Danny Puff

By Ed Cropley

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African president Nelson Mandela's condition deteriorated to "critical" on Sunday, the government said, two weeks after the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader was admitted to hospital with a lung infection.

The worsening of his condition is bound to concern South Africa's 53 million people, for whom Mandela remains the architect of a peaceful transition to democracy in 1994 after three centuries of white domination.

A government statement said President Jacob Zuma and the deputy leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), Cyril Ramaphosa, visited Mandela in his Pretoria hospital, where doctors said his condition had gone downhill in the last 24 hours.

"The doctors are doing everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that Madiba is well looked after and is comfortable," it said, referring to him by his clan name.

Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president after historic all-race elections nearly two decades ago, was rushed to a Pretoria hospital on June 8 with a recurrence of a lung infection, his fourth hospitalisation in six months.

Until Sunday, official communiques had described his condition as "serious but stable" although comments last week from Mandela family members and his presidential successor, Thabo Mbeki, suggested he was on the mend.

Since stepping down after one term as president, Mandela has played little role in the public or political life of the continent's biggest and most important economy.

His last public appearance was waving to fans from the back of a golf cart before the final of the soccer World Cup in Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium in July 2010.

During his retirement, he has divided his time between his home in the wealthy Johannesburg suburb of Houghton, and Qunu, the village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province where he was born.

The public's last glimpse of him was a brief clip aired by state television in April during a visit to his home by Zuma and other senior ANC officials.

At the time, the 101-year-old liberation movement, which led the fight against white-minority rule, assured the public Mandela was "in good shape" although the footage showed a thin and frail old man sitting expressionless in an armchair.

"Obviously we are very worried," ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu told Johannesburg station Talk Radio 702. "We are praying for him, his family and the doctors."

"ABSOLUTELY AN ICON"

Since his latest admission to hospital, well-wishers have been arriving at his Johannesburg home, with scores of school-children leaving painted stones outside the gates bearing prayers for his recovery.

However, for the first time, South African media have broken a taboo against contemplating the inevitable passing of the father of the post-apartheid "Rainbow Nation" and one of the 20th century's most influential figures.

The day after he went into hospital, South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper carried a front-page headline saying it was "time to let him go".

"He's absolutely an icon and if he's gone we just have to accept that. He will be gone but his teachings, what he stood for, I'm sure we've all learnt and we should be able to live with it and reproduce it wherever we go," said Tshepho Langa, a customer at a Johannesburg hotel.

"He's done his best," he added. "We are grateful for it and we are willing to do the good that he has done."

Despite the widespread adulation, Mandela is not without detractors at home and in the rest of Africa who feel that in the dying days of apartheid he made too many concessions to whites, who make up just 10 percent of the population.

After more than 10 years of affirmative action policies aimed at redressing the balance, South Africa remains one of the world's most unequal societies, with whites still controlling much of the economy and the average white household earning six times more than a black one.

"Mandela has gone a bit too far in doing good to the non-black communities, really in some cases at the expense of (blacks)," Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, 89, said in a documentary aired on South African television this month.

"That's being too saintly, too good, too much of a saint."

(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher, Leon Malherbe and Bart Noonan; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) An Icelandic business executive said Friday that a private plane is on standby to transport National Security Agency secrets leaker Edward Snowden from Hong Kong to Iceland.

Olafur Vignir Sigurvinsson said he has not spoken directly with Snowden but has been in touch with a third party representing him.

The businessman, who has connections to the WikiLeaks secret-spilling organization, said he has access to planes in Hong Kong and mainland China that Snowden could use.

But Iceland's government says it has not received an asylum request from Snowden, who has revealed his role in providing secret NSA documents about widespread surveillance programs.

Iceland Interior Ministry spokesman Johannes Tomasson said Snowden hasn't approached the ministry and could initiate an asylum request if he was already in Iceland.

When asked about the reports of Sigurvinsson chartering a private plane to fly Snowden to Iceland, Tomasson said: "We don't object to that. But we don't have any knowledge other than what has been in the news. We can't comment any further on that."

U.S. officials have expressed an interest in prosecuting Snowden for his admitted role in the publication of the documents. Snowden fled to Hong Kong and is hiding.

Sigurvinsson said that Snowden's potential private flight is being funded by private donations.

"There are a number of people that are interested in freedom of speech and recognize the importance of knowing who is spying on us," he said. "We are people that care about privacy."

