Danny Puff

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index was lower on Thursday, led by declines in gold shares that followed the bullion price lower, but a jump in BlackBerry after the smartphone maker reported a surprise quarterly profit offset some of the losses.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index was down 25.55 points, or 0.20 percent, at 12,676.10 shortly after the open.

(Reporting by John Tilak; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson)

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FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) Actress Ashley Judd announced Wednesday she won't run for U.S. Senate in Kentucky against Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, saying she had given serious thought to a campaign but decided her responsibilities and energy need to be focused on her family.

The former Kentucky resident tweeted her decision.

"Regretfully, I am currently unable to consider a campaign for the Senate. I have spoken to so many Kentuckians over these last few months who expressed their desire for a fighter for the people & new leader," Judd wrote.

"While that won't be me at this time, I will continue to work as hard as I can to ensure the needs of Kentucky families are met by returning this Senate seat to whom it rightfully belongs: the people & their needs, dreams, and great potential. Thanks for even considering me as that person & know how much I love our Commonwealth. Thank you!"

Her publicist Cara Tripicchio confirmed Judd's decision.

The 44-year-old Judd had hinted last week that she was nearing a decision about the race.

Now living in suburban Nashville, Tenn., Judd has said little publicly about her intentions. However, she has been meeting with several Democratic leaders, including Gov. Steve Beshear, to discuss a possible run.

Defeating McConnell would be the Democrats' biggest prize of the 2014 election. His seat is one of 14 that Republicans are defending while Democrats try to hold onto 21, hoping to retain or add to their 55-45 edge.

The star of such films as "Double Jeopardy" and "Kiss the Girls" is known for her liberal political views and she would have been running in a largely conservative state where Republicans hold both Senate seats and five of the six seats in the U.S. House.

Former State Treasurer Jonathan Miller, a Judd supporter, said she would have been a strong candidate.

"As a Kentuckian and someone who was really enthusiastic about her as a candidate, this wasn't the news I was hoping for," Miller said. "But as her friend, from the first time we talked about the race last summer, I was very candid about the grueling nature of politics. It's become a very unpleasant business and running against Mitch McConnell would be an extraordinarily difficult and grueling experience."

McConnell, who spent some $20 million on his last election and who has already raised $10 million for the next one, had already been taunting would-be Democratic challengers in a comical online video intended to raise second thoughts about taking on a politician known as brawler. The video plays on the fact that Judd lives in Tennessee.

Republican-leaning group American Crossroads in its own online video also plays on the Tennessee angle and ties her closely to President Barack Obama, who is unpopular in Kentucky.

University of Louisville political scientist Laurie Rhodebeck said Judd certainly wasn't frightened out of the race.

"She doesn't strike me as a shrinking violet," Rhodebeck said. "I think the real issue would be how much disruption she wanted in her life. This was the kind of thing that she would have to throw herself into 100 percent in order to make it worthwhile."

Judd and three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti separated early this year after marrying in his native Scotland in 2001.

Judd's decision not to enter the race leaves the Democratic Party in search of a candidate. Many of Kentucky's top Democrats, including Beshear, have said they won't run. However, a rising star within the party, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, hasn't ruled the race out. Grimes declined comment Wednesday evening through her spokeswoman, Lynn Sowards Zellen.

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Associated Press writer Janet Cappiello contributed to this report.

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LONDON (AP) Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot in the head by the Taliban as she returned home from school, is writing a book about the traumatic event and her long-running campaign to promote children's education.

Publisher Weidenfeld and Nicolson announced that it would release "I am Malala" in Britain and Commonwealth countries this fall. Little, Brown and Co. will publish the 15-year-old's memoir in the United States and much of the rest of the world.

"Malala is already an inspiration to millions around the world. Reading her story of courage and survival will open minds, enlarge hearts, and eventually allow more girls and boys to receive the education they hunger for," said Michael Pietsch, executive vice president and publisher of Little, Brown.

A Taliban gunman shot Malala on Oct. 9 in northwestern Pakistan. The militant group said it targeted her because she promoted "Western thinking" and, through a blog, had been an outspoken critic of the Taliban's opposition to educating girls.

The shooting sparked outrage in Pakistan and many other countries, and her story drew global attention to the struggle for women's rights in Malala's homeland. The teen even made the shortlist for Time magazine's "Person of the Year" in 2012.

Malala was brought to the U.K. for treatment and spent several months in a hospital undergoing skull reconstruction and cochlear implant surgeries. She was released last month and has started attending school in Britain.

Malala said in a statement Wednesday that she hoped telling her story would be "part of the campaign to give every boy and girl the right to go to school.

