla. #suziparkerscoopers #idiotmedia."

Earlier on Tuesday, Parker had reported that Al Jazeera America hired the former vice-presidential candidate and former Fox News contributor in a post titled "Sarah Palin's plan to reach 'millions of devoutly religious people' through al-Jazeera."

In her original post, Parker called it "a cautionary tale about what can happen when politics and celebrity meet."

Kris Coratti, a Post spokeswoman, pointed TheWrap to a correction on the post, which acknowledged the error. And Al Jazeera said "no discussions have taken place" to hire Palin, whose most recent employer, Fox News, called Al Jazeera "an anti-American terror mouthpiece."

Palin parted ways with the News Corporation-owned network after three years. She had a roughly $1 million contract per year and made more than 150 appearance on air.

But Palin hadn't finished with Parker just yet.

"A @washingtonpost writer once promised not to write about me for a month," Palin tweeted. "That was a good month for me. #idiotmedia."

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(Reuters) - Rick Huxley, the bassist for the 1960s British Invasion pop-rock group the Dave Clark Five, has died, the band's leader said on Tuesday. He was 72.

Huxley died unexpectedly at his home in the English countryside on Monday, Dave Clark told Reuters.

The band scored No. 1 hits on both sides of the Atlantic during its decade-long run from 1960-1970.

"Glad All Over" holds the honor of knocking the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" out of the top spot on the UK chart in 1964, while "Over and Over" topped the U.S. chart in 1965.

The cause of death was not immediately known, said Clark, who added that Huxley had been "sprightly and in good shape" despite suffering from emphysema for several years.

"I spoke to him on Friday and he was in great spirits," Clark said in a telephone call. "He went through a recent doctor's check and had a good, clean bill of health. This came totally out of the blue, and I'm just devastated."

Clark remembered Huxley for his modest demeanor and humor.

"He always made me smile and I'll miss that immensely," Clark said. "He was never arrogant and flashy. He was a gentleman and very low key. He was a very, very talented musician and a great friend."

The Dave Clark Five was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.

Huxley was born in Dartford, England, east of London, the same town that is home to the Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards.

Huxley is survived by two sons and a daughter.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey in Los Angeles; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Mohammad Zargham)

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