Money is being raised on Snowden's behalf by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee based in the United States, but it was not expected to be tapped to help with the cost of a possible flight to Iceland.

Spokesman Matt Wall said Friday that more than $20,800 had been raised so far to pay for possible legal fees but that this would not be put to use for Snowden's personal expenses.

Sigurvinsson is a former director of DataCell, a data hosting service provider that, as one of its services, processed donations for WikiLeaks. He previously worked for investment and technology companies, including Baugur Group, MerkurPoint and iCell.

He said his group hopes to obtain Icelandic citizenship for Snowden.

"We are hoping that the government does what they did with Bobby Fischer," he said, referring to the late chess master who went to Iceland to escape U.S. prosecution for breaking sanctions imposed on the former Yugoslavia. "We will see what happens."

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by Rob Walker | @YahooTechLast week, Business Insider published its picks for the 15 companies that are dominating mobile design right now. Perusing that list, I was struck that four of the examples involved weather apps. Weather apps! Remembering too that Apple s recent demo of its forthcoming iOS upgrade focused pretty heavily on the new version of its weather app, I got to wondering: How can it be that more than a quarter of dominant design involves such a workaday category?

Upon reflection, this storm of weather apps makes sense if you think about it from the design-world point of view. Designers love creating new things, but what they really love is trying to make a better version of something that already exists. This is why, for example, pretty much every industrial designer creates a chair. It s not as though the core problem something to sit on has never been tackled, or changed much. But a fresh take on an iconic thing is a catnip-level challenge, and a possible ticket to immortality via object.

Perhaps, then, weather is the chair of apps.

That explains the appeal to interaction designers: It s the opportunity to place an auteur s stamp on a familiar category. But what about the rest of us?

The fact that weather apps are popular, and likely occupy prominent spots on untold numbers of smart phone home screens, does not mean we want to spend a lot of time with them. Quite the opposite: If you want to know how cold it is outside, you want to know now. If you re trying to decide whether to pack an umbrella for a weekend jaunt to the coast, even drool-worthy aesthetics are a problem if they delay your access to the relevant data. In this case, truth is more important than beauty: Actual weather information is pretty close to being a commodity, so the interaction designer s challenge is to get out of the way as beautifully as possible.

As with chairs, this is harder than it sounds: A gorgeous chair that s uncomfortable to sit in is also known as landfill.

When I looked at the overwhelming selection on the Apple and Google Play app stores, I was suddenly thankful for that mobile-dominance list narrowing things down for me; you don t need 27 weather apps to know which way the wind blows. Let s examine this handful of lauded takes on the weather app see how variable the conditions really are in this category.

1. Yahoo! Weather. Screamingly obvious disclosure: You are reading a Yahoo News page right now. Factor that in as you wish.

This happens to be the weather app I use, and no, that s not out of some sort of weird corporate loyalty. The typography is clean and engaging, it offers three screens of data for every city I choose, and I have a weakness for the app s most prominent gimmick: rotating geographic-and-weather-specific background imagery crowdsourced from a dedicated Flickr pool. (Yahoo! owns Flickr.) This actually makes it mildly fun to check the app even when I already know that it is pouring rain.

Also: This is the only app in this roundup available for Android and iOS devices. And it s free.

2. Sun. Go from Yahoo! Weather to this and there s no denying that approaches to solving the weather-app challenge can vary wildly. If you re into the super-flat, ultra-minimal tiles-and-icon aesthetic, this one is for you.

Looks aside, Sun has two features I like a lot. One: You can see current-condition summaries, elegantly simplified, on a single page. If (like me) you re a multi-city weather-tracker, this is cool. Two: The home screen icon shows the current temperature wherever you are, so you don t have to open the app. (Why don t all weather apps do this?)

Downsides? It s a little light on data, and a weird wavy-line forecast tool is slightly neat to play with, but it s not exactly intuitive, and actually adds to user effort.

A screenshot of the Sun app, on the iPad.This is a Web-based app for iOS devices; it s free.

3. Haze. This app is for those who like a little more razzmatazz in the graphic representation of basic weather data. The home screen shows the current temperature, and then alludes to the forecast by way of animated, colored bars pulsing either upward or downward in the background. Tap once to get a similar presentation of precipitation chances.

