Danny Puff

KLAIPEDA, Lithuania (AP) A Lithuanian woman says she has been raising three pumas in her three-room apartment after fearing for their lives at the local zoo.

Rasa Veliute, a 23-year-old volunteer at the zoo in Klaipeda, a Baltic Sea port town, says she took the cubs home four months ago after their mother began neglecting them.

The pumas also known as mountain lions or cougars are named Kipsas, Gipse and Kinde. Veliute says they eat a lot of chicken and get along well with her East European shepherd dog.

There is no Lithuanian law barring keeping the animals at home, and the zoo did not object to Veliute's actions. But Veliute told reporters Friday that the pumas have grown fast and will likely return to the zoo this summer.

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CHICAGO (AP) Maria Tallchief, one of America's first great prima ballerinas who gave life to such works as "The Nutcracker," ''Firebird," and other masterpieces from legendary choreographer George Balanchine, has died. She was 88.

Tallchief died Thursday in Chicago, her daughter, Elise Paschen, said Friday.

Tallchief danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from 1942 to 1947, but her career was most associated with the New York City Ballet, where she worked from 1948 to 1965. Balanchine, the Russian-born dance genius, was not only the company's director; in 1946, he became Tallchief's husband for some years.

She told Women's Wear Daily in 2003 that when she first worked with Balanchine she thought, "'I am seeing music. This is it!' I was a musician myself, and I thought, 'I am in my place now.' I knew that that's the way I wanted to dance."

Tallchief was one of five Oklahoma natives of American Indian descent who rose to prominence in the ballet world from the 1940s through the 1960s. She retired in 1965, when she started teaching the next generation of dancers.

"My mother was a ballet legend, who was proud of her Osage heritage," Paschen said in a statement. "Her dynamic presence lit up the room. I will miss her passion, commitment to her art and devotion to her family. She raised the bar high and strove for excellence in everything she did."

Tallchief created roles in many of Balanchine's ballets, including "Orpheus," in 1948, and "Scotch Symphony," in 1952. She was the Sugar Plum Fairy in his original production of "The Nutcracker" in 1954.

Jacques d'Amboise, a former New York City Ballet dancer who partnered with Tallchief in many performances, said she was the Mount Everest of dance.

"She was the perfect representative of the American ballerina," said d'Amboise, who with the National Dance Institute in New York. "There is one word for her: Grand. She was absolutely grand."

In the 1970s, Tallchief served as artistic director of the Lyric Opera Ballet in Chicago. She later founded and was artistic director of the Chicago City Ballet.

Kenneth von Heidecke, founder of the Chicago Festival Ballet, studied under Tallchief during the 1970s in Chicago. Tallchief was an honorary artistic adviser with the ballet. He said he owed Tallchief his career because of her meticulous training.

"She would teach classical ballet not just technically ... but she would go beyond that and tell you how the laws of physics help you achieve great elevation or great velocity," von Heidecke said.

In 1996, Tallchief became one of five artists to receive the Kennedy Center Honors for their lifelong contributions to American culture.

Tallchief was born Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief in 1925, on a reservation in Fairfax, Okla., a small town about 60 miles northwest of Tulsa. Visiting teachers gave her lessons, and her mother later moved the family to Los Angeles so that she and her sister could receive additional training.

Tallchief's sister, Marjorie Tallchief, became the first American ballerina to join the permanent star roster of the Paris Opera Ballet.

In her 2005 memoir, "Maria Tallchief: America's Prima Ballerina," Tallchief wrote that her first ballet lesson was in the basement of the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colo., when she was 3-years-old.

"What I remember most is that the ballet teacher told me to stand straight and turn each of my feet out to the side, the first position," Tallchief wrote. "I couldn't believe it. But I did what I was told."

Ashley Wheater, artistic director with Chicago's Joffrey Ballet, said Tallchief served as a role model to future dancers.

"She's an inspiration for young kids today that come from all different ethnic backgrounds to know that they too can have that opportunity," Wheater said.

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AP writer Jocelyn Noveck contributed to this report from New York.

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Follow AP writer Caryn Rousseau on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/carynrousseau

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) The British and the Americans are quarreling albeit with tongues in cheek over territory again, this time over who has the world's smallest park.

One, in Portland, Ore., is essentially a concrete planter, 2-feet in diameter, with soil and some vegetation, and the Guinness Book of World Records says it's the smallest.

