Danny Puff

CHICAGO (AP) Michelle Obama says it was "absolutely not surprising" to her that her satellite appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony provoked a national conversation about whether it was appropriate, after some conservative critics accused her of selfishly crashing the event in an attempt to upstage it.

She attributed the chatter to a culture shift that has spawned legions of bloggers, tweeters and others who talk about anything and everything all the time.

"Shoot, my bangs set off a national conversation. My shoes can set off a national conversation. That's just sort of where we are. We've got a lot of talking going on," the first lady said only somewhat jokingly Thursday before an appearance in Chicago, her hometown. "It's like everybody's kitchen-table conversation is now accessible to everybody else so there's a national conversation about anything."

In what was not the first-ever Oscar appearance by a first lady, Mrs. Obama was beamed live from the White House into Sunday's ceremony in Los Angeles to unseal the envelope and announce that the night's final award, for Best Picture, would go to "Argo." In 2002, Laura Bush appeared at the ceremony on videotape.

Americans have long been fascinated by their first ladies, scrutinizing everything from their clothes and hair to the issues they promote and how they raise their children. Mrs. Obama acknowledged that she and President Barack Obama have added appeal, and perhaps sometimes are subject to extra scrutiny, because they are the first black family in the White House but also a young couple (she turned 49 last month; he's 51) with young children (daughters Sasha, 11, and Malia, 14).

She said she doesn't give a second thought to critical comments about what she does as first lady.

Her strategy, she said, is to do things that further her larger goals and Oscar night fit with her support for the arts. She recently invited the director and cast members from the Oscar-nominated film "Beasts of the Southern Wild" to the White House to participate in a question-and-answer session with students from Washington and New Orleans who had seen the film at the executive mansion.

"I just don't think about that stuff," said Mrs. Obama, who was asked for her reaction to the criticism during an interview with a small group of reporters who were invited to accompany her on a three-city tour marking the third anniversary of her "Let's Move" campaign against childhood obesity.

She said she was astounded by the buzz about cutting her hair to add bangs, which she unveiled on her birthday, just before inauguration weekend.

Asked if she was surprised that the bangs made the news, Mrs. Obama said: "I was, I have to say. I'm like, 'it's a haircut.'"

In the interview, Mrs. Obama also revealed that she used a lot of salty language as a 10-year-old, which she said she didn't realize until the year it cost her the title of "best camper" at the day camp she and her brother, Craig, attended every summer. The experience taught her a lesson, she said.

"I was going through my cursing stage," she said. "I didn't realize until my camp counselor at the end came up and said, 'You know, you would have been best camper in your age group but you curse so much.' And I was thinking, 'Really. Was it that noticeable? And I thought I was being cool. Little did I know I lost 'best camper.' I didn't curse again."

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Protesters tried to stop demolition of one of the last remaining stretches of the Berlin Wall on Friday, decades after jubilant Berliners tore down sections of the hated symbol of the Cold War.

Blowing whistles and brandishing placards with slogans such as "Berlin is selling itself and its history", around 200 people gathered at a 1.3-km painted section of the wall known as the East Side Gallery, adorned with the work of artists such as Keith Haring and Gerald Scarfe.

Developers plan to build luxury apartments close to the open air gallery but builders had to stop tearing down the wall on Friday due to protests and local police said they had removed their machinery by late afternoon.

"We need this part of the wall because with its paintings by international artists it symbolises the way in which we managed to defeat dictatorship peacefully," said Peter Flenz, a 72-year-old retired civil servant.

Communist authorities in the former East Germany built the wall in 1961 as an "anti-fascist protective barrier". The 3.6-metre-high concrete structure divided Berlin for 28 years and an estimated 1,000 East Germans were killed trying to escape to the west after its construction.

Most of the wall was pulled down or chiselled away after it was breached on November 9, 1989, when ecstatic crowds of East and West Germans surged through checkpoints and on to the wall, hacking bits off it and dancing on top of the structure that for so long had symbolised their division.

The East Side Gallery, on the banks of the River Spree, was declared a historic monument in 1992 and has since become one of Berlin's main tourist attractions.

One section features a giant image of East German leader Erich Honecker and his Soviet counterpart Leonid Brezhnev kissing each other on the lips.

By Friday, the wall's rounded top had been removed from around a 20-metre stretch, a section which formed part of a mural depicting Berlin's Brandenburg Gate was missing and another part, attached to a crane, was ready to be torn down.

