Danny Puff

By Alexandria Sage

PARIS (Reuters) - Talking food with top French chef Alain Ducasse is like simultaneously visiting a local farmers market, travelling across the world, stepping back into history and visiting the future.

France's ubiquitous three-star chef, whose empire includes more than 20 restaurants, a culinary institute and a publishing house, is now embracing 21st century technology with a new iPad application, "My Culinary Encyclopedia".

With 250 recipes from the Mon Grand Livre de Cuisine collection, the app offers ingredient profiles with 360 degree views, demonstration videos, and preparation tips. Ducasse, 56, spoke to Reuters in the kitchen of his Plaza Athenee restaurant about what inspires him today and how much is yet to learn.

Q: One doesn't think of great chefs as being enamored of technology. Why an app?

A: I'm all about transmitting knowledge. In cooking today it's about technical performance, cooking tools that have developed to help cooks to be more regular in cooking technique. And this technology here helps us to transmit knowledge, it's the modern book. Today a kitchen is a laboratory, it's very technical. Before it was a nightmare because it was so hot, you had gas ovens and you had to test the temperature with your finger. But just a quarter century later we've changed centuries. Our profession was so difficult 25, 30 years ago but today (cooking) is comfortable, appealing.

Q: Do you see clients in your restaurants consulting their iPads at the table before they begin to eat?

A: Of course. We want to know everything about everything. Before eating, the client is going to explain what he's about to eat. Even beforehand he's going to weigh in, it's good, it's not good, he takes a photo and then everyone knows what he's eating. But it's the limit of the exercise. You should first take pleasure before weighing in about it. It's first of all a chance to share a pleasant moment with your friends, to take the time with your food and not to make commentary.

Q: What inspires you?

A: Nature and markets. Nature, what it gives us every day, in spring, autumn, summer. Cooking is all about what do I have - what can I use right now where I am - what do I know, and what do I do. Tonight I'm off to Tokyo and Thursday I'm in Kyoto. There's a street ... where you have a sort of the center of the world of food. I think the French and the Japanese are both obsessed by seasons, small producers, freshness.

Q: Do you still make new discoveries there?

A: Always. The more I discover the more ignorant I am. What I know is a lot less than what there is yet to discover, it's terrible. I've probably been to that market 50 times and I'm sure I'll find something I've never seen before.

Q: Any new cuisines of the world that lately intrigue you?

A: South America. Brazil and the Amazon. What they've found so far in the Amazon is 5 percent of what there is yet to discover to eat in the Amazon because it's completely unknown. I've eaten things I've never eaten before over there. Now I'm going to try to go to Peru in September because I think the Peruvian food is interesting.

Q: Is that frustrating, after discovering new things not being able to find them again back in France or elsewhere?

A: I think you have to have a global vision but a local expression of that. It's to nourish my curiosity, to register new tastes and maybe, for example, when I'm in Japan or China and I try gyoza, those raviolis ... traditionally, you eat them in the working-class neighborhoods and they're fantastic. What we can take away from that is the double cooking, the crisp side and the soft side. I've been inspired by the technique rather than the produce. Those local products are best eaten there.

Q: In your busy life do you still get to cook for yourself?

A: Often I cook when I'm in the country. I have a very nice garden and extraordinary markets where there are products from the earth and the sea, in the French Basque country. To make my meal, I go to the market and to the garden and then I decide what I'm going to do. That's a great pleasure. And then after - to choose the wine. The French are always interested in what you eat, but also in what you drink! And they drink well, a lot and often. With Americans it's ice tea. For lunch it's ice tea! No one drinks wine at lunch, it's incredible.

