Rapper Lil Wayne released from Los Angeles hospital



LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rapper Lil Wayne has been released from a Los Angeles hospital after a mystery health scare and was returning home, the president of the singer's record label said.

"Thanks to Cedar Sinai (sic) for everything!!! (Lil Wayne) has been officially released and is headed home .... God is great," Mack Maine, a rapper and president of Young Money Entertainment, which Lil Wayne owns, said on Twitter late on Monday.

Celebrity website TMZ.com reported that Lil Wayne, 30, was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on March 13 after suffering a series of seizures and said that the "Lollipop" rapper spent several days in intensive care.

Lil Wayne's spokeswoman said last week that the rapper was "recovering" but declined to say what he was suffering from.

The rapper's publicist and record label did not return requests for comment on his condition on Tuesday.

Fellow rappers, including Nicki Minaj and Drake, were photographed entering the hospital over the weekend. Minaj was carrying a set of balloons into the hospital.

Lil Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., has suffered several unexplained seizures in the past few months, including two in January while on a plane flight.

The New Orleans rapper began his professional career at the age of nine, when he became the youngest artist to be signed by Cash Money Records.

Lil Wayne has released nine studio albums over a two-decade career and has become one of the biggest names in rap music.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Philip Barbara)

'Homeland' writer-producer Bromell dies at 66



LOS ANGELES (AP) Henry Bromell, an Emmy Award-winning executive producer for the TV series "Homeland," has died, a representative said Tuesday. He was 66.

Bromell died Monday at a Los Angeles area hospital, Peter Benedek, his longtime agent and friend, said Tuesday.

The cause of death could not be confirmed.

Last year, Bromell shared in Emmy and Golden Globe best-drama awards for Showtime's "Homeland." In 1992, he won a Humanitas Prize, given to work that meaningfully explores the human condition, for the TV drama "I'll Fly Away."

Bromell was "an immensely talented and prolific" writer and producer, Showtime said in a statement. His other TV credits included "Northern Exposure," ''Chicago Hope," ''Rubicon" and "Brotherhood."

"Henry was a profoundly decent and generous man. A great writer and a great friend," ''Homeland" executive producers Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon said in a statement. "Everybody here at 'Homeland' is grieving, and we will miss him beyond words."

He is survived by his wife, Sarah, and sons William and Jake, Benedek said.

Funeral plans were not immediately announced.

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Lynn Elber can be reached at lelber(at)ap.org and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lynnelber

Danny Boyle on 'Trance' and keeping sane during London Olympics



By Zorianna Kit

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After Danny Boyle's prominent role at last year's London Summer Olympics, the British filmmaker is back in the spotlight with his first film since 2010's "127 Hours."

"Trance," which had its world premiere in London on Tuesday, stars James McAvoy as Simon, a man who teams with a criminal (Vincent Cassel) to steal a painting, but who suffers a blow to the head which causes him to have no memory of where he hid it.

A hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawson) is brought in to help, but as Simon's subconscious mind is probed more deeply, the more the lines between truth, lies and suggestion are blurred.

Part caper, part psychological thriller, "Trance" is another radical departure from Boyle's previous work, which has ranged from the story of a Mumbai teen's rise from the slums in Oscar-winning "Slumdog Millionaire," to a man trapped under a boulder in "127 Hours," to the horror thriller "28 Days Later."

Yet Boyle feels his films are not all that different from one another.

"The truth is, they're all the same," he told Reuters in an interview in Los Angeles. "Basically it's always about a guy who faces insurmountable odds and overcomes them. And that's where you get a lift at the end of the movies."

"Trance," said Boyle, follows that same vein, except "you don't know which" of the three main characters will be overcoming the odds when the movie starts.

The film will be released in the UK on March 27, and on April 5 in the United States.

Boyle, 56, initially planned on shooting the film in New York before he was asked to be the artistic director for the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.

Instead, he shot "Trance" in the British capital at night while working on the Olympics ceremony during the day.