Pleasurable to interact with, Haze also skimps (for my taste) on data, or at least didn t make it easy to find what I wanted: Forecast high temperatures are plainly visible, but sometimes you want to know what the low might be two or three days from now, and I don t see how to do that. It also makes sounds (these can be disabled), which doesn t do anything for me.

This iOS app costs $2.99.

4. Dark Sky. The disconcertingly threatening name of this app is echoed by its look. It opens to a black-and-blue map with spooky radar-like depictions of cloud cover that you can manipulate with a slider along the bottom. When the skies over New York proved to be clear, the app suggested I check out its visualization of storms over some place called Solon Springs, WI.

Okay. Indeed, that s pretty entertaining for a moment or two make the apocalyptic-looking clouds move with your finger! Cool! But you can t get a real forecast from Dark Sky this is definitely a supplemental app, for true weather freaks who enjoy minute-to-minute predictions, depicted in a way that makes you feel like you re sitting in some Mission Control bunker.

Also an iOS app, this one goes for $3.99

Screenshots from the Dark Skies weather appIn short: Yes, this does turn out to be an impressive array of design responses to a single notion. But I wouldn t mind seeing some of this interaction creativity finding its way to newer categories. And after spending the day manipulating these clever bits of mobile design, I can say with confidence I d rather have another chair than another weather app.

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NEW YORK (AP) Paula Deen should hope for more fans like Jennifer Everett of Tyler, Texas, who carried a shopping bag filled with $53 worth of merchandise from the celebrity chef's Georgia store on Thursday. A day earlier, it was revealed that Deen admitted during questioning in a lawsuit that she had slurred blacks in the past.

"Who hasn't ever said that word?" Everett said. "I don't think any less of her. She's super friendly. She's a warm person who wouldn't hurt a fly."

Deen's admission that she had used the N-word in the past wasn't the first time the queen of comfort food's mouth had gotten her into big trouble. She said in 2012 that for three years she hid her Type 2 diabetes while continuing to cook the calorie-laden food that's bad for people like her.

Hypocrisy is one thing, hostility another. From her days as a divorced mother selling bag lunches on the streets of Savannah, Deen has parlayed her folksy, Southern gal charm into an empire that includes Food Network TV shows, cookbooks, magazines and a wide swath of product endorsements.

Now there's at least some risk to that image and her empire. The Food Network, which began airing "Paula's Home Cooking" in 2002 and added "Paula's Best Dishes" in 2008, has said it does not tolerate discrimination and is looking at the situation. She is one of the network's longest-running and most recognizable stars, although her show airs in daytime not prime-time. About three-quarters of her audience is female. The network, using Nielsen data, said it did not break down its audience racially.

Deen is also the author of 14 cookbooks that have sold more than 8 million copies and her bimonthly magazine "Cooking with Paula Deen," has a circulation of nearly 1 million, according to her website.

Outside of her loyal fans, Deen is now best known as the woman with diabetes who cooks fatty food and has made racially controversial statements, said Matthew Hiltzik, a New York public relations specialist.

"Those are usually not the ingredients no pun intended for a successful brand," he said. "However, she has very loyal, dedicated followers who are most likely to accept her apologies and explanations."

Where it will most hurt Deen is in her ability to expand her business, Hiltzik said.

Deen's business expansion began in earnest in 2011, when she began putting out a full line of cookware sold at major retailers including Wal-Mart, food items like spices and even furniture. In addition to her restaurant, The Lady and Sons, she owns a Savannah seafood restaurant with her brother Bubba. There are Paula Deen Buffets at Harrah's Tunica in Mississippi and at Horshoe Southern Indiana Casino, and restaurants at other Harrah's.

Deen's racial statements came to light as part of a deposition in a lawsuit brought by a former manager of Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House, who claimed to be sexually harassed and said the restaurant was rife with innuendo and racial slurs.

Deen was asked in the deposition whether she had ever used the N-word.

"Yes, of course," Deen replied, though she added: "It's been a very long time."

The chef's representatives issued a statement Thursday saying that it was a different time when Deen admitted using the N-word, and she does not condone its use today.

"She was born 60 years ago when America's South had schools that were segregated, different bathrooms, different restaurants and Americans rode in different parts of the bus," the statement said. "This is not today."

Under questioning in the lawsuit, Deen was also asked to explain why she had suggested that all black waiters be hired for her brother's wedding in 2007. She said she had been inspired by another restaurant where the entire wait staff was middle aged black men. The idea was quickly dismissed.