Carrots in Marsala Wine (serves 4)

8 large carrots with tops

2 oz (50 g) butter

10 coriander seeds

3 Tbs Marsala

1 1/4 tsp sugar

1/2 cup chicken stock

Salt, freshly ground pepper

Peel, trim and wash the carrots conserving 3/4 inch of shoots. In a ham slicer, slice the carrots into fine 1/10 inch slices, retaining their tops. In a heavy-bottomed casserole, melt the butter and saute the carrots. Grind the coriander seeds, then add to the carrots. Moisten with the Marsala, season with salt and add sugar. Cover the casserole and cook on a gentle heat for 3 minutes gradually, adding stock if necessary. Reduce the carrot cooking juices to thicken. Arrange the carrots on the plates. Depending on the consistency of the sauce, reduce for a further minute until syrupy. Coat the carrots. Serve hot.

(Reporting By Alexandria Sage)

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By Susan Heavey, Andy Sullivan and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A liberal magazine reported on Tuesday that it had obtained a recording of U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's discussion with campaign aides on putting the mental health and religious views of a potential opponent, actress Ashley Judd, "on the radar screen."

The campaign strategy session was held in February in Louisville, Kentucky, according to Mother Jones magazine, which published the audio and a transcript online, but would not reveal its source or how the recording was obtained.

McConnell has asked the FBI to investigate what he called the "bugging" of his campaign headquarters but has declined to comment on the meeting itself. "This is what you get from the political left in America," he told reporters.

Judd has since decided not to challenge McConnell, who represents Kentucky in the U.S. Senate and is up for re-election in 2014.

Meetings to talk about "opposition research" are standard fare in campaigns. But recordings of such discussions do not often become public.

FBI Special Agent Mary Trotman confirmed that McConnell's office had contacted the agency. "We are looking into the matter."

McConnell also would not comment on another part of the recording, which indicates that at least one of McConnell's Senate staffers had spent time researching Judd's past comments on everything from abortion to coal mining. Several other staffers could have been involved in the effort - one person in the meeting said the research reflected the work of "a lot of LAs," a common abbreviation for legislative assistant.

Ethics rules bar members from using staff for campaign purposes on government time. Staff members can work for campaigns under Senate rules as long as they are not using public resources - they cannot use their office computer, for example, or work on campaign efforts when they are getting paid for legislative work.

"So long as those rules are adhered to, there's no problem with this," said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. "It's quite common for staff members to work on campaigns, it's not an unusual arrangement at all."

In the recording, the presenter, referring to Judd, says "this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it's been documented."

He mentions that Judd's autobiography discusses how "you know, she's suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the '90s."

The presenter also says "I know this is sort of a sensitive subject but you know at least worth putting on your radar screen is that she is critical ... sort of traditional Christianity. She sort of views it as sort of a vestige of patriarchy."

One thing any investigation would focus on is whether any law was in fact broken. Federal law and the law in many states prohibit the intercept of oral communication, but that might not apply depending on who made the recording and how.

"Obviously a recording device of some kind was placed in Senator McConnell's campaign office without consent," McConnell's campaign said in a statement. "By whom and how that was accomplished presumably will be the subject of a criminal investigation."

Mother Jones was the magazine that obtained a recording of a fund-raising speech by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney last year in which Romney said 47 percent of Americans were dependent on the government and unlikely to vote for him. When disclosed, the recording dealt Romney a damaging blow.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Fred Barbash and Jackie Frank)

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By Teo Jion Chun

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A Singapore businessman accused of bribing three Lebanese soccer match officials with prostitutes has been released on bail after he entered a not guilty plea in court on Tuesday.

Businessman Eric Ding Si Yang, who once worked for the local New Paper tabloid as a football tipster, will contest the three corruption charges that had been filed against him, his lawyer Thong Chee Kun told reporters.

Bail was set at S$150,000 ($121,000) and Ding will appear in court again on April 18.

Ding left court on Tuesday wearing sunglasses and a shiny long sleeved green t-shirt accompanied by six men and a woman. He shook hands with a reporter from the New Paper before leaving in a black car.

Ding's release on bail comes one day before a hearing in which FIFA-recognized referee Ali Sabbagh and assistants Ali Eid and Abdallah Taleb are expected to enter their pleas and request bail. The Lebanese officials each face one charge of "corruptly receiving gratification... to fix a football match."