LEVERAGING OSCAR AT OLYMPICS

Little did Boyle realize that he would be the one who faced insurmountable odds in a personal tale where his only weapon in taking on the Olympics became his Academy Award for directing the 2008 film "Slumdog."

In an upcoming book about his Olympics experience, Boyle talks of chaos behind the scenes and arguments with organizers over penny-pinching on costumes and musical instruments, and a dispute over a sponsorship deal with Dow Chemical Co.

The memoir "Danny Boyle: Creating Wonder" will be published in April. According to excerpts that ran in Britain's Sunday Times newspaper last weekend, Boyle came close to walking away from the Olympics job over a decision by Britain's Defense Ministry to deploy ground-to-air missiles on buildings close to the Olympic stadium in a crowded area of East London.

"There's so many people who are so paranoid and so corporate," Boyle told Reuters of the multiple cooks in the Olympic kitchen. "They want to head for safety first and you have to make sure they don't distort the show."

"I did bash people over the head with the Academy Award (win)," he continued. "I was shameless. You wouldn't have recognized me in some of those meetings because I was not a very nice guy."

Boyle, who describes himself as normally "very affable," said he had to trot out his Oscar credentials in order to protect his vision, and when he felt he was being manipulated by London Olympics organizers.

"They're so terrified for the wrong headline, that you offer them the ultimate headline, which is, 'OK, we'll walk away then, shall we?' That's not going to read very well in the newspapers!"

Ultimately, Boyle's vision - which included a much-talked about skit involving Queen Elizabeth and Daniel Craig as James Bond - prevailed and was the most-viewed Olympic opening ceremony in both the United States and Britain.

"'Trance' kept us sane," Boyle said of his schedule at that time. "It seems curious saying that about a film that's sort of about insanity in a way. But it was crucial to our sanity during the Olympics that we were able to do this film."

(Reporting by Zorianna Kit; editing by Jill Serjeant and Matthew Lewis)

Experts: Chances of recovering Boston art good



BOSTON (AP) Now that authorities believe they know who stole $500 million worth of art from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in the largest art heist in U.S. history, what are the chances they'll actually recover the stolen works by Rembrandt, Vermeer and Manet after 23 years?

Surprisingly good, art recovery experts say.

Christopher Marinello, general counsel for The Art Loss Register, a London-based organization that keeps a database of stolen and missing artwork, recently recovered a Matisse oil painting stolen from a Stockholm museum in 1987.

"A quarter of a century is not that unusual for stolen paintings to be returned," Marinello said. "Eventually they will resurface. Somebody will rat somebody else out. It's really only a matter of time."

The FBI announced Monday that it knows but is not disclosing the identities of two men who posed as police officers and stole 13 works of art from the museum in 1990. The theft remains the largest art heist in U.S. history.

Bob Wittman, a retired FBI agent from Philadelphia who specialized in art crimes, said he helped recover a set of seven Norman Rockwell paintings stolen from a Minneapolis museum in 1977. The paintings were found in Rio de Janeiro in 2001. Wittman said he also helped recover an original copy of the Bill of Rights that had been stolen more than 130 years earlier.

"I think that the chances are that if they still exist, there's a 95 percent chance they are going to get the paintings back," Wittman said.

"At some point, they are going to come back to market. Whoever is holding them illicitly is going to get old. An heir or a child is going to find it and try to sell it."

The FBI, which made its announcement on the 23rd anniversary of the heist, also launched a new publicity campaign aimed at generating tips on the whereabouts of the artwork, including a dedicated FBI website on the heist, video postings on FBI social media sites and digital billboards in Connecticut and Philadelphia. They also re-emphasized a $5 million reward being offered by the museum for information leading to the return of the artwork.

Damon Katz, a spokesman for the FBI's Boston office, said tips were already coming in Tuesday. He would not say how many.

"We are analyzing them and we will act on those as appropriate," he said. "The goal is not to generate the largest number of tips, but to generate the best tips that will lead us to the art."