The situation has made Deen the subject of some online mockery, with Twitter users suggesting new "Paula's best dishes" that include "Cotton Pickin' Fried Chicken" and "We Shall Over-Crumb Cake."

Last year, her career took a serious knock when she revealed that she had diabetes for three years while promoting high-fat, high-sugar recipes like deep-fried cheesecake and bacon-and-egg doughnut sandwiches. She made the revelation as she signed on as the face of an initiative by a diabetes drug company.

Deen lost weight after the admission and now tells people to eat fatty recipes in moderation, but she hasn't backed away from the butter. In fact, she recently came out with her own line of "finishing butters."

In Savannah on Thursday, Waridi Stewart of Brooklyn, N.Y., took a pass on the buffet at Deen's restaurant. She said it was because the wait was too long.

"I feel nothing toward her in terms of her being white and me being black," Stewart said. "The food is good. I'm not here because of Paula. I'm here because of the food."

But she said Deen needs to be careful about what she says.

Connie Caprara of Norwalk, Ohio, brought her family to lunch at The Lady and Sons Thursday even though she had read about Deen's remarks. She said boycotting the restaurant would unfairly punish its employees.

"We've all said things we didn't mean to say," said Caprara, a 48-year-old billing agent for a medical practice. "But somebody in her position really needs to filter whatever comes out of her mouth."

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Associated Press Writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga.; Food Writer J.M. Hirsch and National Retail Writer Anne D'Innocenzio in New York contributed to this report.

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HIGHWOOD RIVER, Calgary (AP) As many as 100,000 people could be forced from their homes by heavy flooding in western Canada, Calgary city officials said, while mudslides forced the closure of the Trans-Canada Highway, isolating the mountain resort towns of Banff and Canmore.

Torrential rains and widespread flooding throughout southern Alberta on Thursday washed out roads and bridges, left at least one person missing and caused cars, couches and refrigerators to float away. Communities were hit hard just south of Calgary, a city of more than a million people that hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics.

Many downtown neighborhoods were ordered evacuated as the evening went on. Officials said the evacuation would take place in stages over the next few days. The province reported that 12 communities were under states of emergency.

Water levels were expected to reach their maximum around noon on Friday.

One woman who had been stranded on top of a trailer was missing after it was swept away, STARS air ambulance spokesman Cam Heke said.

Motorists who were trapped overnight Wednesday by water spilling over Canada's main western highway had to be rescued by helicopter, Town of Canmore spokeswoman Sally Caudill said.

"I woke up at about three o'clock in morning to the sound of this kind of rumbling, and it was the creek," said Wade Graham, a resident of Canmore. "At first it was just intense, pretty powerful, amazing thing to watch. As daylight came, it just got bigger and bigger and wider and wider, and it's still getting bigger and bigger and wider and wider."

He added, "I watched a refrigerator go by, I watched a shed go by, I watched couches go by. It's insane."

Bruce Burrell, director of the Calgary Emergency Management Agency, said water levels on the Bow River aren't expected to subside until Saturday afternoon. The Bow River Basin already has been battered with up to 100 mm (3.9 inches) of rain.

"Depending on the extent of flooding we experience overnight, there may be areas of the city where people are not going to be able to get into until the weekend," he told a news conference.

In High River, Mounties asked people with motorboats to help rescue at least a dozen stranded homeowners.

"We have people on their rooftops who were unable to evacuate fast enough," said RCMP Sgt. Patricia Neely.

Environment Canada issued a rainfall warning for the affected areas, estimating as much as 100 millimetres more rain could fall in the next two days.

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ROME (AP) A friend of "Sopranos" star James Gandolfini said Thursday the actor was discovered by a family member in his hotel room in Rome before he was pronounced dead of cardiac arrest at a hospital.

Michael Kobold, who described himself as a close family friend, read a short statement to reporters, but said little more about the circumstances of Gandolfini's death on Wednesday night.

He did not say who discovered Gandolfini, 51, but NBC quoted Antonio D'Amore, manager of the Boscolo Excedra hotel, as saying it was the actor's 13-year-old son, Michael.

Gandolfini had appeared in advertisements for Kobold's company, Kobold Watches.

Gandolfini was pronounced dead at 11 p.m. Wednesday in Rome after being taken by ambulance to the Policlinic Umberto I hospital.