Berliners appealed to the city's mayor, Klaus Wowereit, to halt the demolition.

"Mr Wowereit, don't tear down this wall," a message scrawled on the wall said in a reference to a 1987 speech by the then U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who begged the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!".

Protesters jostled with police as they tried to insert a full-size painted replica of the missing section of the wall into the gap.

"It's crucial that we keep this memorial so that history cannot repeat itself," said Lisa Baur, 29, a graphic designer. "It's also important from an economic point of view because lots of tourists come here to see it."

Critics said the demolition and development of luxury flats were symptoms of what they see as the gentrification of Berlin, a city that Wowereit once branded "poor but sexy".

Berlin-based investment group Living Bauhaus has planning permission to build a 14-storey luxury apartment block featuring floor-to-ceiling glass fronts behind the open air gallery.

"Berlin attracts a lot of people from all over the world. With Living Levels we are accommodating the demand from flat hunters, owners and investors for affordable living space," Living Bauhaus said in a statement.

The group said an escape route from a riverside stretch of park was being cut through the East Side Gallery for safety reasons and would have been built even without their apartment block. Planning authorities were not available for comment.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Stephen Brown and Rosalind Russell)

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NEW YORK (AP) Sean Hannity's cable television showdown this week with a Democratic congressman has become more than just a verbal schoolyard brawl. It's an opportunity for money, attention and ratings.

Democratic and Republican advocates are using Tuesday's Fox News Channel appearance by Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison for fundraising, even as the newly minted feud continues. Hannity continued a discussion about Ellison's career on his show Friday.

Ellison opened his appearance on Tuesday's show by calling Hannity "the worst excuse for a journalist that I've ever seen," and their discussion descended from there. Hannity, who accused the congressman of "ranting," ended the gripping back-and-forth after eight minutes because "our audience deserves better."

The congressman appeared upset by a Hannity commentary just before his appearance that ridiculed President Barack Obama's speeches about fiscal negotiations.

Video clips of the confrontation spread online, and it swiftly became a partisan talking point. Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin tweeted that Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, waged a "verbal jihad," or holy war, against Hannity. Martin Bashir, on his liberal MSNBC talk show, called the appearance "the utter evisceration of Sean Hannity on his own broadcast."

The lobbying group Progressive Change Campaign Committee sent out a solicitation to its supporters, urging them each to donate $3 to Ellison's campaign account or send him a thank you note. By Friday afternoon, the solicitation had raised $21,600, co-founder Adam Green said, with an additional $3,000 for a foundation supporting liberal congressional candidates.

Another liberal group, Democracy For America, also sent out an email to its supporters seeking donations in Ellison's name, spokesman T. Neil Sroka said.

"If you attack a hero of our movement, we're going to come back even stronger," Sroka said.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Republican Party posted a clip of the appearance on its website and asked for contributions. According to the website, nearly $47,000 of a fundraising goal of $50,000 had been pledged.

Hannity returned to the issue on his show Wednesday and Thursday, referring to an "epic meltdown" by the "incoherent congressman." A "Hannity" report Thursday explored Ellison's ties to polarizing personalities such as Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan.

"If I'm called a yellow journalist, immoral, a liar as a matter of fair play, I did a little research on him, and he's got some views and friendships that have not been fully vetted," Hannity said in an interview Friday. "He sparked it. He initiated it."

He denied that he was out for revenge.

"I follow my gut and instincts on what interests me," he said. "The fact that a congressman wants to start a fight with me, that's his business. I have the ability to fight back, and I will."

The spat could prove a welcome jolt of interest for Hannity when cable news ratings are sagging months since the presidential election. Hannity's average viewership of 1.9 million people in February was down 11 percent from February 2012, with a much sharper decline among young viewers, the Nielsen ratings company said.

Hannity said his ratings have been stabilizing. His Thursday night show, which featured Washington Post writer Bob Woodward, drew 2.5 million viewers.

Media critic Howard Kurtz, of The Daily Beast, said it was Ellison who had picked the fight and suggested he may have been trying to seek attention.

Ellison was unavailable for comment Friday, his spokesman said. In a statement issued Thursday, Ellison criticized Hannity's "personal attacks."

"Representative Ellison was invited to appear on 'Hannity' to discuss the sequester, an issue that will harm thousands of his constituents and the American economy, and accepted the invitation for that reason," spokesman Jeremy Slevin said.

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MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) Residents of the southern Vermont town that was once the home-in-exile of former Soviet dissident and writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn are considering whether to convert an historic church into an exhibit to honor the Nobel laureate's 18 years in Cavendish.