The three officials had arrived in Singapore last week to take charge of the AFC Cup match between local side Tampines Rovers and East Bengal of India, but were hastily replaced hours before kick off by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

They are currently being held in separate cells, with the prosecution arguing against bail at an earlier hearing on Friday for fear they were part of a syndicated operation.

The officials face a maximum fine of S$100,000 and a five-year prison term if found guilty. Ding faces the same punishment on each charge.

(Writing by Kevin Lim. Editing by Patrick Johnston)

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CZESTOCHOWA, Poland (AP) Workers are putting the finishing touches on a new statue of the late Pope John Paul II that its backer is calling the tallest one of the pontiff in the world.

The 13.8-meter (45.3-foot) white fiberglass figure will tower over the southern Polish city of Czestochowa, home to the predominantly Catholic country's most important pilgrimage site, the Jasna Gora monastery.

Funded by a private investor and put up on his land, the statue of the Polish-born pontiff shows him smiling and stretching his arms to the world. On Tuesday, workers were joining the pieces together and painting them before the official unveiling of the statue Saturday, to be attended by church and city authorities.

Leszek Lyson, who is funding the project, called the pope "a great and good man who has done a lot for the world: ended communism and opened borders in Europe, reached out to people in his pilgrimages around the world."

He said the statue "should make everyone stop and think about life."

Its construction comes as the traditionally respected church is facing criticism for its conservative views on the family and ethics, and its opposition to abortion, in-vitro fertilization and gay marriage.

Poland has long been predominantly Roman Catholic, but church statistics show attendance shrinking from some 50 percent of parish members in the 1980s; to 45 percent in 2005, the year the pope died; to 41 percent in 2010.

Born Karol Wojtyla in Wadowice, southern Poland, John Paul was elected pope in 1978, a surprise choice from communist-controlled eastern Europe.

In Poland, he is credited with inspiring the Solidarity movement that helped end communism in 1989. His death was a time of national mourning.

Lyson told The Associated Press that he wants the new statue to remind future generations of the Polish pope.

However, 22-year-old Ewelina Gozdek, who was watching the preparations with her friends, was skeptical. "It is an attraction now in a city where nothing ever happens, but will be forgotten soon enough," she said.

The unveiling ceremony will mark three years since Lyson saved his son from drowning and is a sign of thanks.

He is also trying to get the statue into Guinness Book of Records as the world's tallest one of John Paul.

That will generate comparisons with two John Paul statues in other countries.

Last year, an adapted version of a controversial 5.5-meter (18-feet) bronze sculpture of Pope John Paul II went on display in Rome. The original had irked many Romans who said it was ugly and didn't adequately capture the likeness of their beloved pope.

In Santiago, Chile, a small statue of the pope was inaugurated on San Cristobal Hill in 2011, after a proposal to build a 13-meter (43-foot) one was rejected as too big.

Poland already boasts that it has the world's tallest statue of Jesus, unveiled in 2010 in the western town of Swiebodzin.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Lil Wayne, Ron Howard, Scarlett Johansson and Kim Kardashian are all on the same page when it comes to criminal justice reform.

They're among more than 100 entertainers calling on President Barack Obama to focus on changing drug laws. Rap mogul Russell Simmons helped assemble the coalition of celebrities and civil rights leaders that presented a letter to the president on Tuesday.

The group praises the president's efforts toward drug incarceration reform but insists "the time is right" to move toward replacing jail sentences with intervention and rehabilitation for non-violent offenders. The starry group, which also includes Jennifer Hudson, Nicki Minaj, Susan Sarandon and Will Smith, also asks Obama to form a panel to handle clemency requests and to support a measure that allows judges to waive mandatory minimum sentences.

"It is critical that we change both the way we think about drug laws in this country and how we generate positive solutions that leave a lasting impact on rebuilding our communities," Simmons said, citing Department of Justice data that shows that the United States jails more of its citizens than any other country in the world.

