Danny Puff

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Sportscaster Erin Andrews, who is suing Marriott over a stalker secretly filming her through a peephole and posting the nude video online, says the hotel chain is trying to again violate her privacy with a request for her employment and medical records.

In a filing this week in Los Angeles Superior Court, Andrews says Marriott is seeking her payroll records, contracts, performance reviews, any disciplinary reports, as well as other employment information from her current employer, Fox. Andrews was employed by ESPN when she was secretly recorded.

Andrews' attorneys say Marriott is also seeking "physician letters, notes, annual physicals, and other related medical records."

The attorneys are asking a judge to quash the subpoena - essentially ruling that the request for information is out-of-bounds. The attorneys say the request is an attempt to "harass and embarrass" Andrews.

Marriott did not respond to a request for comment from TheWrap.

In her lawsuit against Marriott and the man who recorded her, Michael David Barrett, Andrews contends that Marriott employees gave Barrett the dates Andrews would be at a hotel and a room next to hers. He then recorded her through a peephole.

Barrett pleaded guilty to interstate stalking and was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Although Andrews initially claimed she had lost earnings and earning capacity because of the recordings, she later dropped those claims. That makes the requests for information about her employment irrelevant, her attorneys said.

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PHOENIX (Reuters) - Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is set to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for her efforts to curb gun violence since she was seriously wounded in a Tucson shooting rampage two years ago.

Gifffords is to receive the award, given annually by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, in recognition of the "political, personal, and physical courage she has demonstrated in her fearless public advocacy for policy reforms aimed at reducing gun violence," the foundation announced on Friday.

The award, named for President Kennedy's 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Profiles in Courage," is to be presented to Giffords by foundation president Caroline Kennedy at a ceremony in Boston on May 5.

Giffords, a Democrat, was shot in the head when a gunman opened fire on a congressional outreach event in Tucson in January 2011, killing six people and wounding a dozen others. She resigned from Congress a year after the shooting to focus on her recovery.

Following the attack that killed 26 people at a Connecticut elementary school in December, Giffords and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, founded a lobby group aimed at curbing gun violence and challenging the political clout of the well-funded gun lobby.

"Instead of retreating following the tragic shooting that ended her Congressional career, she has recommitted herself to fighting for a more peaceful society free from hate and violence. She is a true Profile in Courage," Caroline Kennedy said in a statement released by the foundation.

In a Tweet on Friday, Giffords thanked both Caroline Kennedy and the foundation: "Wow! So proud about the Profile in Courage Award. President Kennedy's book is a favorite of mine."

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Gary Hill)

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READMOND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) An ice island that's formed off Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula is attracting attention.

Outdoor enthusiast Josh Baker tells WPBN-TV (http://bit.ly/YGArTe ) he and his family came across the towering collection of ice blocks Sunday in Lake Michigan off Emmet County.

Good Hart General Store Owner Jim Sutherland says cold weather and wind combine to build ice into mountains and caves. He says it's been many years since he's seen such a large ice island form in the area. It's likely been growing for 6 to 8 weeks.

The ice island is the latest winter creation of Lake Michigan to draw looks. Earlier this year, hundreds of ice balls and boulders piled up at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Park. They were the size of beach balls or basketballs.

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Information from: WPBN-TV, http://www.tv7-4.com

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - T-Mobile USA, the fourth biggest U.S. mobile service provider, said on Friday that it would start selling the highly anticipated and much delayed BlackBerry Z10 touchscreen smartphone to its business customers on March 11.

The U.S. unit of Deutsche Telekom said business customers could get delivery of the device by the end of next week. It declined to give a date for the consumer launch except to say that it would be before the end of March.

BlackBerry, formerly known as Research In Motion, already sells the device in more than 20 countries but its reception in the United States, its former stronghold market, is seen as a key step. However, U.S. consumers have had to wait much longer for the device than other countries like Britain.

Bigger rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc declined to reveal their Z10 launch dates on Friday and Canada's BlackBerry declined comment.