Richard DesLauriers, an FBI agent in Boston, said investigators believe the thieves belonged to a criminal organization based in New England and the mid-Atlantic states. They believe the art was taken to Connecticut and the Philadelphia region in the years after the theft and offered for sale in Philadelphia a decade ago. After that, the FBI does not know what happened to the artwork, DeLauriers said.

Empty frames still hang on the walls of the museum as a reminder of the loss of precious works of art, including "The Concert" by Johannes Vermeer and several Rembrandts, "A Lady and Gentleman in Black" and "Storm on the Sea of Galilee," his only seascape.

The statute of limitations has expired on crimes associated with the actual theft. But prosecutors say anyone who knowingly possesses or conceals the stolen art could still face charges.

Justin Timberlake releases new album, announces follow-up



By Piya Sinha-Roy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Justin Timberlake celebrated the release of his first album since 2006 with a lively show in Los Angeles, whetting fans' appetites by confirming media reports that he would release more new music soon.

At an intimate album release party for "The 20/20 Experience" on Monday, Timberlake took the opportunity to clear up media reports that he would be releasing a second volume of music later this year.

"I've got to clear up the rumors. This whole thing about this only being the first part ... is true. There is another half. I'm not giving you a release date," the singer said.

Earlier in the day, media outlets reported that Roots drummer Questlove said in an interview that Timberlake would release a second volume of music in November this year.

"The 20/20 Experience" marks the singer's return to the musical spotlight after taking time out to focus on his acting career, starring in films such as "The Social Network" and "Friends with Benefits."

Timberlake, 32, sang a few of his latest hits and earlier songs for the audience, and answered questions from fans about his new record, including why it took him six years to release a new album after his hugely successful 2006 "FutureSexLoveSounds," which featured the hit single "Sexyback."

"I definitely enjoy all the entertaining but music is definitely the most special thing to me, and that's probably why I wait so long in between records, because for me, no pun intended, it's an experience," the singer said in an interview with Ryan Seacrest between songs.

Timberlake has successfully transitioned from child star and member of boyband N'Sync to bona fide actor and solo singer.

The album marks a new chapter in the singer's life, following his marriage to actress Jessica Biel in October 2012.

Timberlake sang three songs from the new album - romantic ballad "Mirrors," smooth R&B track "Suit & Tie" and the Latin-infused "Let the Groove Get In" - showcasing the range of influences he explored on "The 20/20 Experience."

But it was the album's closing track, "Blue Ocean Floor," that Timberlake called the most "unique" on the album and inspired by British rock band Radiohead.

"I'm a huge Thom Yorke (Radiohead frontman) fan, and I was listening to some 'OK Computer' and 'Kid A' and this song just happened. This is probably the most unique so far and probably took me out of my comfort zone," the singer said.

Timberlake also played some of his most popular hits, including a medley of "Like I Love You," "My Love" and his breakup song "Cry Me A River."

The new album has been at the top of the iTunes album charts since it became available to stream and pre-order last week and is set to debut at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart next week.

Audience members on Monday took note of the singer's penchant for formal wear, turning up in suits and dresses for the speakeasy-themed album release party at the historic El Rey Theater in Los Angeles.

Fan Amanda Wall, 18, and her mother Camille won tickets to the intimate gig on Seacrest's radio show and traveled from Atlanta to attend the singer's album launch.

"I've been a big Justin Timberlake fan, he's been my crush since I was 7, so this is huge," Amanda Wall told Reuters.

The singer will embark on a "Legends of the Summer" North American tour with rapper Jay-Z, kicking off in July.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Elaine Lies and Eric Walsh)

American gets back art taken by Nazis during WWII



PARIS (AP) The last time Tom Selldorff saw his grandfather's prized art collection he was six in 1930s Vienna, before it fell into Nazi hands.

Now, he's 84 years old and in a restitution ceremony in Paris on Tuesday, Selldorff has finally been given back a piece of his late grandfather's memory: France has returned six of his stolen family masterpieces. The restitution of the works including paintings by Alessandro Longhi and Sebastiano Ricci is part of its ongoing French effort to return hundreds of looted artworks that Jewish owners lost during the war that still hang in the Louvre and other museums. The move ends years of struggle for Selldorff, whose claims were validated by the French government last year after years of researching the fates of the works.