Dr. Claudio Modini, head of the hospital emergency room, said Gandolfini arrived at the hospital at 10:40 p.m. (2040 GMT; 4:40 p.m. EDT) and was pronounced dead after resuscitation efforts in the ambulance and hospital failed.

An autopsy would be performed starting 24 hours after the death, as required by law, Modini told The Associated Press.

The actor, known for his portrayal of the tortured Italian-American mob boss Tony Soprano, was to have received an award and taken part in the closing ceremony Saturday of the Taormina Film Festival, which takes place against the backdrop of Taormina's spectacular Roman amphitheater.

He also was to have given a special class Saturday morning at the festival, as was done by actor Jeremy Irons earlier in the week.

Festival organizers Mario Sesti and Tiziana Rocca said instead they would organize a tribute "to celebrate his great achievement and talent." They said they had heard from Gandolfini a few hours before he died, and "he was very happy to receive this award and be able to travel to Italy."

"The Sopranos" was a hit when it first aired in Italy in 2001, with critics giving it rave reviews, despite some criticism from Italian-Americans across the Atlantic who thought it stereotyped them.

"Rarely does one see fiction so intelligent, ironic, full of psychological and narrative subtleties. And the dialogue! The photography!" Italy's most prominent TV critic, Aldo Grasso, gushed in the leading daily Corriere della Sera after the first episode aired. "Trust me, don't miss 'The Sopranos!'"

The daily La Repubblica called the show a "masterpiece." The paper deplored that it was being "hidden" from viewers by being aired at the unenviable 12:30 a.m. timeslot and urged it to be moved up something former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset network eventually did, showing it at 11:30 p.m.

Gandolfini's death was one of the top news stories in Italy on Thursday, with American tourists outside his hotel well aware of the tragedy.

"I thought he was a great actor," said William Capece, visiting Rome from Houston, Texas. "Pretty sad because it is a big loss to the field of acting."

The U.S. Embassy in Rome, which said it had learned about the death from the media, said it would be available to provide a death certificate and help prepare the body for return to the United States. The embassy said it can often take between four and seven days to arrange for it to be sent outside of Italy.

The embassy spokesman declined further comment, directing inquiries to the family.

It isn't yet known yet what caused his heart to stop beating. Sudden cardiac arrest can be due to a heart attack, a heart rhythm problem, or a result of trauma. The chance of cardiac arrest increases as people get older; men over age 45 have a greater risk. Men in general are up to three times more likely to have a sudden cardiac arrest than women.

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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

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NEW YORK (AP) Breaking up is hard to do. That is, unless you're "Mad Men," which this season has been free-and-easy in its fragmentation.

By now Peggy Olson and her radical beau are splitsville. So are Pete Campbell and wife Trudy, who caught him philandering one too many times.

Twice-wed Roger Sterling, currently solo, saw his knotty relationship with his mom torn asunder with her death this season, and he's alienated from his daughter and grandson.

And don't forget the latest romantic entanglement of Don Draper, whose marriage to winsome Megan seemed on suicide watch as, every chance he got, he scorched the sheets with downstairs neighbor Sylvia (wife of Don's presumed friend Dr. Arnold Rosen).

The only notable coming-together: the stormy merger of Sterling, Cooper, Draper and Pryce with former rival ad agency Cutler, Gleason and Chaough, which has assembled a bickering band of ad execs only slightly more collegial than either house of Congress.

Is the unmoored zeitgeist of 1968 to blame for this season's pattern of upheavals? Does the Vietnam War, the assassinations and riots help account for the turmoil on the show? Or the '60s drug culture (they smoke pot at the office, and on one episode, a Dr. Feelgood arrives with a hypodermic needle to keep everybody energized)?

Whatever, the psyches on "Mad Men" in this, its sixth and penultimate season, seem to be unraveling as the season finale approaches (Sunday at 10 p.m. EDT on AMC). The male psyches, anyway.

On the other hand, the sisters increasingly are doin' it for themselves.

Peggy Olson is stronger, more clear-eyed and outspoken than ever. (In last week's episode, she read Don the riot act: "You're a monster!")

Tough, pneumatic Joan Harris, who since the series began has fashioned an unlikely rise from office manager to agency partner, has truly come into her own in recent weeks, notably when she went rogue and landed a major account all by herself (a no-no for a woman in this Alpha Male shop).