BlackBerry, a one-time smartphone pioneer, has bled market share to the likes of Apple's iPhone, as well as Samsung's Galaxy product line and other devices powered by Google Inc's market-leading Android operating system.

In a make-or-break move to regain market share and return to profit, BlackBerry introduced the new smartphone to much fanfare in January. A more traditional BlackBerry with a physical keyboard will go on sale next month.

(Reporting By Sinead Carew; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - It's the green-hued fuel that has fired flights of poetic fancy since the 1800s, but now the European Union is examining whether to change how absinthe is defined.

The intensely alcoholic spirit, dubbed "la fee verte" (the green fairy) by Parisian writers in reference to its reputed psychoactive properties, has been a fixture amongst artists and Europe's bohemians since the 1850s, with Oscar Wilde and Charles Baudelaire among the famous devotees.

Efforts to regulate the concoction, blamed for causing intense drunkenness and visions, have come and gone over the decades and vary widely. Now the European Parliament is to debate a new, common definition of what constitutes it.

The discussion, which will come to a head at a meeting of the parliament in the French city of Strasbourg next week, focuses on the amount of the naturally occurring chemical thujone that must be present in the drink, if at all.

Thujone, whose Latin name is Artemisia absinthium, is a toxin extracted from wormwood plants that some EU lawmakers worry is too harmful, especially in higher concentrations.

Under current EU regulations, absinthe does not have to contain any thujone to justify the name, but also must not exceed a maximum of 35 milligrams of thujone per kilogram.

In order to standardize the content, the European Commission has proposed that anything labeled "absinthe" must have at least 5 and maximum of 35 milligrams of thujone per kilogram.

As is often the case in the European Union, the Germans and the French are on opposite sides of the debate.

Francoise Grossetete, a center-right French parliamentarian, wants to protect the traditional essence of the spirit and is advocating that the new minimum be introduced.

German lawmaker Horst Schnellhardt, concerned about the health risks, prefers a definition that would allow something to be called "absinthe" even if it contains no thujone at all.

To Grossetete, that ignores the essence of the spirit.

"Accepting the sale of a drink under the absinthe' label without the guarantee that the plant of that name was used to make it amounts to cheating," she said. "Baudelaire would turn in his grave!"

Complicating the debate is the fact that producers in Switzerland, credited as the birthplace of absinthe in the late 1700s, are hoping to protect it as a regional specialty, which could prevent producers elsewhere using the "absinthe" label.

TRADITION OF THE GREEN FAIRY

While the Swiss may have given rise to modern absinthe, the ancient Greeks were known to flavor their wine with wormwood and it was the French in the mid-1800s who turned the light-green distillation into a cult affair.

Paris-based artists, poets and writers, from Vincent Van Gogh to Arthur Rimbaud and Ernest Hemingway were all regular drinkers, giving the spirit a bohemian edginess that wider society longed to share.

By the 1860s, absinthe was so popular in French cafes and bars that 5 p.m. was dubbed "l'heure verte" (the green hour), according to the Virtual Absinthe Museum.

But the effects of all that drinking, with absinthe addicts depicted in paintings and doctors worried, led to prohibition and it was banned across much of Europe in the early 1900s.

It wasn't until the 1990s, when a British company realized Britain had never formally banned it and began importing it from the Czech Republic, that it regained popularity.

Today, absinthe is produced everywhere from Spain to Italy and the Czech Republic using a range of recipes. No longer just green, tipplers can get it in red, black, mango-flavored or laced with cannabis. Many varieties contain no thujone at all.

Some absinthe sellers are adamant about sticking to the drink's long-standing recipe, and insist that natural ingredients with no artificial flavorings be used.

When it comes to the debate before the European Parliament, they are concerned that allowing something to be labeled "absinthe" even if it contains no thujone will ruin the market.

"The current EU regulation is a slap in my face," said Markus Lion, owner of German drinks company Lion Spirits, lamenting the lack of a minimum thujone content.

"They basically allow what I think should not be on the market. It's not worth the name 'absinthe'."

