Danny Puff

NEW YORK (AP) Actress Amanda Peet is hoping to make her professional debut as a playwright next season with a drama that may attract Blythe Danner and Sarah Jessica Parker.

The Manhattan Theater Club said Tuesday that it wants to stage the world premiere of Peet's "The Commons of Pensacola" as part of its 2013-2014 season. Lynne Meadow, artistic director of the company, will direct.

"We are in conversation with Blythe Danner and Sarah Jessica Parker about appearing in this timely, new play about a family weathering a major financial crisis," artistic producer Mandy Greenfield said in a statement.

Parker's husband, Matthew Broderick, is currently starring with Danner in Broadway's "Nice Work If You Can Get It." Peet is known for roles in "Saving Silverman" and on TV's "The Good Wife."

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FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A German travel agency is selling tickets for a flight to give 88 astronomy buffs a close-up view of one of two rare comets expected to pass Earth this year.

Eclipse Travel, based in Bonn, has joined charter agency Air Partner and airline Air Berlin to organise flight AB1000 on March 16 as comet Pan-STARRS passes through the solar system, 100 million miles from Earth.

The last comet to dazzle Earth's night-time skies was Comet Hale-Bopp, which visited in 1997. Comet 17P/Holmes made a brief appearance in 2007.

The Boeing 737-700 flight will zig-zag at 11,000 metres (36,089 feet) altitude for the viewing with an Air Berlin spokesman saying only 88 of 144 seats on board filled to ensure all travellers are close to a window.

"If the weather is very good and the air is clear you can certainly see the comet from Earth," Air Berlin's Karsten von dem Hagen, Teamleader Sales Ad Hoc Flights, said in an e-mail to Reuters on Tuesday.

"But at an altitude of 11,000 metres you are most likely above the clouds. The air there is thinner, clearer and cleaner, which enables better observation of the comet."

An astronomy expert will be on board to explain the comet that NASA described as a new comet that should be visible by the naked eye and about as bright as the stars of the Big Dipper as it passes through the solar system this month.

NASA scientists said the comet could send an amazing tail of gas and dust into the night sky but the cosmic show could be less than dazzling if the comet falls apart under the heat and gravitational pull of its plunge toward the sun.

The comet Pan-STARRS, discovered by astronomers in Hawaii in 2011, is the first of two comets expected to pass Earth this year.

The second is ISON, which is forecast to be one of the brightest comets ever seen and could even outshine the moon when it flies by in late November.

Eclipse Travel is selling tickets for the two-hour flight for between 309 pounds and 438 pounds, according to its website.

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Carly Rae Jepsen is canceling her performance at the national Boy Scouts of America Jamboree because of the organization's exclusion of gays.

Jepsen, the Canadian pop singer best known for the inescapable hit "Call Me Maybe," made the announcement Tuesday on Twitter.

"I always have and will continue to support the LGBT community on a global level," she wrote, "... and stay informed on the ever changing landscape in the ongoing battle for gay rights in this country and across the globe."



Rock band Train also has taken a stand, but pursued a different tack in a post on its website Friday. The group asked the BSA to reconsider its policy rather than immediately pull out of the July gathering in West Virginia. The event, held once every four years, is expected to draw more than 45,000 scouts and adults.

Members of Train said Friday in a message on their website that they were unaware of the policy barring gay scouts and adult leaders from participating in the organization before agreeing to perform.

"Train strongly opposes any kind of policy that questions the equality of any American citizen," the statement said. "We have always seen the BSA as a great and noble organization. We look forward to participating in the Jamboree this summer, as long as they make the right decision before then."

Deron Smith, publicity director for the BSA, says the organization is moving forward with plans for the Jamboree.

"We appreciate everyone's right to express an opinion and remain focused on delivering a great Jamboree program for our Scouts," Smith wrote in an email. Smith was unaware of any other performers scheduled to participate in the event.

The BSA's policy has drawn attention before and gay rights organizations hailed Jepsen and members of Train for taking a stand and helping to bring the issue back into the public debate.

"Carly Rae Jepsen and Train's decisions not only send the right message to the BSA, but remind LGBT young people that they are supported and accepted," said Rich Ferraro, GLAAD's vice president of communications, in a statement.

Ferraro said in an email that Jepsen and Train were alerted to the Boy Scouts' regulation through the efforts of Eagle Scout Derek Nance, whose petition at change.org asked them to change their mind about playing the jamboree. Nance, who says he is gay, gathered 62,000 signatures, each of which spurred an email to the artists' management.