Don's ex, the remarried Betty Francis, seemed to step outside her pouty state of victimhood in a recent episode to forcefully remind Don that he still has feelings for her.

But who knows what awaits Megan, Don's devoted wife? In love with Don but unsettled by his growing detachment (even as she remains oblivious to his cheating), she seems poised to become the latest Draper roadkill.

"That poor girl," said been-there Betty to Don. "She doesn't know that loving you is the worst way to get to you."

All in all, it's been a satisfying, illuminating season well served by the superb cast, including Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, Vincent Kartheiser, Christina Hendricks and Jessica Pare.

In his new supporting role, Harry Hamlin as a courtly, quirky agency partner has been a delight in his every scene. Likewise, eager-beaver enigma Bob Benson (James Wolk) has been fun to watch while raising questions from the audience (Just what's his game at the agency?) and inspiring wild speculation (a government spy?!).

And Linda Cardellini has been a revelation as Sylvia, the latest woman Don believed he had to have, and did, with a calamitous outcome.

"Mad Men," which arguably has never really been about advertising, seems this season to have taken a step further back from the nuts-and-bolts of Madison Avenue. At the office, the internecine bickering, politics and posturing seem to leave little time for creating ads. Even conference-room sparring about butter versus margarine seemed more about one-upmanship than selling a product.

This season, as usual, "Mad Men" stuck to its elliptical ways, rarely saying too much or gobsmacking the viewer with an OMG moment.

All the more shocking, then, when in a recent episode by the worst mischance Don's teenage daughter, Sally, caught Don in the sack with Sylvia.

For a girl already alienated by her parents' divorce, by her own roiling adolescence and perhaps who knows? by the youth rebellion the '60s are fomenting, this sight is clearly traumatic (and perhaps all the more so, since Sally was nursing a crush on the Rosens' teenage son). It's a lot to bear for this member of the youth generation already conditioned not to trust anybody over 30.

And Don knows it. Throughout the season, he seems to have hastened a downward slide. Not only has his private life been extra messy, he has also sabotaged his agency's campaigns and messed up a stock offering that stood to make him and his partners rich.

Now, after Sally barged in on him, his shame is beyond measure. At last week's fade-out, viewers left him in a state of surrender: on his office couch, curled in a fetal position.

Among the questions for the season finale: How can Don begin the process of redeeming himself? And will he?

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Online:

http://www.amctv.com

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EDITOR'S NOTE Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore@ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier

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NEW YORK (AP) James Gandolfini would have hated all this fuss.

He was an actor who shrank from attention for anything but the roles he brought to life. No false modesty. He simply did his best to remain a private citizen behind his public characters. These included, of course, Tony Soprano, the fiendish, tormented mobster who the world came to know and revere as a towering dramatic achievement.

Now, out of the blue, this flood of tributes to Gandolfini upon his untimely death? This would likely have struck him as excessive and needless, upstaging for a moment his lifetime of work.

In a too-brief career that ended Wednesday at age 51 while he was vacationing in Rome, Gandolfini can be celebrated for performances on TV, on stage and in films that reached beyond the obvious triumph of "The Sopranos" and the unsought celebrity it brought him. Before, during and after "The Sopranos," he remained defiantly a character actor, by all indications spared a leading man's ego as he tackled roles that piqued his interest, not roles meant to guarantee the spotlight.

"I'm much more comfortable doing smaller things," he declared not long ago. And in the past year, his film appearances included supporting (or smaller) roles in Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden manhunt docudrama "Zero Dark Thirty," ''Sopranos" creator David Chase's '60s period drama "Not Fade Away," and Andrew Dominick's crime flick "Killing Them Softly."

It was all part of an acting career as unlikely to which TV has given rise.

How to account for the providential choice of Gandolfini to headline a high-profile HBO drama series playing an anguished mob boss and family man? Balding and beefy, he seemed the antithesis of an actor who could sustain viewers' interest, amusing them, horrifying them and compelling them to love him in a way they had never loved a TV hero before.

Gandolfini made the character monstrous yet sympathetic, a man with a murderously chilling gaze yet a mischievous smile. Thus did Tony Soprano become part of the culture, taking Gandolfini, reluctantly, with him.