Next week, the European Parliament will decide whether a new minimum is necessary to protect the green fairy's heritage, or whether the existing rules are good enough. And then all there is to worry about is the Swiss initiative to claim "absinthe" for themselves.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Lewis; editing by Luke Baker)

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DALLAS (AP) An obese stray cat found wandering six months ago near Dallas has slimmed down to 34 pounds and been adopted by the veterinarian overseeing his care.

Dr. Brittney Barton said Friday that the orange tabby dubbed Skinny is doing well on a special diet to help lose weight and increase his metabolism.

Barton says she became attached to the onetime 41-pound cat she was treating at an animal orphanage and last month he became part of her family. Skinny joins Barton's husband, three children, a dog and another cat at her home.

Barton says Skinny gets along great with the other animals, can jump up on a couch and runs to his food bag at feeding time. She says the house has long hallways that provide good exercise for Skinny.

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LONDON (Reuters) - He caught the music world napping in January with his first new song in a decade and soon had critics searching for superlatives to describe his new album "The Next Day".

The next big question for David Bowie and his remarkable comeback is whether the element of surprise and subsequent acclaim will turn into record sales.

"The Next Day" is in stores on Monday in Britain, where industry watchers are confident it will top the album charts, and on Tuesday in the United States, where the "Space Oddity" singer has enjoyed more patchy success in the past.

It is already available in other key markets, and the early signs are that the 66-year-old master of reinvention has a hit on his hands.

According to his official website, the deluxe version of the recording went to No. 1 on the digital iTunes album charts in 11 of 12 countries where it was released on Friday, including Australia, Germany and Sweden.

"There has been a lot of interest in both the social and traditional media which will connect not only with the established fan base but also with younger fans," said Gennaro Castaldo, head of press at British music retailer HMV.

"As a campaign, I can't think of many that have been more brilliantly orchestrated," he added.

Ironically, part of that "campaign" has been for Bowie to remain invisible, allowing collaborators like producer Tony Visconti to tell the media about how the star's first studio album since 2003's "Reality" came about.

So rare had sightings of the "Starman" become in New York, where he lives, that articles appeared in the British press late last year speculating the "recluse" had unofficially retired.

"GRETA GARBO OF POP"

Simon Goddard, author of new Bowie book "Ziggyology" published by Random House imprint Ebury, said his mystique was a part of the appeal, and showed that his interest in music far outweighed any appetite for the trappings of celebrity.

"He released two albums in the very early 70s featuring covers of himself in poses inspired by Greta Garbo," Goddard told Reuters.

"Fast forward three or four decades and he becomes a rarely-sighted paparazzi quarry living in New York ... He engages with the media on his strict terms because he's surpassed any desire to engage otherwise. His art is all the engagement he needs."

Bowie, who has shunned the limelight since he suffered a heart attack on tour in 2004, last performed on stage in 2006. It was with a sense of shock that his fans woke up on January 8, his 66th birthday, to the news he had released a new song.

"Where Are We Now?", a melancholic look back to the time Bowie spent in Berlin in the 1970s, was the first single from "The Next Day", followed weeks later by "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)".

Both came with inventive videos which baffled as much as they entertained, affirming that Bowie was still the enigma who wowed the pop world in the late 1960s, 70s and 80s with glam-rock, androgynous alter egos and a radical sense of fashion.

Critics had barely a bad word to say about the 14-track album, with the Independent's Andy Gill calling it possibly "the greatest comeback in rock'n'roll history" in a five-star review.

Alexis Petridis, writing in the Guardian, said: "Listening to it makes you hope it's not a one-off, that his return continues apace.

Whether the return will include live performances remains to be seen, although Bowie's guitarist Gerry Leonard whetted appetites when he told Rolling Stone magazine he thought it was "50-50" Bowie would tour again.

Author Goddard attempted to sum up the level of excitement that has accompanied Bowie's return.