The other is about 5,000 miles away, in England. Those guys don't claim to have a physically smaller park theirs is 15 feet by 30 feet. But they are disputing whether Portland's is a park at all.

What started as two Brits' stunt to drum up publicity for a charity run at their park sparked some cross-pond banter. One online commenter wrote: "If that's a park then my window box should take the title."

Someone who said they were from Portland replied: "Yes, but our park has leprechauns. Does yours?"

Leprechauns? Yes, that's right. The faux-feud has helped unearth the curious story of a Portland newspaper columnist's quest to get the park declared the smallest and his claim that it was home to leprechauns.

The tale stretches back to 1946, when newspaperman Dick Fagan returned from World War II. From his office at the Oregon Journal newspaper, he could see a hole in the street where a light post was supposed to be erected. Fagan got tired of looking at the hole and planted flowers in it.

An Irishman with a vivid imagination, Fagan wrote about the park in his columns spinning tales about leprechauns who lived there. Somehow, Guinness proclaimed Mill Ends Park the world's smallest park in 1971.

Jamie Panas, the record-keepers spokeswoman, said she didn't know how that determination was made. But she said the entry in the Guinness database reads, in part: "It was designated as a city park on 17 March 1948 at the behest of the city journalist Dick Fagan (USA) for snail races and as a colony for leprechauns. "

Snail races? That's right. Snail races.

Over the years, Portland has been kind to the tiny park, giving it equal care as that afforded to the 200 or so normal-size parks scattered around the verdant city.

St. Patrick's Day ceremonies have been held there. It has plants and other vegetation. Strange objects have appeared mysteriously within it a miniature swimming pool with a diving board, a tiny Ferris wheel and a UFO.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, those protesters against income inequality, gave the park some recognition. In December 2011, a small group put miniature protest signs and toy tents in the teeny park and held a protest (a month earlier they had been evicted from a very real park they had occupied for six weeks). One of the protesters was arrested for refusing to leave.

And now, Portland's littlest park is getting big headlines. It started with a British sports management company called KV Events, based in Lichfield, north of Birmingham. It was promoting the "world's shortest fun run," around Prince's Park in Burntwood.

The park has the Guinness title of the United Kingdom's smallest park. It has a fence, a bench and three trees. It was founded in 1863 to commemorate the marriage of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, to Princess Alexandra of Denmark.

Promoters Paul Griffin and Kevin Wilson decided to have some fun, launching a faux challenge to Portland's claim figuring that would generate publicity for the race and for the charity the race is intended to benefit.

The gauntlet was thrown down when Wilson told LichfieldLive.co.uk, a local website, that the Portland park was just a "glorified flower pot." Griffin followed up with interviews on Portland broadcast stations.

"We understand the definition of a park to be a fenced area, usually in a natural state, possibly for recreation purposes," Griffin said on KPAM radio's "Bob Miller Show."

Parks, said Griffin, are places where you can take family and friends for a picnic.

"We don't think you can do that in your fair park," Griffin quipped.

Portlanders have come to the defense of their Lilliputian park. Someone put a toy soldier with a bazooka in the vegetation as well as a fence a defensive perimeter.

"We Americans have a pretty good track record when it comes to taking on the Brits. Perhaps they're still smarting over that whole American Revolution thing," said Mark Ross, spokesman for Portland Parks & Recreation.

Wilson says he has no intention of actually asking Guinness to take away Portland's title. There is talk, however, of a North Atlantic alliance: A sister-park relationship between the two, whatever that might look like.

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LONDON (AP) The BBC came up with an awkward compromise Friday over "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead," a song that is zooming up the music charts in a posthumous protest against Margaret Thatcher.

The online campaign to drive the "Wizard of Oz" song to the No. 1 spot on the U.K. singles chart was launched by Thatcher critics shortly after the former prime minister died Monday of a stroke at age 87. Opponents have tried to buy as many versions of the song as possible to protest the former British leader's divisive policies.

As of Friday, the song was No. 1 on British iTunes and in the top five of the music chart used by the BBC to compile its weekly radio countdown.

The song campaign strongly divided opinion in the U.K., with many people saying it was in bad taste and calling on the BBC to promise not to broadcast the song.