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ROME (Reuters) - As cardinals flock to Rome to choose the next pope, two artists have taken the opportunity to stage an exhibition taking aim at the wealth of the Roman Catholic Church and the sex abuse scandals that plagued Pope Benedict.

Held in an ancient building where Italy's patron Saint Catherine of Siena died, "The Unspeakable Act" is a life-size model of Benedict in a confessional box, his sumptuous red and cream-colored robes spread about him.

Installed on the stage of a darkly-lit theatre, the artwork is surrounded by eerie music and a track of Benedict announcing in Latin his decision to resign after eight years topped with the whispering sounds of people confessing their sins.

Benedict's papal tiara lies on the ground and his bejeweled hands cover his face in apparent horror or shame at a phrase from the Gospel of St. Luke that lies open on his knee: "Let the little children come to me".

The exhibition is the work of artists Antonio Garullo and Mario Ottocento who became famous for lampooning the scandals of the powerful in 2012 with an exhibit depicting a sleeping Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, his hand in his trousers and a satisfied look on his face.

"Too many scandals have been hidden by the Church. Even children were abused in the confessional," Garullo told Reuters at a preview of the work on Tuesday.

"These jewels and rich clothes contrast with Christ, who was in rags. The Vatican even has a bank, which is hypocrisy."

A folded paper tucked into the papal tiara represents the 'Vatileaks' scandal, when Benedict's personal butler leaked documents alleging corruption in the Church's business dealings

The artwork, that opens to the public on Wednesday, has personal importance for Garullo, 48, and Ottocento, 40, an artistic duo for 20 years who were the first Italian gay couple to be married when they wed in Holland in 2002.

Since then they have battled for their union to be recognized by authorities in Italy, which has no legal provision for same-sex couples, although a 2012 survey found 63 percent of Italians support equal rights for gays.

"I don't understand how the pope could say in one of his last addresses that gay couples are a threat to world peace," Garullo said. "I don't understand how we are a threat."

Their pope statue is surrounded by books by reformist Swiss theologian Hans Kueng and the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, a liberal voice who urged the Church to modernize before his death last year, saying it was "200 years out of date".

Garullo said the fact that Benedict is ignoring the books is a message to the Church to bring its teaching up to date.

"It shows the Church has remained 200 years in the past, and is not open to the modern world," Garullo said.

(Reporting by Naomi O'Leary, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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DUBLIN (AP) Kia's new concept car, the Provo, is designed to provoke comment. But to many across Britain and Ireland, the name sounds like a celebration of terrorism.

British lawmakers appealed Tuesday in the House of Commons for the South Korean car maker to junk the name of its planned mini sports coupe because "Provo" is the street name for the dominant branch of the outlawed Irish Republican Army. The Provisional IRA killed nearly 1,800 people during its failed 1970-1997 campaign to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom.

Kia insisted the Provo an experimental prototype unveiled this week for the International Geneva Motor Show and years away from production was named to suggest "provocative," not IRA bombings and shootings. And in a follow-up statement, Kia said it would be certain not to market any future car as a Provo in the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland.

"I accept that this was a mistake made by the company and I know that their decisive action will be welcomed by many people, in Northern Ireland and beyond, whose lives have been affected by the murderous actions of the Provisional IRA," said Gregory Campbell, a British lawmaker for the main Northern Ireland party, the Democratic Unionists.

Not everybody took the matter as sternly as Campbell. The idea of a car called the Provo going on sale in Belfast sparked a rapid-fire battle of Ulster wits across the Internet.

On an Irish news aggregator called the Broadsheet, posters noted that the car's detailing was in orange, the favored color of the British Protestant majority. "Does my bomb look big in this?" asked one. Another noted the car needs no satellite navigation system, because the car "already knows where you live."

Kia is hardly the first automaker to stumble when picking model names that don't sound stupid worldwide.

In Spanish, Chevy's Nova meant "doesn't go," Mazda's LaPuta translated as "the whore," and the Nissan Moco as "booger."

The Honda Fitta raised eyebrows across much of Scandinavia, where the word refers to women's private parts. When Toyota launched the MR2, they soon found saying those letters and numbers in French made it sound as though the car smelled of excrement.

And of course, to the military-minded or excessively nervous, Kia's own corporate name suggests "killed in action."

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Jimi Hendrix recorded everything. More than 40 years after his death, though, the tape is finally running out.

"People, Hell & Angels," out Tuesday, will be the last album of Hendrix's unreleased studio material, according to Eddie Kramer, the engineer who recorded most of Hendrix's music during his brief but spectacular career. That ends a four-decade run of posthumous releases by an artist whose legacy remains as vital and vibrant now as it was at the time of his death.