"I'm extremely grateful and very moved" said Selldorff, who laid eyes on the oil paintings on temporary display in France's culture ministry for the first time since the 1930s. "These paintings were in this fog of war. The restitution... was not easy. It took a long time."

The artworks were stolen or sold under duress up to seven decades ago as Jewish industrialist and art collector Richard Neumann and his family fled Nazi-occupied Europe. It is not clear exactly to whom Neumann sold them, and the route they took to show up in French museums is unclear. They found places at the Louvre, the Museum of Modern Art of Saint-Etienne, the Agen Fine Arts Museum and the Tours Fine Art Museum.

"After losing most of his family assets and a good part of his collection to the Nazis in Austria in 1938, he came to Paris for several years and then had to flee again, this time with my grandmother at one point on foot over the Pyrenees, to Spain and then eventually to Cuba," he said.

Meanwhile the paintings stayed behind all six destined for display in the art gallery Adolf Hitler wanted to build in his hometown of Linz, Austria, according to a catalog for the planned museum.

"I only wish my grandfather was here to be able to be a part of all this, but I am sure he is watching from somewhere upstairs, so that's fine," added Selldorff, who's now a U.S. citizen and flew in to France for the event from Boston.

At the end of the war, with Hitler dead and European cities rebuilding, artworks were left "unclaimed" and many thousands that were thought to have been French-owned found their ways into the country's top museums. Many of the 100,000 possessions looted, stolen or appropriated between 1940-44 in France have been returned to Jewish families, but France says that some 2,000 artworks still lie in state institutions.

With a twinkle in his eye, and a youthful smile the octogenarian Selldorff remembers wandering around his grandfather's collection.

"I remember the house (in Vienna) very well, I remember the existence of these dark rooms with these paintings hanging," he said, recalling that his grandfather Neumann also opened up the collection to the Austrian public.

"I too hope that some of the will go on loan to museums and exhibited so that other people besides our family can appreciate them," he said.

Selldorff says he's spoken to some U.S. museums about the possibility of showing the art to the American public.

Overall, he says it's about being able to pass to his three children and five grandchildren a piece of his grandfather's stolen history.

"His love of art is what I want to pass on," he said. "It's what makes us human."

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Thomas Adamson can be followed at http://Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP

'Oz' holds box-office lead with $46.6 million



NEW YORK (AP) "Oz the Great and Powerful" continued to live up to its name, leading the weekend box office for the second week with $46.6 million.

The Halle Berry thriller "The Call" opened well above expectations, taking in $17.1 million in its debut.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "Oz the Great and Powerful," Walt Disney, $41,252,702, 3912 locations, $10,545 average, $144,056,326, two weeks.

2. "The Call," Sony, $17,118,745, 2507 locations, $6,828 average, $17,118,745, one week.

3. "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone," Warner Bros. $10,177,257, 3160 locations, $3,221 average, $10,177,257, one week.

4. "Jack the Giant Slayer," Warner Bros., $6,314,262, 3357 locations, $1,881 average, three weeks.

5. "Identity Thief," Universal, $4,419,310, 2842 locations, $1,555 average, $123,606,175, six weeks.

6. "Snitch," Lionsgate, $3,504,618, 2353 locations, $1,489 average, $37,261,895, four weeks.

7. "21 and Over," Relativity Media, $2,669,967, 2424 locations,$1,101 average, $21,918,740, three weeks.

8. "Silver Linings Playbook," Weinstein Co., $2,525,603, 1602 locations, $1,577 average, $124,551,782, 18 weeks.

9. "Safe Haven," Relativity Media, $2,453,229, 2206 locations, $1,112, $66,911,039, five weeks.

10. "Escape From Planet Earth," Weinstein Co., $2,339,419, 2211 locations, $1,058 average, $52,178,000, five weeks.

11. "Dead Man Down," FilmDistrict, $2,126,029, 2,188 locations, $972 average, $9,373,369, two weeks.