"I hope the book will reach people around the world, so they realize how difficult it is for some children to get access to education," she said. "I want to tell my story, but it will also be the story of 61 million children who can't get education."

Publishers did not reveal the price tag for the book deal, estimated by the Guardian newspaper at 2 million pounds ($3 million).

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By Tim Molloy

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Speculation that Matt Lauer isn't long for NBC is only about to get more intense: The New Yorker has a detailed rundown on how it says Lauer earned a $25 million annual contract by threatening to leave for ABC.

Joe Hagan's lengthy, detailed piece describes several tumultuous months at NBC: ABC's "Good Morning America" was about to beat "Today" in the weekly ratings for the first time in 16 years. Matt Lauer and Ann Curry weren't gelling on camera. And Lauer almost jumped ship.

NBC and Lauer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the magazine's account, Lauer was angered by a press report that NBC was talking to Ryan Seacrest about possibly replacing him. He exercised an option to explore other jobs, and soon ABC executives - including Disney CEO Bob Iger and ABC News president Ben Sherwood - believed Lauer would join "Good Morning America," Hagan wrote.

Instead, Lauer negotiated a $25 million annual contract with NBC, which made him the best-paid morning news anchor in the history of television, Hagan reported.

So Lauer stayed, and soon after, Curry left. But now the success of "GMA" has led to rampant speculation that Lauer may look elsewhere - to replacing Alex Trebek on "Jeopardy," for instance.

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By Tim Kenneally

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - With the U.S. Supreme Court preparing to hear arguments on whether California's Proposition 8 should be overturned Tuesday, "Modern Family" co-creator Steve Levitan told TheWrap on Monday that he'd be "happy" if his hit ABC sitcom helped influence the outcome.

"If we played even the tiniest role in helping to defeat Prop 8 and giving all gay people the equal rights they deserve, then I'm a happy man," said Levitan.

Among the series' stars are Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet, who play Mitchell and Cameron, a gay couple that adopts a child.

"One of the great pleasures of doing 'Modern Family' is the feedback we get from gay people and their families who tell us that their love of the show and their affection for Mitchell and Cameron opened the door for conversation and acceptance," Levitan added.

"Modern Family," which premiered in September 2009, has received numerous awards, including two Emmys for Stonestreet in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series category.

The series was also feted at the 2011 GLAAD Media Awards, receiving an award in the Outstanding Comedy Series category.

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By Sharon Waxman

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Tom Cruise is planning on a courtroom confrontation with the publishers of "In Touch" and "Life & Style" magazine despite ongoing private mediation, his attorney exclusively told TheWrap.

"I don't expect there will be a settlement," attorney Bert Fields told TheWrap, after reports that the case had gone to private mediation. "This isn't just about money. We would want the record made absolutely clear with some prominence that their story was not true. They'd have to say it on the cover, and there would have to be some financial amount."

Talk about negotiating in the press. Cruise filed his $50 million defamation lawsuit against Bauer Publishing Company in October, claiming that Life & Style and In Touch said he had abandoned his daughter, Suri, following his split from wife Katie Holmes.

Fields said the private mediation, reported March 5, was essentially a pro forma move in parallel to the path to a courtroom trial. "You never leave the trial calendar," he said. "You're moving toward trial while mediating."

TheWrap reached out to the lawyers representing Bauer Media for response, but did not hear back.

Fields has adamantly denied the tabloids' reports about Cruise, calling them "a disgusting, vicious lie." He's also characterized Bauer as "serial defamers."

Bauer has countered that its claims about Cruise are "substantially true."

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By Paul Sandle

LONDON (Reuters) - Got a tech idea and want to make a fortune before you're out of your teens? Just do it, is the advice of the London schoolboy who's just sold his smartphone news app to Yahoo for a reported $30 million.

The money is there, just waiting for clever new moves, said 17-year-old Nick D'Aloisio, who can point to a roster of early backers for his Summly app that includes Yoko Ono and Rupert Murdoch.

"If you have a good idea, or you think there's a gap in the market, just go out and launch it because there are investors across the world right now looking for companies to invest in," he told Reuters in a telephone interview late on Monday.

The terms of the sale, four months after Summly was launched for the iPhone, have not been disclosed and D'Aloisio, who is still studying for school exams while joining Yahoo as its youngest employee, was not saying. But technology blog AllThingsD said Yahoo paid roughly $30 million.

D'Aloisio said he was the majority owner of Summly and would now invest the money from the sale, though his age imposes legal limits for now on his access to it.

"I'm happy with that and working with my parents to go through that whole process," he said.

D'Aloisio, who lives in the prosperous London suburb of Wimbledon, highlights the support of family and school, which gave him time off, but also, critically, the ideas that came with enthusiastic financial backers.