"Jimi utilized the studio as a rehearal space," Kramer said. "That's kind of an expensive way of doing things, but thank God he did."

The 12 tracks on "People, Hell & Angels" were recorded in 1968-69 after the Jimi Hendrix Experience disbanded. There's a changeable roster of backing musicians, including Buddy Miles and Billy Cox, who would briefly become Hendrix's Band of Gypsies. Stephen Stills, recently of Buffalo Springfield, even popped up on bass on one track.

It was a difficult period for Hendrix as his business and creative endeavors became entangled, and he retreated to the studio to seek inspiration.

"Jimi used that time in the studio to experiment, to jam, to rehearse, and using this jam-rehearsal style of recording enabled him to try different musicians of different stripes and backgrounds, because they offered a musical challenge to him," Kramer said. "He wanted to hear music expressed with different guys who could lend a different approach to it. And as part of this whole learning curve, what emerged was this band that played at Woodstock in '69, that little concert on the hill there."

Many of the songs have been heard in different versions or forms before, but the music here is funkier than his best known work at times sinuous, at times raucous. Horns pop up here and there. He's a cosmic philosopher riding an earthbound backbeat on "Somewhere." He's a groovin' bluesman enveloped in a bit of that purple haze on "Hear My Train a Comin'." He challenges a saxophone to a fist fight on "Let Me Move You." Then he channels James Brown on "Mojo Man" and ends the album as if shutting down an empty cinder-block club on a lonely stretch of dark highway with "Villanova Junction Blues."

Hendrix died not long after making the last of these recordings. He'd already disbanded the players and was working with the Experience again in 1970 when he died of asphyxia in September 1970 at 27.

The last of the studio albums was timed for the year he would have turned 70. But in the 43 years that have passed since his death, he's remained a fixture in American popular culture in much the same way Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash have endured. Still a radio staple, his image and music pops up often in commercials. There's a biopic on the way with Andre Benjamin tackling the lead role. Even his out-there sense of fashion remains relevant.

Driving that image is the continued importance of his music, inspiring entranced young guitarists to attack his work in an endless loop of rediscovery over the decades. Tastes and sounds may change, but Hendrix always remains close at hand.

Maybe it's because he was so far ahead of his time, we still haven't caught up.

"He was a psychedelic warrior," said Luther Dickinson, Grammy-nominated singer-guitar of the North Mississippi Allstars. "He was one of those forces that pushed evolution. He was kicking the doors down. He was forcing the future into our ears."

For Dickinson and his brother Cody, it was Hendrix's post-apocalyptic psych-rock epic "1983 ... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)" that blew their minds. But he means different things to different musicians. He played the chitlin circuit in the South before being discovered as a rocker in Europe and his music was also steeped in the blues, R&B and jazz.

"As a songwriter, he had the thing like Billy Gibbons (of ZZ Top) and a few current guys like Dan Auerbach or Jack White," Dickinson said. "They have the ability to take a near-cliche blues guitar lick and turn it into a pop hook. Hendrix had that. That was one aspect. Also, he wrote some of the most beautiful guitar melodies. His ballads, there's nothing to compare them to. Obviously he learned a lot from Curtis Mayfield and R&B music, but he took it so much farther."

It's that soulful side that first inspired Michael Kiwanuka, a young singer-songwriter who grew up in London thousands of miles away from Dickinson's home in Hernando, Miss., yet was seized by Hendrix just as forcefully.

He first saw Hendrix in a documentary that was paired back to back with his performance at Woodstock. Kiwanuka was 12 and new to the guitar. He experienced a lot of sensations at once. First, there was the music. He wasn't drawn to the rip-roaring psychedelia the Dickinsons favored, but the R&B-flavored classics like "Castles Made of Sand" and "The Wind Cries Mary." The child of Ugandan immigrants also was amazed by Hendrix's natural hairstyle, which closely resembled his own.

"I'd never seen an African-American, a guy of African descent, playing rock music," Kiwanuka said. "I was listening to bands like Nirvana and stuff at the time. That's what got me into rock music the electric guitar. Every time I saw a modern black musician it was like R&B, so I'd never seen someone play electric guitar in a rock way that was African. That inspired me as well on top of the music. And you think, 'Oh, I could do that.'"

"People, Hell & Angels" will likely continue that cycle of discovery. And though it may be the last of studio album, it won't be the last we hear from Hendrix.

"This is the last studio album, but what's coming up is the fact that we have tremendous amount of live recorded concerts in the vault," Kramer said. "A lot of them were filmed, too, so be prepared in the next few years to see some fabulous live performances, one of which I've already mixed. We're waiting for the release date God knows when but at some point in the future there's a ton of great live material."