The BBC usually broadcasts the best-selling hits on its official music chart show, but some lawmakers from Thatcher's Conservative Party had urged the state-funded broadcaster to drop the song from its countdown. Others warned that such a move would be censoring dissent.

Under pressure from all sides, the BBC came up with a decision that can be criticized by both Thatcher fans and critics. It said it would broadcast only part of the song on Sunday's radio show, along with a news item explaining why it was a hit this week.

John Whittingdale, a lawmaker from Thatcher's Conservative party, told the Daily Mail tabloid that many would find the ditty "deeply insensitive."

"This is an attempt to manipulate the charts by people trying to make a political point," he said.

But not all Tories agreed that the song should be yanked.

"No song should be banned by the BBC unless its lyrics are pre-watershed," said former Conservative lawmaker Louise Mensch, referring to British restrictions on adult content.

Mensch, a prominent Conservative voice on Twitter, said in a message posted to the site that Thatcher, famously known as "the Iron Lady," would not have wanted it any other way.

"Thatcher stood for freedom," she wrote.

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By Tara Oakes

PARIS (Reuters) - One of the grandest luxury hotels in Paris will put most of its of furniture and fine wines under the hammer next week to help raise funds for a lengthy restoration.

The sumptuous Hotel Crillon, hushed after the departure of its last guests in March, has been transformed into a buyer's wonderland as it closes its doors for a two-year renovation.

Full suites of furniture are on display ahead of a series of auctions scheduled for April 18-22, with about 3,500 lots including carpets and curtains expected to raise hundreds of thousands of euros.

Buyers seeking to recreate a little bit of the hotel in their homes can even stock up on reception counters, staff uniforms and bathrobes.

"A sale like this is a unique moment, a real cherry on the cake," auctioneer Stephane Aubert from auction house Artcurial said.

Such vast hotel sales are rare, with once-in-a-lifetime treasures available.

A highlight is the hotel's mirror-encrusted bar designed by 20th-century French sculptor Cesar, who gave his name to the annual French film awards where, similar to the Oscars, miniature reproductions of one of his works are distributed.

The artist's signature is inscribed on the twinkling glass front of the bar - protected beneath a perspex panel ever since a cleaner unwittingly took the first version for graffiti and scrubbed it off. Cesar was able to return and sign again before his death in 1998.

Dominating one side of Place de la Concorde, the Crillon has housed the great and the good since its construction as a private home under French King Louis XV in 1758.

The ill-fated Queen Marie Antoinette took music lessons on its first floor only to be guillotined years later in the shadow of the palace's grand neoclassical fa ade.

Since its conversion into a hotel in 1909, it has welcomed U.S. pop singer Madonna, former president Bill Clinton and was the site of the formal founding of the League of Nations.

U.S. composer Leonard Bernstein regularly set up home in a top floor suite with a view onto the Arc de Triomphe. One anonymous client rents that same suite every year to watch the finale of the Tour de France with friends and an unspecified amount of champagne.

Bidders with deep pockets can fork out for the piano Bernstein is believed to have used during his stays, while fans of lesser means can still hope to go home with light fittings and rugs.

A large part of the Crillon's vast wine and spirit cellar is likely to be snapped up by connoisseurs, including a rare Louis XIII Black Pearl Remy Martin cognac with a list price of 7,000 euros ($9,200). Mini-bars and chairs customized by artists are also being auctioned for two French charities.

Profits raised from the auction will fund a sweeping modernization to bring the hotel up to date while preserving its character, with work due to last until 2015.

The Ritz in Paris is also out of action for a revamp, with both hotels aiming to reinvigorate their classic grandeur and poach customers tempted by high-end newcomers such as the Shangri-La opened in Paris in 2010.

A sad tale of a grand old dame selling off her jewels? Not at all, according to Aubert.

"It's part of the story of these objects that they go and have a new life," he said, eyeing up his favorite lots - the silver-plated cocktail shakers from the bar.

($1 = 0.7642 euros)

(Reporting by Tara Oakes; Editing by Catherine Bremer and Paul Casciato)

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TORONTO (Reuters) - BlackBerry said on Friday it would ask securities regulators in Canada and the United States to probe a report about retail return rates for its new Z10 smartphone that it called "false and misleading."

The Canadian company, which has pinned its turnaround hopes on its new BlackBerry 10 line, said return rates were at or below its forecasts and in line with industry norms.