Drug offenders comprise nearly half the federal prison population in the U.S.

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By Estelle Shirbon

LONDON (Reuters) - A British computer hacker pleaded guilty on Tuesday to cyber attacks on targets including Sony, Nintendo, Rupert Murdoch's News International and the Arizona State Police.

Ryan Ackroyd's plea meant his planned jury trial did not go ahead and, as a result, the court did not hear any evidence on the motivation behind the attacks he made using the persona of a 16-year-old girl named Kayla as part of hacking group LulzSec.

Dressed in a tracksuit bottom and t-shirt, with a large tattoo on his arm and crew-cut hair, Ackroyd spoke only to identify himself and to enter his plea.

Ackroyd, 26, was arrested in 2011 with three other British young men in connection with an international cyber crime spree by LulzSec, a splinter group of hacking collective Anonymous.

The other three had already pleaded guilty to several charges including cyber attacks on the CIA and Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

Anonymous, and LulzSec in particular, made international headlines in late 2010 when they launched what they called the "first cyber war" in retaliation for attempts to shut down the WikiLeaks website.

Ackroyd faced four charges but pleaded guilty to just one. Prosecutors said they would not pursue the other charges.

Ackroyd and his three fellow hackers will be sentenced on May 14, judge Deborah Taylor said.

Mustafa Al-Bassam, 18, and Jake Davis, 20, had both pleaded guilty to two counts while Ryan Cleary, 21, had pleaded guilty to six counts including that he attacked Pentagon computers operated by the U.S. Air Force.

Cleary, Al-Bassam and Davis admitted to launching so-called distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in which websites are flooded with traffic to make them crash.

Ackroyd denied taking part in DDoS attacks but admitted, as did the three others, to hacking into computer systems, obtaining confidential data and redirecting legitimate website visitors to sites hosted by the hackers.

The targets listed in the charge to which Ackroyd pleaded guilty also included Britain's National Health Service, the U.S. public broadcaster PBS and 20th Century Fox.

The defendants are free on bail pending their sentencing, under the condition that they do not access the Internet.

Cleary was indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles last June but U.S. authorities have indicated they would not seek his extradition as he was being prosecuted in Britain on the same charges.

The name LulzSec is a combination of "lulz", another way of writing "lols" or "laugh out loud", and security.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

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BAMAKO/PARIS (Reuters) - Malian authorities will give French President Francois Hollande another camel after the one they gave him in thanks for helping repel Islamist rebels was killed and eaten by the family he left it with in Timbuktu, an official in Mali said.

A local government official in northern Mali said on Tuesday a replacement would be sent to France.

"As soon as we heard of this, we quickly replaced it with a bigger and better-looking camel," said the official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

"The new camel will be sent to Paris. We are ashamed of what happened to the camel. It was a present that did not deserve this fate."

Hollande was presented with the camel when he visited Mali in February several weeks after dispatching French troops to the former colony to help combat al Qaeda-linked fighters moving south from a base in the north of the country.

The president joked at the time about using the camel to get around traffic-jammed Paris. But he chose in the end to leave it with a family in the town on the edge of the Sahara desert.

Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was tasked with giving Hollande regular updates on the camel's status and had to inform him of its death last week, French media said.

"The news came in from soldiers on the ground," said a French government official.

French leaders have received many gifts of exotic or wild animals from Africa and further afield over the years.

Last week, a robber chainsawed a tusk off the skeleton of an elephant offered to Louis XIV by a Portuguese king in 1668. Police caught the robber as he fled, tusk under his arm.

(Reporting by Adama Diarra in Bamako and Brian Love in Paris; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

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LONDON (AP) Margaret Thatcher was not just a political titan, she was a cultural icon skewered by comedians, transformed into a puppet and played to Oscar-winning perfection by Meryl Streep.

