Danny Puff

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese authorities have begun investigating reports that Zhang Yimou, one of China's best-known movie directors, has seven children in violation of strict family planning rules, which could result in a fine of 160 million yuan ($26.05 million), state media said on Thursday.

Online reports have surfaced that Zhang, who dazzled the world in 2008 with his Beijing Olympic ceremonies, "has at least seven children and will face a 160 million yuan fine," said the website of the People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece.

An unnamed official at the Wuxi Municipal Population and Family Planning Commission said "based on the current policies and regulations, an investigation is currently being carried out", according to the report.

It is unclear where Zhang's children were born, the report said, citing a worker at the Jiangsu Province Population and Family Planning Commission.

Both the Wuxi and Jiangsu Population and Family Planning Commission could not be reached for comment.

Zhang, 61, once the bad-boy of Chinese cinema whose movies were sometimes banned at home while popular overseas, has since become a darling of the Communist Party, despite long being a subject of tabloid gossip for alleged trysts with his actresses.

Zhang's newest project, a film to depict wartime Nanjing under Japanese occupation starred Hollywood actor Christian Bale in a leading role.

There are signs that China may loosen the one-child policy, introduced in the late 1970s to prevent population growth spiraling out of control. The policy has long been opposed by human rights and religious groups but is also now regarded by many experts as outdated and harmful to the economy.

Last December, authorities in southern Guangdong said they were investigating a family for having given birth to octuplets through in-vitro fertilization, a case that sparked intense public debate about China's one-child policy and how wealthy families were able to circumvent the rules.

The one-child policy was meant to last only 30 years and there are now numerous exceptions to it. But it still applies to about 63 percent of the population. ($1 = 6.1410 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee, Additional reporting by Sally Huang; Editing by Michael Perry)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actor Neil Patrick Harris will return to host the 67th Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on June 9th in what will be his fourth stint on the show that honors the best of Broadway, organizers said on Thursday.

The Emmy Award winner and star of the TV comedy "How I Met Your Mother," who won plaudits for hosting the Tony Awards last year, said he was very excited to be back.

"It'll be more impressive than ever - if my math is correct, it will be 267 times bigger than last year," Harris said in a statement.

"Oh wait. No. That can't ... hold on ... carry the one ... I'm awful at math. But rest assured, the show will rock."

The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, the presenters of the Tony Awards, praised Harris for "his creativity and passion for Broadway."

The actor is a three-time Emmy Award winner for his guest roles on "Glee" and as host of the 2009 and 2011 Tony Awards.

"Kinky Boots," a musical with a score by pop star Cyndi Lauper, earned 13 Tony nominations, followed by "Matilda," a British import, which received 12.

Both shows will be vying for the best musical award along with "Bring It On: The Musical" and "A Christmas Story: The Musical." Lauper was nominated for best score along with book writer Harvey Fierstein and three members of the show's cast.

Actor Tom Hanks, who made his Broadway debut in the Nora Ephron play "Lucky Guy," is up for the best actor award. Other Hollywood stars including Cicely Tyson, Laurie Metcalf, Holland Taylor and David Hyde Pierce have also been nominated for awards.

The Tony Awards show will be aired live on TV.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Additional reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) Gov. Chris Christie will guest-host the "Today" show later this month.

NBC announced Tuesday that Christie will be a co-host for an hour of the May 24 show, which will broadcast from the Jersey shore as part of its "Great American Adventure" road trip. A location for the appearance hasn't been finalized.

The road trip segment involves the show's anchors traveling together to five U.S. destinations in a single week. Christie has stressed the Jersey shore's importance as a tourist destination in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

Christie joins Sarah Palin and Laura Bush as other political figures who have co-hosted an hour of the morning show.

The Republican governor is running for a second term. A spokesman confirmed Tuesday Christie had undergone weight loss surgery in February.

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By David Jones

NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A U.S. magistrate judge sentenced Grammy-winning hip hop artist Lauryn Hill to three months in prison, three months in home confinement and a $60,000 fine on Monday for federal tax evasion.

Hill pleaded guilty last year to three counts of failing to file tax returns on more than $1.8 million of income between 2005 and 2007 and faced up to three years in prison.

Hill has attributed her failure to pay taxes to years of pressure she experienced as a recording star while raising six children, forcing her to go underground and stay out of the public eye.

On the eve of her scheduled sentencing, Hill paid $504,000 in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service and another $420,000 to the state of New Jersey, her attorney told the court. She still owes another $285,000 in interest and penalties.

"When the government is asking for 36 months and the judge gives three months, I think the judge gave a fair and reasonable sentence," Hill's attorney Nathan Hochman told reporters.

Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 30 months to the maximum of 36 months.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo cited Hill's lack of a criminal record, her six children and her repayment of the back taxes as mitigating factors in the sentence.

Hill must report on or before July 8. Her attorney asked the court to assign the native of South Orange, New Jersey, to a facility close to home. The three months of home confinement following the prison stay is part of one year of supervised probation.

Hill told the court she pulled away from society because her life was in crisis, received veiled threats and was blacklisted because she did not conform to the norms of the music industry.

"I was being perceived as a cash cow, not a person," Hill said.

A new single by Hill, her first in several years, called "Neurotic Society," was posted on iTunes on Friday.

"Here is a link to a piece that I was 'required' to release immediately, by virtue of the impending legal deadline," her Tumblr social media page said on Saturday.

Her lawyers confirmed that she signed a new contract with Sony Worldwide Entertainment and was working on her first album of new material in more than a decade.

Hill's seminal 1998 solo album "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" won the singer, a former member of the Fugees rap trio, five Grammy awards.

(Editing by Daniel Trotta, Andrew Hay and Philip Barbara)

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LONDON (AP) Beyonce loved voicing Queen Tara in the new children's movie "Epic" at least once she stopped crying.

Queen B has gone from pop royalty to screen royalty, becoming the forest queen in an animated movie that she hopes her 15-month-old daughter Blue Ivy will be proud of one day.

The film was her first work since giving birth and she says her hormones were raging.

"I literally had tears when I played the voice," Beyonce told The Associated Press in an interview between concerts in London. "There was a scene where Queen Tara picks out her pod and I just imagined seeing my child."

From the creators of the "Ice Age" and "Rio" series, "Epic" follows a teenager who is transported into a secret forest world then embroiled in a battle between good and evil and has to protect a special flower pod to save the forest. The film is being released in the U.S. on May 22.

This role in "Epic" is not the superstar's only brush with royalty of late. When performing in London last week on her "Mrs. Carter Show" world tour, the singer inadvertently singled out Princess Eugenie in the crowd to sing with her. The 23-year-old is sixth in line for the British throne. Beyonce giggled as she revealed that she had no idea who Eugenie was.

"'I didn't know, and I still don't know. Someone told me and I don't know what's going on, but I hope they had a great time and I hope I didn't insult anyone, making them sing into the mic," Beyonce said. "But you know royalty likes to have fun and have a good entertaining night."

Her sellout world tour has also caused some controversy for its racy costumes and explicit lyrics in the song "Bow Down (I Been On)," but for Beyonce it's simply all part of the show.

"I'm an artist and I love being able to express myself and I'm not one-dimensional," she said. "I have different feelings every day and now that I've done movies I feel like I can try and recreate these characters on the stage."

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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) It was the biggest beehive that that Ogden beekeeper Vic Bachman has ever removed a dozen feet long, packed inside the eaves of a cabin in Ogden Valley.

"We figure we got 15 pounds of bees out of there," said Bachman, who said that converts to about 60,000 honeybees.

Bachman was called to the A-frame cabin last month in Eden, Utah. Taking apart a panel that hid roof rafters, he had no idea he would find honeycombs packed 12 feet long, 4 feet wide and 16 inches deep.

The honeybees had been making the enclosed cavity their home since 1996, hardly bothering the homeowners. The cabin was rarely used, but when the owners needed to occupy it while building another home nearby, they decided the beehive wasn't safe for their two children. A few bees had found their way inside the house, and the hive was just outside a window of a children's bedroom.

They didn't want to kill the honeybees, a species in decline that does yeoman's work pollinating flowers and crops.

So they called Bachman, owner of Deseret Hive Supply, a hobbyist store that can't keep up with demand for honeybees. Bachman used a vacuum cleaner to suck the bees into a cage.

"It doesn't hurt them," he said.

The job took six hours. At $100 an hour, the bill came to $600.

"The bees were expensive," said Paul Bertagnolli, the cabin owner. He was satisfied with the job.

Utah calls itself the Beehive state, a symbol of industriousness. Whether this was Utah's largest beehive is unknown, but Bachman said it would rank high.

"It's the biggest one I've ever seen," he said. "I've never seen one that big."

He used smoke to pacify the bees, but Bachman said honeybees are gentle creatures unlike predatory yellow jackets or hornets, which attack, rip apart and eat honeybees, he said.

"They just want to collect nectar and come back to the hive," he said. "Most people never get stung by honeybees it's a yellow jacket."

Bachman reassembled the hive in a yard of his North Ogden home, while saving some of the honeycomb for candles and lotions at his store. He left other honeycombs for the cabin owners to chew on.