At Town Meeting the locals' annual decision-making gathering and the venue where Solzhenitsyn once addressed his neighbors when he arrived in 1977 voters will be asked whether they should take ownership of a small stone Universalist Church and use it to honor him.

Solzhenitsyn, who spent eight years in prison and labor camps for criticizing Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, said he chose Cavendish for its resemblance to his homeland and its small-town personality.

"I dislike very much large cities with their empty and fussy lives," he told his new neighbors. "I like very much the simple way of life and the population here, the simplicity and the human relationship. I like the countryside, and I like the climate with the long winter and the snow, which reminds me of Russia."

Solzhenitsyn wrote his best known works, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and "The Gulag Archipelago," based on his years imprisoned, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970.

If the town decides at the meeting Monday to take over the deed to the church, plans call for some repairs and later an exhibit that would include videos of Solzhenitsyn, talking about his years in Cavendish where he lived until 1994 and where his son, Ignat, a pianist and conductor, still lives with his family.

The town, which prided itself on protecting Solzhenitsyn's privacy, hopes to find the sign that once sat in a store window warning that the proprietors offered no directions to his home.

Visitors still ask, and townspeople still decline.

"That's been our legacy is to let people do what they need to do, and let people be as best we can. I love our town's history of being a place of refuge, and I love the fact that when Solzhenitsyn was here he extended that to other people ...," said Margo Caulfield, coordinator of the Cavendish Historical Society.

The impetus for the project came when the town had little to offer a group of Russian tourists last summer who expected a monument in their countryman's honor, Caulfield said.

Built in 1844 under the leadership of renowned abolitionist Rev. Warren Skinner, the church was decommissioned in the 1960s. Caulfield said church leaders last year offered to donate the building to the town.

"He just did an incredible job of showing that a person can sustain unbelievable horrors and go on to live a remarkable life and just really thrive," Caulfield said of the town's famous resident. "Our focus is clearly we want to make sure our schoolchildren know about the work that he did and the importance that it played."

In 1994, just before he and his family moved back to Russia, Solzhenitsyn spoke again at Town Meeting, bringing tears to people's eyes. And after he died in Russia in 2008, the town held a memorial service to honor him at the elementary school.

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Online: http://cavendishhistoricalsocietynews.blogspot.com

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ST. CHARLES, Mo. (AP) At 37 pounds, Biscuit is about the right weight for a 4-year-old human, that is.

A St. Louis-area animal shelter is trying to find a new home for the sweet tabby with a sweet tooth.

Biscuit's salad days were spent pigging out, and now at roughly three times the weight of a healthy adult cat, he's restricted to about a cup of diet food per day.

His first owner, a disabled woman who fed him lots of treats, brought him to the St. Charles Animal Control shelter about a year ago because she could no longer care for him, Teresa Gilley, the shelter's lead animal control officer, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/15VQRvf ).

"She didn't mean the cat any harm," Gilley said. "I just think she didn't know any better."

Another woman took him in but had to return him about a week ago because her new apartment doesn't allow pets, she said.

Gilley said the tubby tabby isn't crazy about his new low-calorie diet, but he has begun adjusting to it. When he arrived, Biscuit could only take a few steps before lying down and panting, but now he's showing increased energy.

"The other day I went into the office, and he was up in the chair," Gilley said. "So he was able to jump pretty high."

Biscuit is neutered and is believed to be about 4. Gilley said he's easygoing and loves being petted.

"He's sweet and loving, and if you talk to him, he'll talk back," Gilley said.

Any prospective owner would need to keep Biscuit away from the gravy and on a strict diet.

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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Bonnie Franklin, best known as a single working mother in the hit CBS comedy "One Day at a Time" in an era when U.S. television was redefining families in pop culture, died on Friday at age 69.

She died at her Los Angeles home of complications from pancreatic cancer, surrounded by relatives and friends, according to a statement issued by the CBS network on behalf of her family.

Franklin, a petite redhead, had acted on Broadway before being cast as the harried divorcee Ann Romano in "One Day at a Time", which debuted in December 1975 and ran for nine seasons on CBS. It co-starred Valerie Bertinelli and Mackenzie Phillips as her two head-strong daughters.

Franklin's performance on the series garnered her an Emmy nomination in 1982. She previously earned a Theatre World Award and a Tony nomination for her Broadway debut work in the 1970 musical "Applause", in which she sang the title song.