He had first dreamt up the mobile software while revising for a history exam two years ago, going on to create a prototype of the app that distils news stories into chunks of text readable on small smartphone screens.

He was inspired, he said, by the frustrating experience of trawling through Google searches and separate websites to find information when revising for the test.

Trimit was an early version of the app, which is powered by an algorithm that automatically boils down articles to about 400 characters. It caught the eye of Horizons Ventures, a venture capital firm owned by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, which put in $250,000.

That investment attracted other celebrity backers, among them Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher, British broadcaster Stephen Fry, artist Ono, the widow of Beatle John Lennon, and News Corp media mogul Murdoch.

That all added up to maximum publicity when Summly launched in November 2012, but the backers brought more than just cash for an app that has been downloaded close to a million times.

"It's been super-exciting, (the investors) found out about it in 2012 once the original investment from Li Ka-shing had gone public," said D'Aloisio. "They all believed in the idea, but they all offered different experiences to help us out."

His business has worked with around 250 content publishers, he said, such as News Corp's Wall Street Journal. People reading the summaries can easily click through to the full article, driving traffic to newspaper websites.

"The great deal about joining Yahoo is that they have a lot of publishers, they have deals with who we can work with now," D'Aloisio said.

He taught himself to code at age 12 after Apple's App Store was launched, creating several apps including Facemood, a service which analyzed sentiment to determine the moods of Facebook users, and music discovery service SongStumblr.

He has started A-levels - English final school exams - in maths, physics and philosophy, and plans to continue his studies while also working at Yahoo's offices in London. He aims to go to university to study humanities.

Although he has created an app worth millions, D'Aloisio says he is not a stereotyped computer geek.

"I like playing sport," he said. "I'm a bit of a design enthusiast, and like spending time with my girlfriend and mates."

(Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

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LONDON (Reuters) - A rare four-inch fragment of a dodo bone will go on sale in Britain in April, around 300 years after the flightless bird and icon of obsolescence was hunted to extinction.

Auctioneers Christie's said on Wednesday it was hoping to raise as much as 15,000 pounds ($22,600) for the piece of a bird's femur.

The last sale of dodo remains the auction house could find took place in London in 1934 - and it was expecting considerable interest from a highly specialised band of collectors and enthusiasts.

"It is so rare for anyone to part with these prized items," said James Hyslop, head of Travel, Science and Natural History at Christie's auction house in South Kensington, London.

"From its appearance in "Alice in Wonderland" to the expression 'dead as dodo', the bird has cemented its place in our cultural heritage," he added.

The Western world first heard of dodos in 1598 when Dutch sailors reported seeing them on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.

Less than 100 years later, the birds had disappeared. Most experts say they were probably hunted down by successive waves of hungry sailors, and the pigs and other large animals they brought on to the island.

No complete specimens have survived - and scientists have been pouring over fragments of remains for years to try and reconstruct what the dodo might have looked like.

The famous image of a squat, comic, short-necked bird, immortalised in John Tenniel's illustrations for "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", is widely thought to be wrong.

Christie's did not say whether the thigh bone, part of an unnamed private English collection, would provide any fresh clues.

The auction house said its bone was almost certainly excavated in 1865 at Mare aux Songes in Mauritius during a dig by natural history enthusiast George Clark.

The bone is one of 260 lots in a Travel, Science and Natural History sale held by Christie's in London on April 24. The items are open to public viewing from April 20.

Other items on the block include a fossilised egg from Madagascar's equally extinct elephant bird, more than 100 times the average size of a chicken egg, as well as scientific instruments, maps and globes.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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NEW YORK (AP) Bud Light said it with beer cans and Martha Stewart with red velvet cake as companies and celebrities from Beyonce to George Takei joined millions of social media users in posting and tweaking a simple red logo in support of gay marriage.

A square box with thick pink horizontal lines (the mathematical equal symbol) was offered for sharing this week by the Human Rights Campaign as the U.S. Supreme Court took up arguments in key marriage rights cases.

The image, replacing profile pictures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest and elsewhere, is a makeover of the advocacy group's logo, usually a blue background with bright yellow lines. The HRC made it available in red for the color of love on Monday and estimated tens of millions of shares by Wednesday.

"It shows the enthusiasm and the passion," said Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the nonprofit in Washington, D.C.

Like viral campaigns of yore, supporting breast cancer awareness (pink), President Barack Obama (change your middle name to Hussein) and even Arab Spring (green), a bit of fatigue set in on some social media streams by those questioning whether such efforts serve to change any minds or, put simply, are plain annoying.