"We caught the queen and were able to keep her," Bachman said. "The hive is in my backyard right now and is doing well."

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By David Alexander

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Thursday cleared BlackBerry and Samsung mobile devices for use on Defense Department networks, a step toward opening up the military to a wide variety of technology equipment makers while still ensuring communications security.

Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart, a Pentagon spokesman, said the department cleared the use of BlackBerry 10 smart phones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets using its Enterprise Service 10 system, as well as Samsung's Android Knox.

"This is a significant step towards establishing a multi-vendor environment that supports a variety of state-of-the-art devices and operating systems," Pickart said in a statement.

The Pentagon said on Wednesday it also expected to clear Apple mobile devices using the iOS 6 system at some point in early May.

The move to open up Defense Department networks is expected to set the stage for an intensified struggle for Pentagon customers among BlackBerry devices, Apple's iPhones or iPads and units using Google's Android platform such as Samsung Electronics' phones.

The Pentagon currently has some 600,000 users of smart phones, computer tablets and other mobile devices. The department has 470,000 BlackBerry users, 41,000 Apple users and 8,700 people with Android devices. Most Apple and Android systems are in pilot or test programs.

The move to open up the networks to a broader array of mobile devices is part of a Pentagon effort to ensure the military has access to the latest communications technology without locking itself in to a particular equipment vendor.

To ensure security, mobile devices and operating systems go through a security review process approved by the Defense Information Systems Agency. Once their Security Technical Implementation Guide - or STIG - is reviewed and approved, the devices can be used on the network.

Pickart said the decision on Thursday did not result in product orders. But it will enable user groups within the Pentagon to purchase the devices most appropriate for their work as the need arises.

"We are pleased to add Blackberry 10 and the Samsung Knox version of Android to our family of mobile devices supporting the Department of Defense," he said. "We look forward to additional vendors also participating in this process."

(Reporting By David Alexander; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Eric Walsh)

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PARIS (AP) A French mayor says Oscar-nominated actress Keira Knightley has said "oui" to rocker James Righton in a small wedding ceremony in southern France.

Aime Navello said Sunday the couple followed French tradition when he married them at the Mazan town hall on Saturday. Navello read the service in French and the couple responded in French and English. He said about 10 people were present.

Righton is keyboard player for the rock group Klaxons. He and Knightley got engaged a year ago.

Knightley first won notice for her role as a soccer-playing teenager in "Bend It Like Beckham."

She went on to star in the first three "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies and was nominated for an Oscar for playing Elizabeth Bennet in an adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice."

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Nintendo Co Ltd said on Wednesday that it expects to sell 9 million of its new Wii U game consoles in the year to next March 31, after a disappointing start since their launch in November.

In the latest business year that ended on March 31, the creator of Super Mario sold 3.45 million of its successor to the hit Wii machine. It initially forecast sales of 5.5 million but later lowered that to 4 million.

Nintendo, which began by making playing cards in the late 19th century, is counting on the Wii U, its first console in 16 years to come with a dedicated Super Mario game title, to revive its fortunes as sales of the six year-old Wii slacken.

The Japanese gaming company forecast sales of its handheld 3DS console to rise nearly 30 percent to 18 million.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Activision is trading "Modern Warfare" for "Ghosts."

The video game publisher announced Wednesday that the next installment in its successful "Call of Duty" franchise will be titled "Call of Duty: Ghosts" and feature a new story and characters.

Activision Blizzard Inc. said "Ghosts" will be released Nov. 5 for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and next-generation consoles.

The game is being developed by Infinity Ward, the Encino, Calif., studio that created the original "Call of Duty" and reignited the military first-person shooter franchise with 2007's "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" and its two sequels.

"'Ghosts' delivers an all-new story, all-new characters, an all-new 'Call of Duty' world, all powered by a next generation 'Call of Duty' engine, which is a leap forward for the franchise," Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said in a statement. "Infinity Ward is going all-in to create the next generation of 'Call of Duty' worthy of the world's greatest fans."

For more than five years, the action-packed "Call of Duty" franchise has garnered unprecedented success.

The previous "Call of Duty" game, Treyarch's futuristic "Call of Duty: Black Ops II," crossed the $1 billion mark in worldwide retail sales 15 days after its release last year. Infinity Ward's "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" hit the $1 billion mark in 16 days after its 2011 debut.

Activision said more details about "Ghosts" will be revealed May 21 at a Seattle presentation where Microsoft is expected to unveil the next Xbox.

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang .

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Online:

http://www.callofduty.com/ghosts

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