"To suggest otherwise is either a gross misreading of the data or a willful manipulation," Chief Executive Thorsten Heins said in a statement. "Such a conclusion is absolutely without basis and BlackBerry will not leave it unchallenged."

BlackBerry said research and investment firm Detwiler Fenton had said Z10 smartphones were being returned in unusually high numbers, and had refused to share its report or its methods.

The company said it would present a formal request to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Ontario Securities commission over the next few days.

Shares of Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry fell 8.0 percent on Thursday.

(Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Janet Guttsman and Bernadette Baum)

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NEW YORK (AP) Reebok has ended its relationship with Rick Ross following heavy criticism of lyrics by the rapper considered by some to be pro-rape.

The sneaker brand said in a statement Thursday that "Reebok holds our partners to a high standard and we expect them to live up to the values of our brand. Unfortunately, Rick Ross has failed to do so."

Ross formally apologized for his lyrics on Rocko's song "U.O.E.N.O." in a tweet last week. It came the same day a women's group, UltraViolet, protested outside of one Reebok's stores in Manhattan.

In Rocko's song, Ross raps about giving a woman the drug MDMA, known as Molly, and having his way with her.

"Put Molly all up in her champagne, she ain't even know it, I took her home and I enjoyed that, she ain't even know it," he says.

The song was released in January, but just recently began getting widespread notice. Women's groups and rape victims have issued petitions.

In his apologetic tweet, Ross said his lyrics were misinterpreted. He said he doesn't condone rape and apologized for lyrics that were "interpreted as rape." A week prior, he said in a radio interview that "there was a misunderstanding with the lyric" and that he didn't use the term "rape."

Ross has appeared in a commercial for the Reebok Classic sneakers. The company says it does not believe that the Grammy-nominated rapper "condones sexual assault," but the company is not happy with how he has handled the situation.

"We are very disappointed he has yet to display an understanding of the seriousness of this issue or an appropriate level of remorse," the statement read. "At this time, it is in everyone's best interest for Reebok to end its partnership with Mr. Ross."

A message sent to Ross' representative was not immediately returned.

Rocko said in an interview with radio station Hot 97 on Wednesday that he his removing Ross' rap from his song. He said the backlash has "put him a position where I have to change" the song.

UltraViolet said in a statement Thursday that the group is "thrilled to hear that Reebok is joining the fight against rape culture and dropping Rick Ross."

"This sends a strong message that rapping about drugging and raping an unconscious woman is not only morally wrong, but has real consequences," the statement read.

Four of Ross' five albums have reached gold status, including last year's "God Forgives, I Don't," which earned a Grammy nomination for best rap album. His hits include "The Boss" and "Aston Martin Music," and he's collaborated with acts like Kanye West, Drake, John Legend and Nicki Minaj.

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Online:

http://www.godforgivesidont.com/(hash)maincover

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HELENA, Mont. (AP) The Montana man whose dog ate $500 says he's going to find a better place to stash his cash when he travels.

Wayne Klinkel tells the Independent Record (http://bit.ly/16TPFGC) he doesn't carry a wallet on his chiropractor's advice.

Sundance, his 12-year-old golden retriever, ate the bills during a visit the Klinkels' daughter in Denver last Christmas.

Sundance was left alone in the car with five $100 bills and a $1 bill when they stopped for dinner.

The dog dined on the $100 bills, but left the dollar.

Klinkel says he collected fragments from the dog's droppings. His daughter found more when the snow melted.

He says he washed the remnants of the bills and sent them taped together to the Treasury Department in hopes of having them replaced.

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By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent

LONDON (Reuters) - Robert Edwards, the scientist known as the father of IVF for pioneering the development of "test tube babies" for couples unable to conceive naturally, died on Wednesday aged 87.

The Briton, who won the Nobel medicine prize for his achievement in 2010, started developing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) in 1955 - work that culminated in 1978 in the birth of Louise Brown, the first so-called test tube baby.

More than 5 million babies have been born around the world as a result of the techniques that Edwards, known as "Bob" to his friends, developed with his late colleague Patrick Steptoe.

Edwards, who has five daughters and 11 grandchildren, said he was motivated in his work by a desire to help families.

"Nothing is more special than a child," he was quoted by his clinic as saying when he won his Nobel prize.

IVF is a process by which an egg is fertilized by sperm outside the body in a test tube, giving rise to the term "in vitro" or "in glass".