During a career spanning six decades, she starred in more than 30 television series and made-for-TV movies while continuing her work in live theater. But she was best remembered for her work on the Norman Lear-produced sitcom "One Day at a Time".

The show was an instant ratings success and became a cultural landmark for its portrait of a family that departed from the idealized sitcom households of earlier decades, like those on "Leave It to Beaver" (1957-1963) and "Father Knows Best" (1954-1960).

By the time "One Day at a Time" premiered at the end of 1975, even the happy blended family of "The Brady Bunch" (1969-1974) had become obsolete.

PORTRAYED SINGLE WORKING MOTHER

Franklin played a divorced mother - a rarity on U.S. TV at the time - who was struggling to raise her daughters in an Indianapolis apartment with little help from their father, while striving for a fulfilling personal life of her own.

"Ms. Franklin helped define and illuminate the role of single working mothers within the cultural landscape," CBS said in its statement.

The show delved into drama as it followed their day-to-day lives, dealing with teen sex, suicide, runaways, sexual harassment and other contemporary topics that never would have come up at the Cleavers' dinner table on "Leave It to Beaver".

Adding comic relief was the meddlesome building superintendent, Dwayne Schneider - his first name was almost never mentioned - played by Pat Harrington Jr., who becomes virtually part of the family.

Unlike the character she played, Franklin had no children of her own. Born in Santa Monica, she was the fourth of five children of immigrant parents - a Romanian mother and Italian father - and made her television debut at age 9 on the Colgate Comedy Hour, an NBC variety show in the 1950s.

"To my mother, getting married and having kids were synonymous with security," Franklin said in a 1977 interview with Family Weekly. "I used to tell her that was not always so, but I couldn't convince her. Then I got married, divorced, the series came along, it was a hit, and something remarkable happened: She came around to my point of view."

"She said to me, 'It's wonderful. You can have a personal life and earn money for your old age,'" Franklin recalled.

Franklin helped hold the "One Day at a Time" cast together amid off-camera tensions. Phillips, who played older daughter Julie, battled serious drug problems during the show's run and was fired after getting arrested on cocaine charges, showing up late and incoherent, and undergoing drug rehab.

Franklin directed some episodes of the show and also later directed an episode of the sitcom "Charles in Charge".

She appeared last year on the daytime drama "The Young and the Restless" and in 2011 made a guest appearance on the TV Land cable channel's sitcom "Hot in Cleveland", co-starring Bertinelli.

Her family disclosed last September that Franklin was being treated for pancreatic cancer.

Franklin's first marriage ended in divorce. She married producer Marvin Minoff in 1980, and they remained together until his death in 2009.

(Reporting by Will Dunham and Steve Gorman; Editing by Bill Trott, Cynthia Johnston and Martin Golan)

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PARIS (Reuters) - Director Steven Spielberg will preside over the 2013 Cannes film festival jury in May, organizers said on Thursday, an A-list casting that adds Hollywood firepower to the high-brow international festival.

Spielberg, whose presidential drama "Lincoln" took home two Oscars at Sunday's Academy Awards, will succeed Italian director and actor Nanni Moretti, who helmed the jury for Cannes' 65th anniversary last year.

The 12-day festival, which takes place on the Cote d'Azur in the south of France, is a major showplace for new movies from around the world that attracts top and emerging screen writers, deal-makers and hundreds of film critics.

Spielberg's blockbuster film E.T. screened as a world premiere at Cannes in 1982, and festival President Gilles Jacob called the respected director a "regular" at the prestigious film festival.

"Since then I've often asked Steven to be Jury President but he's always been shooting a film," Jacob said. "So this year, when I was told 'E.T. phone home,' I understood and immediately replied 'At last!'"

Spielberg called the festival a "platform for extraordinary films to be discovered and introduced to the world."

The 66-year-old director's four-decade career has included such varied films as "Jaws," "Schindler's List," "The Color Purple" and "Jurassic Park."

Spielberg was passed over at Sunday's Oscars for Best Director for "Lincoln," the story of the president battling to abolish slavery and end the civil war, but the film provided actor Daniel Day-Lewis with his third Best Actor award.

"Lincoln," distributed by Disney, also won for production design.

The Cannes film festival runs from May 15 to 26.

(Reporting by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Clothing worn by Jennifer Lawrence in her Oscar-winning role as an outspoken young widow in "Silver Linings Playbook" beat expectations by taking in about $12,000 at auction.