12. "The Last Exorcism, Part II," CBS Films, $1,276,070, 1575 locations, $810 average, $14,381,174, three weeks.

13. "Life of Pi," Fox, $1,224,692, 646 locations, $1,896 average, $121,344,826, 17 weeks.

14. "A Good Day to Die Hard," Fox, $1,157,499, 1117 locations, $1,036 average, $65,471,646, five weeks.

15. "Quartet," Weinstein Co., $936,699, 688 locations, $1,361 average, $14,833,591, 10 weeks.

16. "Emperor," Roadside Attractions, $625,518, 311 locations, $2,011 average, $2,028,581, two weeks.

17. "Warm Bodies," Lionsgate, $569,290, 659 locations, $864 average, $64,580,200, seven weeks.

18. "Dark Skies," Weinstein Co., $544,605, 703 locations, $775 average, $16,647,116, four weeks.

19. "Side Effects," Open Road Films, $543,568, 402 locations, $1,352 average, $30,482,781, six weeks.

20. "Argo," Warner Bros., $509,207, 540 locations, $943 average, $135,178,251, 23 weeks.

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

U.S. computer hacker gets three-and-a-half years for stealing iPad user data



By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - A computer hacker was sentenced on Monday to three years and five months in prison for stealing the personal data of about 120,000 Apple Inc iPad users, including big-city mayors, a TV network news anchor and a Hollywood movie mogul.

Andrew Auernheimer, 27, had been convicted in November by a Newark, New Jersey, jury of one count of conspiracy to access AT&T Inc servers without permission, and one count of identity theft.

The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton in Newark was at the high end of the 33- to 41-month range that the U.S. Department of Justice had sought.

Prosecutors had said prison time would help deter hackers from invading the privacy of innocent people on the Internet.

Among those affected by Auernheimer's activities were ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein, prosecutors said.

"When it became clear that he was in trouble, he concocted the fiction that he was trying to make the Internet more secure, and that all he did was walk in through an unlocked door," U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a statement. "The jury didn't buy it, and neither did the court in imposing sentence."

Auernheimer had sought probation. His lawyer had argued that no passwords were hacked, and that a long prison term was unjustified given that the government recently sought six months for a defendant in a case involving "far more intrusive facts."

The lawyer, Tor Ekeland, said his client would appeal. He said the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act doesn't clearly define what constitutes unauthorized access.

"If this is criminal, then tens of thousands of Americans are committing computer crimes every other day," Ekeland said in an interview. "There really was no harm."

Auernheimer was handcuffed at one point during the sentencing, the lawyer said. He said his client may have been "tweeting" on his phone, and the U.S. marshals took it away.

Ekeland is also a lawyer for Matthew Keys, a deputy social media editor at Thomson Reuters Corp who was suspended with pay on Friday.

Keys was indicted last week in California on federal charges of aiding the Anonymous hacking collective by giving a hacker access to Tribune Co computer systems in December 2010.

The alleged events occurred before Keys began working at the website Reuters.com. Ekeland on Friday said Keys "maintains his innocence" and "looks forward to contesting these baseless charges.

INTERNET TROLL

Prosecutors called Auernheimer a "well-known computer hacker and internet 'troll,'" who with co-defendant Daniel Spitler and the group Goatse Security tried to disrupt online content and services.

The two men were accused of using an "account slurper" designed to match email addresses with identifiers for iPad users, and of conducting a "brute force" attack to extract data about those users, who accessed the Internet through the AT&T servers.

This stolen information was then provided to the website Gawker, which published an article naming well-known people whose emails had been compromised, prosecutors said.

Spitler pleaded guilty in June 2011 to the same charges for which Auernheimer was convicted, and is awaiting sentencing.

Gawker was not charged in the case. In its original article, Gawker said Goatse obtained its data through a script on AT&T's website that was accessible to anyone on the Internet. Gawker also said in the article that it established the authenticity of the data through two people listed among the names. A Gawker spokesman on Monday declined to elaborate.

AT&T has partnered with Apple in the United States to provide wireless service on the iPad. After the hacking, it shut off the feature that allowed email addresses to be obtained.