With her uncompromising politics, ironclad certainty, bouffant hairstyle and ever-present handbag, the late British leader was grist for comedians, playwrights, novelists and songwriters whether they loved her or as was more often the case hated her.

SATIRICAL TARGET

Thatcher's free-market policies transformed and divided Britain, unleashing an outpouring of creative anger from her opponents. A generation of British comedians, from Ben Elton to Alexei Sayle, honed their talents lampooning Thatcher.

To the satirical puppeteers of popular 1980s TV series "Spitting Image," Thatcher was a cigar-smoking bully, a butcher with a bloody cleaver, a domineering leader ruling over her docile Cabinet. One famous sketch showed Thatcher and her ministers gathered for dinner. Thatcher ordered steak. "And what about the vegetables?" the waitress asked. "They'll have the same as me," Thatcher replied.

In the U.S., "Saturday Night Live" got in on the act albeit more gently making the Iron Lady the subject of several skits. In one of them, Monty Python member Michael Palin played the prime minister shortly after her election in 1979, poking fun at her helmet of hair.

MUSICAL OPPOSITION

Pop was political in Thatcher's day, as the bitter social divisions of the 1980s sparked an angry musical outpouring.

"Whenever I'm asked to name my greatest inspiration, I always answer 'Margaret Thatcher,'" musician Billy Bragg, one of her most vocal opponents, said in 2009. "Truth is, before she came into my life, I was just your run-of-the-mill singer-songwriter."

Bragg was a member of the 1980s Red Wedge movement that campaigned against Thatcher and the Conservatives and for the Labour Party.

"I see no joy, I see only sorrow, I see no chance of your bright new tomorrow," sang The Beat, urging Thatcher to resign in "Stand Down Margaret."

In "Tramp the Dirt Down," Elvis Costello imagined the day of Thatcher's death: "When they finally put you in the ground, I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down."

Former Smiths frontman Morrissey went even further, lyrically fantasizing about "Margaret on the Guillotine."

But for some later musicians, Thatcher was a positive figure.

Former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell who sported a Union Jack mini-dress as part of the 1990s girl group tweeted Monday: "Thinking of our 1st Lady of girl power, Margaret Thatcher, a green grocer's daughter who taught me anything is possible."

LITERARY INSPIRATION

Thatcher has made appearances in several novels written or set in the 1980s.

In Salman Rushdie's 1988 book, "The Satanic Verses," she was "Mrs. Torture." Despite his political opposition to Thatcher, Rushdie remembered her on Monday as a "considerate" woman who had offered him police protection after the novel brought a death sentence from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini.

She was a major, though mostly unseen, presence in Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning 2004 novel "The Line of Beauty," set during the height of Thatcher's rule. The prime minister's appearance at a Conservative lawmaker's party where she sends the crowd into a tizzy and dances to the Rolling Stones with the novel's young protagonist forms the dizzying pivot of Hollinghurst's tale of 80s power and excess.

STAGE AND SCREEN STAR

Thatcher's transformation into a stage and screen character started not long after she took office. Thatcher's personal papers include an account of an excruciating 1981 evening that she and her husband, Denis, spent at a West End farce titled "Anyone for Denis?"

On stage, Thatcher remains a potent figure, a shorthand for the 1980s. In the Olivier- and Tony Award-winning musical "Billy Elliot," coal miners sing "Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher," a song with music by Elton John and lyrics that say: "We all celebrate today 'cause it's one day closer to your death."

The London production of "Billy Elliot" kept the song in on Monday, after polling the opinion of the audience.

West End theatergoers are currently flocking to see "The Audience," a play about meetings between Queen Elizabeth II and the 12 prime ministers of her long reign. The play is a gentle liberal drama, and Haydn Gwynne's strident Thatcher is gently rebuked by the monarch over her opposition to sanctions against apartheid South Africa.

On-screen, the character of Thatcher had a jokey cameo at the end of the 1981 James Bond movie "For Your Eyes Only," but for left-wing directors, she was no laughing matter. Stephen Frears' "My Beautiful Laundrette" was one of several 1980s films that depicted Thatcher's Britain as a land of poverty and racism as well as economic enterprise.