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Online:

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Follow Music Writer Chirs Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

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LONDON (Reuters) - It wasn't Batman, it was a joker. A day after making headlines around the world for handing over a suspect to police dressed as Batman, the identity of Britain's mysterious caped crusader has been revealed as Stan, a takeaway food delivery man.

Police in Bradford, northern England, were baffled when a portly figure in an ill-fitting Batman costume brought them a 27-year-old man wanted for burglary in the early hours of February 25 before disappearing into the night.

They released closed-circuit television footage of the incident on Monday and after much speculation, the masked hero disclosed his true identity to media on Tuesday. He was not Batman's alter ego Bruce Wayne, but driver Stan Worby, 39.

He also said he had not brought the man in as part of any crime-fighting crusade. He had simply agreed to accompany a friend to the police station to offer him moral support, and had decided to wear the Batman suit as a practical joke.

"Obviously it was done as a joke," he told ITV's Daybreak programme, saying he was "gobsmacked" by the attention.

Worby said he had been to London's Wembley Stadium earlier in the day to watch local team Bradford City play in the English Capital One (League) Cup football final and had worn fancy dress for the occasion.

While there, Worby was contacted by his friend and agreed to take him in on his return from London.

"Obviously he wanted to get straight down there and I wanted my bed as it was half (past) one in the morning," Worby said.

He also insisted the pictures which showed he perhaps lacked the body of a superhero were unfair.

"I've got my full tracksuit underneath," he explained.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - British television celebrity and best-selling cookbook author Nigella Lawson recalls that when the other girls wanted to be French, she wanted to be Italian.

"As a teenager, what drew me was the combination of familial warmth and glamour that was somehow both earthy and chic," Lawson said about Italy, where she lived between high school and college.

Her eighth cookbook, "Nigellissima," focuses exclusively on 120 Italian-inspired recipes.

"Somehow by speaking Italian, I came into the person I am," the 53-year-old, Oxford-educated cook added.

London-based Lawson, who is appearing in the U.S. cooking show "The Taste," spoke to Reuters about creating recipes and about how her most joyful moment in the kitchen is opening the fridge, seeing what is inside and trying to make something taste good from it, which she admits is "absolutely the antithesis of a cookery book."

Q: Is this your first Italian cookbook?

A: "It sort of is, and isn't. It's the first that's just Italian, or Italian-inspired. Because Italy has been such a big influence in my life, in my cooking life, there are actually more Italian recipes in my other books. But this is the only time I've done a book with such a narrow focus geographically."

Q: How would you describe your take on Italian cuisine?

A: "I suppose what I bring to it is a slightly more contemporary, urban edge in the sense that I live a busy modern city life, whereas so many Italian recipes come from a time when women were expected to spend a long time in the kitchen. I suppose I bring a kind of temporary impatience because it's the way I live now."

Q: How did you learn to cook?

A: "I've never learned to cook. I just cooked from when I was a child, always. I come from a large family and my mother believed in child labor, so I've cooked since I was about six. I do come from a food-obsessed family. That helps. I did have to teach myself how to cook weighing and measuring. It was an education in itself, and an interesting one."

Q: Do you create the recipes in your books?

A: "Well, they're mine, and if they're not I will always say. I think it's improper not to credit recipes. Often I credit someone even if I've changed it enormously because I feel for the reader it's very interesting to see the evolution of a recipe. So I will go back through the mists of time (to trace) how this recipe evolved."

Q: How does being a home cook, rather than a professional chef, influence your approach to preparing food?

A: "Cooking for me is in part an evangelical zeal that I want to share. If I've loved a book that I've read, I want to share that as well. A chef needs to feel they're being original. I just have the home cook sensibility: not wanting to waste money or time.

"Generally I make sure that if I buy a certain stash of ingredients, I can cook many different dishes. Cooking is not about heaping in ingredient after ingredient after ingredient. If I read a recipe and I'm exhausted by the time I finish reading the ingredients list, I know I'm never going to cook it."

Q: Did you enjoy co-hosting the reality TV show "The Taste?"

A: "I had a certain amount of trepidation but I really enjoyed it ... Because it was really about the taste of the food and not about personalities, I didn't think it was going to descend into the cruelty of some reality TV, that would appall me."