Working at Cambridge University in eastern England, Edwards first managed to fertilize a human egg in a laboratory in 1968. He then started to collaborate with Steptoe.

In 1980, the two founded Bourn Hall, the world's first IVF clinic, in Cambridge, where gynecologists and cell biologists from around the world have since come to train.

CRITICISM AND CONTROVERSY

Experts say that today, as many as 1 to 2 percent of babies in the Western world are conceived through IVF.

Yet Edwards' work and its consequences remain controversial. The Roman Catholic Church strongly opposes IVF as an affront to human dignity that destroys more human life than it creates - because scientists discard or store unused fertilized embryos.

Working together in the 1960s and 1970s, Edwards and Steptoe, a gynecologist, pursued their research despite opposition from churches, governments and many in the media, as well as skepticism from scientific colleagues.

"A lot of people go around saying they're pioneers, but this man really was," said Dr Mark Sauer, head of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Columbia University Medical Center in New York.

"What was unique about Bob is that he did this pioneering work at a time when it was immensely unpopular."

In the late 1970s and for years after, much of the public viewed test tube babies as "ghastly and scary", said Sauer.

"The Vatican tried to shut (Edwards and Steptoe) down. They did their work at great personal risk to their careers. But Edwards was a fighter, and he believed in what he was doing. He knew the human side of it" - the couples unable to conceive without medical help.

Edwards and Steptoe struggled to raise funds and had to rely on private donations, but in 1968 they developed methods to fertilize human eggs outside the body.

EARLY FLAWS

Working at Cambridge University, they began replacing fertilized embryos into infertile mothers in 1972. But several pregnancies spontaneously aborted due to what they later discovered were flawed hormone treatments.

In 1977, they tried a new procedure, which relied not on hormone treatments but on precise timing. On July 25 of the following year, the world's first IVF baby was born.

According to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), around one in six couples worldwide experience some form of infertility problem at least once during their reproductive lifetime.

Since Edwards' pioneering work, various forms of "assisted reproductive technology" have been developed, including intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) - a process by which an egg is fertilized by injecting it with a single sperm.

Martin Johnson, professor of reproductive sciences at Cambridge, said Edwards also wrote extensively about the ethics of assisted reproduction, and in 2000 founded the journal Reproductive BioMedicine Online to encourage rapid publication of research and to air controversies.

Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, Director of the Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine in New York, said Edwards had been "revered" in his field.

"The fact that he did not get the Nobel earlier must have reflected other forces," Rosenwaks said. Many of us wrote letters nominating him many years before he finally achieved it."

(Additional reporting by Sharon Begley in New York; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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By Brent Lang

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Julie Taymor has reached a settlement in her ongoing lawsuit against the producers of the Broadway musical "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," the parties said Wednesday.

They did not release details of the settlement, but said that the agreement resolves all of the director's pending litigation.

"I'm pleased to have reached an agreement and hope for the continued success of Spider-Man, both on Broadway and beyond," Taymor said in a statement.

The lawsuit was technically settled for an undisclosed amount last August, but according to a report in the Hollywood Reporter, the parties had a hard time hammering out a final agreement. A trial had been scheduled for May.

Taymor, who is best known for her Broadway adaptation of "The Lion King" and iconoclastic Shakespearean film adaptations such as "The Tempest" (2011), was fired from the show over creative differences.

Getting "Spider-Man" to the stage was an ordeal, and the production inspired intense media coverage after it was beset by cost overruns and injuries to several cast members.

The budget eventually ballooned to a reported $75 million, making it one of the most expensive productions in Broadway history, although box office returns have been strong. Last week, "Spider-Man" grossed more than $1.4 million, a figure eclipsed only by mega-hits like "The Book of Mormon" and "The Lion King."

She had been seeking $1 million in back pay and royalties, arguing that her contributions to the show were not being acknowledged. She also alleged that her collaborators - a group that includes U2's Bono and the Edge - had undermined her by developing a rival script while she was ironing out production difficulties during the play's preview run.

In a statement, co-producers Michael Cohl and Jeremiah Harris of 8 Legged Productions said the resolution will allow them to concentrate on rolling out the show to other theaters and foreign markets.

"We're happy to put all this behind us," the pair said. "We are now looking forward to spreading 'Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark' in new and exciting ways around the world."

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