The wool, full-length winter coat worn by Lawrence in the Oscar-nominated comedy topped all items, selling for $4,652 in the three-day online auction, Los Angeles auction house Nate D. Sanders said on Friday.

The memorabilia dealer had expected the items to fetch between $500 and $1,500 each following the 22-year-old's Best Actress win at the Academy Awards on Sunday.

Lawrence also won awards from the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild in January for her "Silver Linings Playbook" performance.

The custom-tailored white pants Lawrence wore during the film's climactic ballroom dance scene with co-star Bradley Cooper went for $3,493, and a package of a teal sports bra and blue long-sleeved shirt sold for $3,175.

A black tank top from Lawrence's wardrobe, but not worn in the film, fetched $624.

Movie studios often hand off costumes to auction houses, where even small outfits can bring in high prices from fans and collectors.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Xavier Briand)

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SEFFNER, Florida (Reuters) - A Florida man was missing and feared dead on Friday after a large sinkhole suddenly engulfed the bedroom of his suburban Tampa home, police and fire officials said.

Jeff Bush, 36, was in his room sleeping and the other five members of the household were getting ready for bed on Thursday night when they heard a loud crash and Jeff screaming.

Jeff's brother, 35-year-old Jeremy Bush, jumped into the hole and furiously kept digging to find his brother.

"I feel in my heart he didn't make it," Jeremy told Tampa TV station WFTS. "There were six of us in the house; five got out."

Jeremy himself had to be rescued from the sinkhole by the first responder to the emergency call, Douglas Duvall of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. When Duvall entered Jeff Bush's bedroom, all he saw was a widening chasm but no sign of Jeff.

"The hole took the entire bedroom," said Duvall. "You could see the bedframe, the dresser, everything was sinking," he said.

Norman Wicker, 48, the father of Jeremy's fianc e who also lived in the house, ran to get a flashlight and shovel.

"It sounded like a car ran into the back of the house," Wicker said.

Authorities had not detected any signs of life after lowering listening devices and cameras into the hole and rescue efforts were suspended after the site was deemed too unsafe for emergency personnel to enter.

"There is a very large, very fluid mass underneath this house rendering the entire house and the entire lot dangerous and unsafe," Bill Bracken, the head of an engineering company assisting fire and rescue officials, told the news conference late on Friday.

"We are still trying to determine the extent and nature of what's down there so we can best determine how to approach it and how to extricate," Bracken said.

Several nearby homes were evacuated in case the 30-foot (9-meter) wide sinkhole got larger but officials said it only appeared to be getting deeper.

The Bush brothers worked together as landscapers, according to Leland Wicker, 48, one of the other residents of the house.

The risk of sinkholes is common in Florida due to the state's porous geological bedrock, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. As rainwater filters down into the ground, it dissolves the rock causing erosion that can lead to underground caverns, which cause sinkholes when they collapse.

Florida suffered one of its worst sinkhole accidents in 1994 when a 15-story-deep chasm opened up east of Tampa at a phosphate mine. It created a hole 185 feet deep and as much as 160 feet wide. Locals dubbed it Disney World's newest attraction - 'Journey to the Center of the Earth.'

In 1981 in Winter Park near Orlando, a sinkhole was measured as 320 feet wide and 90 feet deep, swallowing a two-story house, part of a Porsche dealership, and an Olympic-size swimming pool. The site is now an artificial lake in the city.

"Mortgage companies are more and more requiring Florida home buyers to have sinkhole coverage on their homeowners insurance policy," said K.C. Williams, a Tampa sinkhole and property damage claims lawyer who lives 2 miles away from the damaged home.

(Additional reporting by David Adams and Tom Brown; Writing by Kevin Gray; Editing by Tom Brown and Lisa Shumaker)

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NEW YORK (AP) Ryan Seacrest can tell you lot about the evolution of American Idol over the last twelve seasons, but the host is a bit more reluctant to discuss the evolution of his relationship with actress Julianne Hough.

When asked by The Associated Press if there was a wedding date in his future, Seacrest casually responded: "Are you getting married?"

Seacrest and Hough have been together since the spring of 2010.

After a few playful rounds of "Are you?" banter on the subject, he decided to call it a day.

Seacrest made the comments Friday while promoting "Idol Across America," a relay of the "American Idol" microphone across the country, taking a page from the Olympic torch relay.

As for the prospect of the microphone making it one piece, Seacrest says if not, "I'm sure there's one in a holster standing by if it breaks."

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