"My Facebook feed is a cascading aesthetic nightmare. Thanks, equality," Washington Post writer Dan Zak wryly grumbled on Twitter.

A photo of Justice Anthony Kennedy made the rounds with the quip: "Before we make a ruling, did enough people change their Facebook profile picture?!"

None of that mattered to the masses of same-sex marriage supporters. Some swapped matzoh for the pink lines as Passover got under way, or added frowny Internet star Grumpy Cat, who explained marriage equality would make her happy.

Bert and Ernie showed up against the red background. (They're best friends with no plans to marry, according to Sesame Street.) Another version featured Paula Deen atop the red square and lines turned a shade of yellow akin to her favorite fatty ingredient and the tagline: "It's like two sticks of butter y'all."

Takei, a noted punster with nearly 4 million followers in Facebook, turned the equal sign into the division sign for those opposed to marriage equality.

Beyonce, with more than 44 million followers there, played it straight, leaving the logo alone and adding a personal message: "It's about TIME!!! (hash)EQUALITY (hash)MarryWhoYouLove.

Fergie let the image speak for itself on Twitter, adding: "No words necessary." Montana Sen. John Tester, a Democrat who endorsed same-sex marriage on Tuesday, put the logo up as his profile on Facebook while the clothing site Bonobos swapped its usual Facebook pic for the red square using fancy white pants for the equal sign.

Martha Stewart's Facebook page used a slice of red cake with white icing to make the image and the HBO page for "True Blood" added fangs.

All in good fun?

"There's a lot of serious conversation going on and there's an awful lot of important concepts that the Supreme Court justices are discussing," Sainz said. "What this logo going viral means is individuals have reduced it to a very straightforward concept."

Steve Jones, a professor of online culture and communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago, wondered whether all the mash-ups muddle the message.

"Once you throw it together with something like Grumpy Cat it's fun," he said. "But was this message intended to be fun?"

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Associated Press writer Barbara Ortutay contributed to this report.

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Follow Leanne Italie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/litalie

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By Belinda Goldsmith

LONDON (Reuters) - Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida, one of the leading sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s, is selling some of her diamond jewelry to raise money for stem cell research, saying now is the time to give back for the fortunate life she has had.

After a humble, rural upbringing, Lollobrigida played opposite Hollywood stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Rock Hudson, Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Frank Sinatra.

As her career took off in France, Italy and Hollywood, Lollobrigida said she started to collect jewels from Bulgari, always buying them herself and enjoying the purchasing power of her hard work.

Now 85 and having largely left acting in the 1980s for photojournalism, humanitarian work and sculpting, Lollobrigida said it was time to put the jewelry to good use.

Some 22 jewels from her collection will be auctioned by Sotheby's in Geneva on May 14 after going on display in London, New York and Rome.

Lollobrigida said she will donate the proceeds to a fund to set up a hospital for stem cell research.

"This will not be the end of the jewelry but it will be something that does good, helping a cause that is very important to me," she told Reuters in a phone interview from Rome. "I want to leave a souvenir of my life."

The pieces include a pair of pearl and diamond pendant earrings made in 1964 that are expected to sell for up to $1 million, a 19.03 carat diamond ring of around the same price mark and a 1954 diamond necklace/bracelet combination worth up to $500,000.

She is also selling a pair of emerald and diamond ear clips that she was photographed wearing one evening in 1965 with artist Salvador Dali that are expected to reach up to $250,000.

Lollobrigida, who was a student at Rome's Academy of Fine Art before being spotted in a beauty contest by Italian film director Vittorio de Sica, said she now focuses her time on sculpture so has little need for jewelry.

In the past 10 years she has exhibited her work in Moscow, Paris and Venice.

She said art was always her dream career but she ended up in acting by chance, appearing in movies such as "The World's Most Beautiful Woman," "Solomon and Sheba" and "Come September."

"Acting was not my desire but at the end of things it was destiny that I did this," she said.

"It was a very interesting experience and without the money I could not do what I like in sculpture. To do something in life, not to gain but only to enjoy life, that is the richness in life. I am lucky I can do that."

Lollobrigida, who was married once and has a son, was caught up in a bizarre 2010 marriage plot tied to her estate that is still being fought over in European courts.

She filed a complaint with police in Rome over ex-boyfriend Javier Rigau y Rafols, 51, a Spanish businessman, who insisted he had legitimately married her even though she says she was not present at the ceremony in November 2010.

"There was no marriage and it was a very ugly story. Fortunately there will be a good ending, a surprise ending," said Lollobrigida, giving little away. "I am very glad that this is nearly all over."

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, editing by Jill Serjeant and Cynthia Osterman)

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