Sicilian Pasta with Tomatoes, Garlic & Almonds

Serves 6

1 1 4 pounds fusilli lunghi or other pasta of your choice

salt for pasta water, to taste

8 ounces cherry or grape tomatoes

6 anchovy fillets

2 tablespoons golden raisins

2 cloves garlic, peeled

2 tablespoons capers, drained

1/3 cup skinned almonds

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil leaves from small bunch

basil (approx. 1 cup, packed )

Put abundant water on to boil for the pasta, waiting for it to boil before salting it. Add the pasta and cook following the package instructions, though start checking it a good 2 minutes before it's meant to be ready.

While the pasta is cooking, make the sauce by putting all the remaining ingredients, except the basil, into a processor and blitzing until you have a nubby-textured sauce.

Just before draining the pasta, remove a cupful of pasta-cooking water and add 2 tablespoonfuls of it down the funnel of the processor, pulsing as you go.

Tip the drained pasta into your warmed serving bowl. Pour and scrape the sauce on top, tossing to coat (add a little more pasta-cooking water if you need it) and strew the basil leaves on top.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Philip Barbara)

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LONDON (AP) Bruce Springsteen is returning to headline the London Hard Rock Calling festival, a year after authorities pulled the plug on his duet with Paul McCartney for violating a curfew.

The American rock star brings The E Street Band back to the event that is moving to a new location at the city's Olympic Park.

Concert organizers Live Nation are leaving Hyde Park amid friction between fans and the neighborhood's well-heeled residents, many of whom gripe about the late-night noise.

Springsteen had already exceeded the 10:30 p.m. curfew by half an hour when he welcomed McCartney on stage last July. They sang the Beatles hits "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Twist and Shout." But officials turned the microphones off, and they were forced to leave the stage in silence.

Springsteen will headline the second night of the two-day festival on June 30. Other acts include Kasabian, Paul Weller, the Black Crowes and Alabama Shakes.

Live Nation Entertainment is holding a series of concerts at the former Olympic venue this summer including the Hard Rock Calling and Wireless festivals after gaining exclusive rights to the venue.

The 560-acre (227-hectare) site of the 2012 Summer Games is due to reopen to the public in stages between July and early 2014.

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LONDON (Reuters) - Canadian singer Justin Bieber apologized on Tuesday after fans booed him for turning up nearly two hours late to a London concert, blaming technical issues for his late performance.

The 19-year-old teen idol had been scheduled to take the stage at London's O2 Arena at 8.30 p.m. but said in a Twitter message that the time was pushed back to 9.35 p.m. due to "some technical issues".

Many fans, and the venue itself, appeared not to have got the message after complaints poured in that Bieber was nearly two hours late when he finally appeared at around 10.20 p.m..

"Last night I was scheduled after 3 opening acts to go on stage at 935 not 830 but because of some technical issues," Bieber wrote on Twitter, the micro-blogging site where he boasts the largest following of more than 35 million people.

"I got on at 10:10..so...I was 40 min late to stage. there is no excuse for that and I apologize for anyone we upset. However it was great show and I'm proud of that."

In the third of four tweets, he vowed to run on time on Tuesday, and in the final message said his relationship with the media, which picked up on fans' displeasure following Monday night's concert, was "not always easy but I'm trying".

The popular Sun tabloid newspaper said many fans, some of them as young as five years old, had gone home by the time Bieber began while others voiced frustration.

There was no on-stage apology, although the O2 Arena did later address fans, popularly known as "Beliebers", apologizing in a Twitter message to "all the Justin Bieber fans for the lateness of his show tonight".

Bieber is due to play the same venue on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Many people voiced their frustration at having to wait, while others reacted angrily to the headlines.

"Justin Bieber is my fave person but 2 hours late on stage is a joke!" fan Jess wrote on Twitter. "Does he realize that he has fans under the age of 10?"

Others jumped to his defense early on Tuesday.

"Feel really bad for @justinbieber now! Yes he was late but he put on a flipping good show! It was amazing," said one.

Not all reviewers were quite so kind for the singer who was named by Forbes magazine in 2012 as the third most powerful celebrity in the world.

London's Evening Standard awarded the "Baby" singer two stars, saying he turned "victory into defeat".

"By the end, the O2 was barely half-full and when Bieber asked 'Who's seen me play before?', he might have been better wondering who would spend time, money and adoration on seeing him again," wrote critic John Aizlewood.

Bieber's visit to Britain has probably not been his best.

On March 2, the day after he turned 19, he tweeted "worst birthday" amid reports some of his entourage were turned away from a London nightclub because they could not supply adequate proof of their age.

Bieber, who was discovered on YouTube in 2008, last month became the youngest artist to land five chart-topping albums in the United States following the release of his latest record, "Believe Acoustic".

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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