"Bowie's appeal has lasted because his influence is fundamental to everything that we in the 21st century understand as pop music," he said. "Remove Bowie and pop's whole house of cards as built up over the last 40 years or so collapses."

Bowie's impact on modern music matched that of The Beatles - and the only contemporary star to combine music and art to the extent he did in the 70s was Lady Gaga, said Goddard.

"The hysteria is justified," he added.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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NEW YORK (AP) Who killed J.R.?

That's the mystery propelling "Dallas" through the rest of its second season as a TNT revival.

And that question hangs heavy in the upcoming episode (airing Monday at 9 p.m. EDT), which confirms the sad truth every viewer knew was coming: glorious scoundrel J.R. Ewing has died, after decades of living-on-the-edge infamy dating back at least to 1980, when he was gunned down in his office and left for dead, with "Who shot J.R.?" the question on every viewer's lips for months afterward.

J.R.'s fate was sealed this time by the intrusion of reality. In November, Larry Hagman died of cancer at 81. And when he died, he took J.R. with him.

So the new episode surely the first without Hagman's deliciously vile presence stands as a fitting tribute both to him and to J.R., complete with a wake and a funeral for the rascally oil baron. Even the oh-so-familiar theme music is rearranged from its quickstep tempo to a dirge. The message of this episode, titled "J.R.'s Masterpiece": J.R. is gone but not forgotten.

Last Monday's episode featured the last, brief appearances by a visibly frail Hagman. There were three isolated scenes with J.R., who for reasons unknown had gone missing from Dallas. But the action mostly swirled among the other characters as they squabbled over Ewing Energies, which has pitted cousins John Ross (played by Josh Henderson) and Christopher (Jesse Metcalfe) in a battle for its control.

In his final scene, near the end of the hour, J.R. was glimpsed at an undisclosed location on the phone with John Ross.

"Don't you worry, son, I've got a plan," J.R. told him. "It's gonna be my masterpiece. Because you shouldn't have to pay for my sins."

"What do you mean?" asked John Ross, struck by J.R.'s rare show of tenderness.

"Just remember, I'm proud of you," said J.R., as John Ross' eyes moistened. "You're my son, from tip to tail."

But at that moment, John Ross heard gunshots. He screamed into the phone, "Dad! Dad!"

Who shot J.R.?

"I need to know who killed my father, and why!" snaps John Ross in the new episode.

Sue Ellen, his mother and J.R.'s long-suffering ex-wife (played by Linda Gray), hoists a Dallas directory and reminds him, "Half the people in this phone book wanted to."

Yes, J.R. had legions of enemies with scores to settle. But who among them did the deed? And why did J.R.'s time run out, in all places, in a room at a Mexican flophouse?

His memorial takes place at the Dallas Petroleum Club, where high-powered mourners flock to bid him farewell.

Here are real-life local swells including Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

Here are "Dallas" characters from way back including former wild child Lucy (Charlene Tilton), J.R.'s niece; Ray Krebbs (Steve Kanaly), the illegitimate son of J.R.'s father; and Gary (Ted Shackelford), the "black sheep" brother who left Dallas for a long life on series spinoff "Knots Landing."

But the embittered John Ross isn't buying that any of the gathered have a kind thought for his father: "Half these people are here to make sure he's dead. The other half are here for the free drinks."

Then decorum is shattered by Cliff Barnes, the Ewings' archenemy (played by Ken Kercheval), who storms into the room and tells J.R.'s brother Bobby, "Since you lost your junkyard dog, there's nothing to keep me from taking your family down."

Is it any wonder a brawl erupts?

The next day, J.R. is mourned at a private graveside service.

Several of the principals speak, and, hearing them, it would be hard for any "Dallas" devotee not to grieve the loss of Larry Hagman, nor to wonder if some of the actors' sorrowful display comes from genuinely missing their fallen cast mate.

Among them is Sue Ellen, who tearfully reveals a letter she has just received from J.R. that begs her for a second chance: "When I get back to Dallas, will you have dinner with me?"

It also turns out J.R. left behind another letter, this one addressed to Bobby (Patrick Duffy).