Others have mined the drama of a hardworking grocer's daughter who became Britain's first female prime minister. In the 2008 TV movie "The Long Walk to Finchley," Andrea Riseborough played the young politician fighting for a seat in Parliament. The next year "Margaret," with Lindsay Duncan, depicted the end of her career via a Cabinet coup in 1990.

The most acclaimed recent screen Thatcher was Streep's turn as the aged politician looking back on her life in the 2011 film "The Iron Lady." Streep won an Academy Award for a performance that humanized a divisive character.

Streep said Monday that Thatcher's political legacy was "worthy for the argument of history to settle."

"It is hard to imagine a part of our current history that has not been affected by measures she put forward in the U.K.," Streep said. "But to me, she was a figure of awe for her personal strength and grit."

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AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report. Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

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LOS ANGELES (AP) The horror remake "Evil Dead" has opened as the top draw at theaters with a first weekend of $25.8 million.

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. "Evil Dead," Sony, $25,775,847, 3,025 locations, $8,521 average, $25,775,847, one week.

2. "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," Paramount, $20,875,389, 3,734 locations, $5,591 average, $86,438,449, two weeks.

3. "The Croods," Fox, $20,651,694, 3,879 locations, $5,324 average, $125,351,896, three weeks.

4. "Jurassic Park," Universal, $18,620,145, 2,771 locations, $6,720 average, $18,620,145, one week.

5. "Olympus Has Fallen," FilmDistrict, $10,163,132, 3,059 locations, $3,322 average, $71,236,633, three weeks.

6. "Tyler Perry's Temptation," Lionsgate, $10,085,805, 2,047 locations, $4,927 average, $38,469,146, two weeks.

7. "Oz the Great and Powerful," Disney, $8,010,234, 2,905 locations, $2,757 average, $212,606,952, five weeks.

8. "The Host," Open Road Films, $5,198,615, 3,202 locations, $1,624 average, $19,624,328, two weeks.

9. "The Call," Sony, $3,500,248, 2,002 locations, $1,748 average, $45,481,341, four weeks.

10. "Admission," Focus, $1,946,048, 1,407 locations, $1,383 average, $15,265,596, three weeks.

11. "Spring Breakers," A24, $1,172,022, 1,072 locations, $1,093 average, $12,616,764, four weeks.

12. "Identity Thief," Universal, $796,705, 721 locations, $1,105 average, $131,232,335, nine weeks.

13. "The Place Beyond the Pines," Focus, $703,379, 30 locations, $23,446 average, $1,089,409, two weeks.

14. "Silver Linings Playbook," Weinstein Co., $603,470, 524 locations, $1,152 average, $129,725,117, 21 weeks.

15. "Jack the Giant Slayer," Warner Bros., $522,349, 502 locations, $1,041 average, $62,469,830, six weeks.

16. "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone," Warner Bros., $480,929, 535 locations, $899 average, $21,807,501, four weeks.

17. "Quartet," Weinstein Co., $366,786, 252 locations, $1,456 average, $17,200,546, 13 weeks.

18. "Life of Pi," Fox, $354,962, 269 locations, $1,320 average, $123,920,583, 20 weeks.

19. "The Sapphires," Weinstein Co., $292,030, 60 locations, $4,867 average, $443,982, three weeks.

20. "Safe Haven," Relativity Media, $273,674, 360 locations, $760 average, $70,327,952, eight weeks.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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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.

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BERLIN (AP) These thieves might really have sticky fingers.

Police said Monday an unknown number of culprits made off with 5 metric tons (5.5 tons) of Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spread from a parked trailer in the central German town of Bad Hersfeld over the weekend.

The gooey loot is worth an estimated 16,000 euros ($20,710).

Germans news agency dpa reported that thieves have previously stolen a load of energy drinks from the same location.

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