The case is U.S. v. Auernheimer, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, No. 11-00470.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Martha Graybow, Alden Bentley and Eric Walsh)

Tom Cruise, Bert Fields win dismissal of Pellicano wiretapping suit



By Steve Pond

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Tom Cruise and attorney Bert Fields have won a summary judgment dismissing a lawsuit filed by former Bold magazine editor Michael Davis Sapir, who claimed Cruise and Fields had hired private investigator Anthony Pellicano to wiretap him.

In a hearing at the Central Civil West courtroom in Los Angeles, Judge Elihu M. Berle ruled that the statue of limitations had expired on Sapir's claim.

The statue of limitations argument was one of four grounds on which the defendants' lawyers had argued for dismissal - but defendants' attorney Brian A. Sun of the Jones Day law firm told TheWrap that Berle dismissed the case on those grounds alone and didn't consider the other arguments.

In 2001, Sapir offered a $500,000 reward to anyone who could produce video evidence that Cruise was gay. When he issued a subsequent press release claiming to have obtained such a video, Cruise filed a $100 million defamation suit. That case was settled in November 2001, with Sapir publishing a retraction, saying it was someone else in the video.

Sapir later claimed that at the time the 2001 suit was ongoing, he was investigated by Pellicano at the behest of Cruise and Fields. He charged that his phone was wiretapped by the controversial Hollywood investigator, who is currently serving time in a Texas prison on racketeering and wiretapping convictions.

But Sapir did not file his $5 million lawsuit against Cruise and Fields until December 2009, well after the statue of limitations in the California Code of Civil Procedure had expired.

The defendants' lawyers also argued that Cruise, Fields and the Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger LLP law firm, also a defendant in the case, did not hire Pellicano to work on the Sapir case; that Sapir had no evidence that Pellicano had tapped his phone; and that in the 2001 settlement Sapir agreed not to make any further claims against Cruise and Fields.

Those arguments, according to Sun, are now moot, unless Sapir appeals and wins.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

Highwire stuntman plans to cross Grand Canyon without a tether



By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Aerialist Nik Wallenda plans to cross the Grand Canyon in June on a tightrope 1,500 feet in the air, without a safety harness - a feat that will be televised live.

Wallenda said he would traverse a remote section of crimson-hued canyon owned by the Navajo Nation in what will be his first major stunt since he last year became the only person to walk a wire over the brink of Niagara Falls.

"This is another one of my dreams coming true," Wallenda, 34, told Reuters in a brief telephone interview. "This is one that has been on my bucket list for some time."

Wallenda, a seventh-generation member of the "Flying Wallendas" acrobat family, said the tightrope walk across the famed gorge is higher than he has ever before attempted. The walk, scheduled for June 23, will also be about 1,500 feet (450 meters) long.

Wallenda had bristled at wearing a safety tether during his Niagara Falls crossing last June. But ABC, the television network that aired the event, said it would pull the plug on the broadcast if he unhooked the harness.

The tether was never needed as Wallenda took 25 minutes to complete the walk from the United States to Canada while some 200 feet above the falls.

Wallenda said not using a tether this time was non-negotiable in his talks with those bidding to air the Grand Canyon crossing. It will be televised live on the Discovery Channel.

"I always said it was my dream to walk across Niagara Falls and I felt that part of that dream was taken away because I had to wear a tether," Wallenda said. "That wasn't going to happen again if I had anything to do with it."

He said the canyon crossing has been in the making since 2008, but he only recently received permission from the Navajo Nation.

"We're really excited to be able to showcase our homelands on such a large scale," Navajo spokesman Erny Zah said. "We're hoping that people will enjoy the scenery on television and will want to come out and see the area in person."

The plan calls for Wallenda to spend about three weeks preparing for the event at his Florida training base, including using wind machines to help simulate conditions.

Wallenda said he will use the walk to honour his great-grandfather Karl Wallenda, who died in 1978 during a walk between two buildings in Puerto Rico.

(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Steve Orlofsky)