But what that letter reveals, Bobby isn't saying not to his family nor, God forbid, the audience.

"I knew you'd have at least one more (trick) left up your sleeve, J.R.," Bobby murmurs later, alone, as he knocks back bourbons poured from J.R.'s own decanter. "And it's a good one."

The task for "Dallas" to outlive J.R. Ewing is huge. Rest in peace, Larry Hagman. But there better be no peace on this show in J.R.'s absence if it hopes to survive its magnificent villain.

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Online:

http://www.tntdrama.com

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Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore(at)ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier

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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) A ball. A boat. A little girl's sandal. Filmmakers are working to find and tell the stories behind some of the items that have washed up on North American shores following the deadly 2011 tsunami in Japan.

"Lost and Found" aims to reunite items discovered by beachcombers and others who feel compelled to return them to their rightful owners, co-director John Choi said.

A trailer for the film, which is still being produced, features two men affected by the items they've found. John Anderson found a volleyball on a beach in Washington state and Marcus Eriksen, head of an expedition that sailed from Japan to Hawaii to look for tsunami debris last year, found part of a boat. Neither of the items has been linked to their original owners yet.

"It was just like, Whoa, oh man! There's one of them balls with all the writing on it," Anderson says in the clip. "I'm more interested in the story behind it. You know, I would sure like to know what happened to these people. It would be nice to know that they survived or this was at home while they were away just this got washed away."

Eriksen said when his team first saw the boat, there was initial excitement, "because we had been watching the ocean for a few weeks, just wondering what's out there. But when we approached this, it quickly went from fascination and excitement to, like, the sobering reality that this was someone's property, and we were very quickly filled with compassion about, you know, who lost this boat."

"They didn't lose it," he said in the clip. "It was taken from them by natural disaster, so I feel compelled to find that individual."

Monday marks the two-year anniversary of the disaster, which devastated a long stretch of Japan's northeastern coast and killed thousands of people. The Japanese government estimated that 1.5 million tons of debris was floating in the ocean in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, but it's not clear how much is still floating.

Tsunami debris is tough to monitor and distinguish from the everyday debris much of it from Asia that has long been a problem along the West Coast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said just 21 items of the more than 1,500 reports of possible tsunami debris including balls, a motorcycle and boats have been firmly traced back to the tsunami. However, the agency lists scores of other items along the West Coast and across the Pacific Ocean as potentially linked.

Choi first got the idea for the documentary about 1 years ago, after hearing a news report discussing a tsunami debris field. He started thinking about what might wash ashore, and how cool it would be if there was an effort to return found items.

He connected with co-director Nicolina Lanni. At the time, he said, nothing had washed ashore. The effort took off after they met Seattle-based oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who shared his thoughts on what might happen and encouraged them in their effort.

The Canada-based filmmakers have been filming, on and off, for about a year. They established a network of contributors, and at times have been involved in trying to track down information on items found, like the little pink-and-purple sandal. A woman they met at a recent beachcomber fair found the shoe in Hawaii. A picture of it was posted on the film's Facebook page, asking for help translating the handwriting on it.

So far, he said, the team is looking at six stories, three of which involve items already traced to their owners.

"Our film is about 3 countries, 2 continents, separated by the great vastness of the Pacific Ocean coming together to share in the memories, mourn the losses and find great joy in the reuniting of something once thought to be lost forever but has now been found," a description of the project, on the Facebook page, says.

Additional filming is planned for North America this spring and Japan this summer. The filmmakers have been raising money, to help with costs.

Choi hopes to have the documentary released by the third anniversary of the disaster.

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Online: http://www.lostandfoundthefilm.ca/the-film-2

To watch the trailer: http://www.hotdocs.ca/docignite/project/lost_found

http://www.facebook.com/lostandfoundthefilm

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MIAMI (Reuters) - New York media mogul Robert F.X. Sillerman is the new entertainment king of Miami Beach after taking over almost all of the famous South Florida island-city's glitzy, over-the-top nightclubs in a push to consolidate the fast-growing electronic dance music (EDM) industry.

