Danny Puff

LONDON (AP) Justin Bieber's week just got worse.

Following a brief hospital stay after fainting backstage, the 19-year-old pop star's preparation for a final concert in London on Friday hit a speed bump.

Bieber got into an altercation with insult-hurling paparazzi, lashing out at a photographer with a stream of expletives as he was restrained by minders.

The singer quickly took to Twitter to address the incident, which was captured by Channel 5 news, and pledged to channel his "adrenaline" into his Friday show.

"Ahhhhh! Rough morning. Trying to feel better for this show tonight but let the paps get the best of me," he posted on the social networking site.

"Sometimes when people r shoving cameras in your face all day and yelling the worst thing possible at u...well I'm human. Rough week."

The scuffle came just hours after Bieber said he was "getting better" after struggling to breathe during the previous night's concert at the O2 arena, and pledged the show would go on as planned.

A spokesman for the O2 Arena said the 19-year-old pop star was treated backstage during Thursday's concert after becoming short of breath, but recovered and finished his set.

"As far as we are concerned everything is on, on, on" for Friday's show, Jeremy King said.

"He was treated by our team of medics and after further examination they didn't find anything more serious or worrying."

A spokeswoman for Bieber said he was recovering after Thursday's incident, which saw him given oxygen before returning to the stage.

"Justin has been released from the hospital after a check-up and, while he's feeling a little under the weather, he's currently planning on going ahead with tonight's show," the spokeswoman said Friday. She demanded anonymity to discuss the star's condition.

Bieber later posted a shirtless photo of himself in a hospital bed, saying he was getting better and listening to Janis Joplin. Before that on Twitter he thanked "everyone pulling me thru tonight."

"Best fans in the world," he wrote. "Figuring out what happened. Thanks for the love."

Video footage from the concert shows Bieber appearing to fade during a performance of his up-tempo hit, "Beauty and a Beat." He slows down, puts a hand to his head then bends over, resting his hands on knees before walking slowly to the back of the stage.

The AP spoke to 18-year-old journalism student Prithvi Pandya, who shot the footage, to confirm its authenticity.

"When he started 'Beauty and a Beat' you could see he was struggling," said Pandya, who was near the front of the crowd. "He took lots of drinks of water, that seemed unusual, and he was really sweaty, sweating a helluva lot.

"Toward the end of it, he went backstage. We didn't see him fainting. They brought on dancers to entertain, and I knew something was wrong at that point."

Bieber's manager, Scooter Braun, appeared onstage and told the crowd that the singer was feeling "very low of breath" but would come back to finish the show.

Jazz Chappell, a 20-year-old concertgoer who brought her younger sister and her friend to the show, said that In the nearly 30 minutes he was offstage, some fans started to leave. Once his manager announced what had happened, Chappell said many fans in the audience were gasping and crying, while others kept cheering for him to return.

"I thought, 'Give the guy a break. He just fainted. He's not a performing horse. Let him rest a second,'" said Chappell.

Chappell said Bieber, who is in London to perform four concerts at the O2, later returned and performed low-energy renditions of his hits "Boyfriend" and "Baby."

Braun later tweeted "everyone please give him a little space and he will be ok. Im sure he appreciates the support ... Tough kid proud night once again he always finishes the show. Full out. True pro..."

The incident caps a difficult week for Bieber. He was forced to apologize to outraged fans who accused him of taking the stage almost two hours late for his first concert at the O2 on Monday. He insisted he was only 40 minutes late and blamed "technical issues." He took to Twitter to vent his frustrations with the media's portrayal of the incident.

The star's Believe world tour is due to move on to Portugal on Monday, then continue across Europe, the Middle East, South Africa and North America until August.

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AP writers Gregory Katz in London and Derrik J. Lang in Los Angeles and AP Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu contributed to this report.

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Online:

http://www.justinbiebermusic.com/

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) South Korean rapper PSY says he'll unveil his much-awaited follow-up to "Gangnam Style" next month and celebrate it with a huge concert in Seoul.

PSY made the announcement Friday on YouTube, where his "Gangnam Style" video has a record 1.39 billion views.

PSY said he'll release the new single on April 13 and hold a concert at a soccer stadium that evening. He's dubbed the concert "Happening" and says it will be broadcast live on YouTube.

The rapper, whose real name is Park Jae-sang, has been on a worldwide tour since his viral video made a global splash in July, with its catchy tune and much-imitated horse-riding dance. He recently released a "Gangnam Style" remix and performed at the inauguration ceremony for South Korea's new president.

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Online:

http://tinyurl.com/a34v24h

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NEW YORK (AP) Tiffani Thiessen is probably best known for her role as Kelly Kapowski on "Saved by the Bell," but the actress says she had no idea at that time how popular the teenage sitcom was.

"I mean, I was so young. I was 15 when I started that show," Thiessen, now 39, said in a recent interview.

"I remember Mark-Paul (Gosselaar) and I touring the (United) States and going overseas. ... That was the first time that I realized what an impact that show had when 5,000, 6,000, 10,000 kids were showing up to these malls and these places where we would sit there for hours and do autograph signings and pictures and stuff," she said.

"That's when I was really like, 'Where am I? What is this?' Kids wanted my empty cup of water and, you know, things like that. It was strange. I had to constantly remind myself that what I was doing was a job and I enjoyed my job and I was going back to school and do homework like all these other kids who were sitting here."

"Saved by the Bell," which also starred Mario Lopez and Dustin Diamond, aired from 1989 to 1993.

The show now airs in syndication and remains a part of the pop culture zeitgeist. Jimmy Fallon tried unsuccessfully to rally the cast for a reunion in 2009. (They did pose for a People magazine cover.) Justin Bieber wore a T-shirt with the likeness of Kelly Kapowski to the MuchMusic Awards in 2011.

Thiessen is grateful that she grew up in the limelight before TMZ and other 24-hour media outlets and gossip blogs came along on the Internet.

"Thank God I missed that. The photographers that would follow us were like for Teen Beat and Bop (magazines)," she said.

She said the limelight got a little more intense with her next big role as Valerie Malone on the '90s romance drama "Beverly Hills, 90210." But it was "nothing like (what) the kids are going through now."

Thiessen credits Aaron Spelling, who was an executive producer of "90210," with giving her an interesting perspective on fame.

"Aaron Spelling said something to me a long time ago that was really interesting," she said. "He said ... movie stars are in big screens and you have to go see them in the theater. TV stars are in people's homes and they feel much more of a connection because you're watching them in your home, and I thought that was really interesting because it was kind of true. A lot of people you know would stop me on the street thinking they went to high school with me."

Thiessen divides her time between Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and daughter, and New York City, where she films the USA series "White Collar," which aired its season four series finale this week.

Matt Bomer plays former con man Neal Caffrey, who is working with the FBI to catch white-collar criminals. Her character is married to agent Peter Burke, who supervises Caffrey.

"If I wasn't an actor, I probably would be an event planner, which is why my character, Elizabeth, on 'White Collar' is an event planner. It was kind of my idea. Presentation is huge for me. I love throwin' a good party. Absolutely. Like my daughter's birthday last year. I did all the catering, all the food, all the decor and I loved every minute of it. Of course, my husband's like, 'Do we have to do this much?' I just love doing it."

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Online:

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/whitecollar/

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Alicia Rancilio covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow her online at http://www.twitter.com/aliciar

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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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