Two Miami companies, The Opium Group and Miami Marketing Group, which own eight nightclubs, including LIV inside the historic, art deco Fontainebleau Hotel, were recently purchased by Sillerman, according to a spokesman.

The deals, in which terms were not disclosed, are the latest move by Sillerman to corner the EDM market, after saying in June last year that he was willing to spend more than $1 billion buying up EDM promoters and event organizers.

EDM is rapidly growing in popularity in the U.S. and abroad, popularized by nightclub DJs featuring acts by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Pitbull.

Sillerman's stake in the Miami club scene gives him a presence in a major EDM market and home of the Ultra Music Festival, one of the biggest in the world, with eight stages and more than 230,000 attendees last year.

This year's Ultra event in Miami promises to be even bigger, and has expanded to two consecutive 3-day weekends later this month. Sillerman has no ties to the event.

Sillerman's quest echoes his business strategy from the late 1990s when his company, SFX Entertainment, consolidated a large number of concert promoters, producers and venues and was bought by Clear Channel in 2000 for $4.4 billion.

In January, Sillerman's revived SFX Entertainment purchased the North American division of Holland-based ID&T Entertainment, the world's largest dance music concert promoter. ID&T runs a three-day festival in Belgium called Tomorrowland and Sensation White, an EDM concert series held across Europe that made its U.S. debut at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn last October.

Tomorrowland producers plan to hold their first festival outside of Belgium, called Tomorrow World, somewhere in North America in late September.

SFX has also acquired several other EDM assets in recent weeks, including New Orleans-based EDM promoter Donnie Disco Presents and Life in Color, which puts on day-glow-paint-soaked EDM concerts across the U.S. Last week, SFX took over the Denver-based music site Beatport, a major download store for EDM with a catalog of more than one million tracks, the New York Times reported.

"He's the entrepreneurial type, looking for different avenues to bring in his management aggregation strategy," said Mark Fratrik, vice president and chief economist for media consultancy BIA/Kelsey. "I imagine he could do the same thing [now]... it seems like this is another combining of the events with the music."

SFX, LIVE NATION EXPAND EDM REACH

Sillerman first began buying radio stations in the late 1970s and sold a block of 10 stations to Westinghouse Broadcasting for $400 million in 1989. He later launched SFX Broadcasting which went public in 1993 and grew even larger when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 lifted the cap on the number of stations a company could own in a single market. In 1997, the company was sold for $2.1 billion to Capstar Broadcasting Corp, a company formed by the Hicks brothers.

Sillerman then started a new public company called Marquee Group Inc, which bought up agencies that represented professional sports and music stars, and SFX Entertainment through which he acquired concert venues and promoters.

SFX Entertainment was sold to Clear Channel in 2000 for $4.4 billion and was widely recognized as the precursor to the now massive concert promoter and producer Live Nation.

Sillerman went on to form CKX Inc, which bought 85 percent of Elvis Presley Enterprises, including the rock-and-roll legend's Graceland mansion, and 100 percent of Simon Fuller's 19 Entertainment, producer of American Idol.

"He's been extremely successful in consolidating fragmented industries which have untapped growth potential that generally have excellent marketing opportunities attached to them," said Mike Principe, a former SFX attorney who is now CEO of The Legacy Agency. "He goes in, acquires en masse, and enjoys a leading position."

Sillerman isn't the only one trying to bring the booming slice of the music industry under one flag. In May 2012, Live Nation purchased Cream Holdings Limited, which produces EDM events in the U.K. and Australia.

Cream Founder and CEO James Barton became head of Live Nation Electronic Music tasked with expanding the company's reach in EDM around the world. Both SFX and Live Nation have been reportedly courting Los Angeles-based Insomniac.

The company's signature event, Electric Daisy Carnival, drew more than 230,000 revelers to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the summer of 2012 and has spawned satellite festivals in cities around the U.S.

(Editing by David Adams, Bernard Orr)

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