By the end of the series' run, Gandolfini was suitably grateful for the role he had embodied for six seasons. But he had lent such authenticity to Tony that the character by then weighed heavily upon him. No actor stops identifying with the character he plays, no matter how repellant or villainous. An actor is required to be complicit with the man he portrays.

And yet, Gandolfini said he struggled to like Tony.

"Let's just say, it was a lot easier to like him in the beginning, than in the last few years," he told The Associated Press a few days before the series' finale in June 2007.

It was a remarkable admission by Gandolfini as he looked ahead, brightly, to new challenges.

"I don't even think I've proven myself, yet," he said. "I have yet to begin the fight, I think."

In that rare interview, Gandolfini, famously press-shy ever since "The Sopranos" blindsided him with stardom, was as gracious as he was uncomfortable discussing himself.

There was one too many questions delving into his acting process.

"Oh, please! Who gives a crap!" he scoffed (though he didn't say "crap"). Then he quickly apologized. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to be abrupt."

Despite his formidable presence in person as on film, there was no confusing him with Tony Soprano. He was his own man, down-to-earth, accommodating and no-nonsense when it counted. Once glimpsed by a reporter filming a scene on the set of the Soprano family's plush New Jersey home, he bobbled a line of dialogue, whereupon he let out a growl, not at anyone else but directed unsparingly at himself before the cameras rolled again.

On the other hand, he clearly knew the difference between what was serious as an actor and what was deadly serious.

Marshaling his unbidden clout as a star, Gandolfini produced (though only sparingly appeared in) a pair of documentaries for HBO focused on a cause he held dear: veterans affairs.

"Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq" (2007) profiled soldiers and Marines who had cheated death in war but continued to wage personal battles back at home. Four years later, "Wartorn: 1861-2010" charted victims of post-traumatic stress disorder from the U.S. invasion of Iraq all the way back to the Civil War.

"Do I think a documentary is going to change the world?" Gandolfini said about the latter film. "No, but I think there will be individuals who will learn things from it, so that's enough."

There were no grand pronouncements that day. No lofty goals voiced. No showboating by an actor who will never be forgotten as Tony Soprano, and then some, for the work he leaves behind.

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EDITOR'S NOTE Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore@ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier

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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) The Afghan Taliban are ready to free a U.S. soldier held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their senior operatives imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay as a conciliatory gesture, a senior spokesman for the group said Thursday.

The offer follows this week's official opening of a Taliban political office in Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar.

The only known American soldier held captive from the Afghan war is U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho. He disappeared from his base in southeastern Afghanistan on June 30, 2009, and is believed held in Pakistan.

In an exclusive telephone interview with The Associated Press from his Doha office, Taliban spokesman Shaheen Suhail said on Thursday that Bergdahl "is, as far as I know, in good condition."

Suhail did not elaborate on Bergdahl's current whereabouts. Among the five prisoners the Taliban have consistently requested are Khairullah Khairkhwa, a former Taliban governor of Herat, and Mullah Mohammed Fazl, a former top Taliban military commander, both of whom have been held for more than a decade.

Bergdahl's parents earlier this month received a letter from their son who turned 27 on March 28 through the International Committee of the Red Cross. They did not release details of the letter but renewed their plea for his release. The soldier's captivity has been marked by only sporadic releases of videos and information about his whereabouts.

The prisoner exchange is the first item on the Taliban's agenda before even opening peace talks, saidn Suhail, who is a top Taliban figure and served as first secretary at the Afghan Embassy in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad before the Taliban government's ouster in 2001.

"First has to be the release of detainees," Suhail said when asked about Bergdahl. "Yes. It would be an exchange. Then step by step, we want to build bridges of confidence to go forward."

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was expected in Doha ahead of Saturday's conference on the Syrian civil war.

While in Qatar, Kerry is also expected to meet with the Taliban but timing was unclear. On Wednesday in Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. had "never confirmed" any specific meeting schedule with Taliban representatives in Doha.

Prospective peace talks are also still in question, especially after Afghan President Hamid Karzai became infuriated by the Taliban's move to cast their new office in Doha as a rival embassy.

The Taliban held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday in which they hoisted their flag and a banner with the name they used while in power more than a decade ago: "Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan." Later, the Taliban replaced the sign to read simply: Political office of the Taliban.

At the ceremony, the Taliban welcomed dialogue with Washington but said their fighters would not stop fighting. Hours later, the group claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on Bagram Air Base outside the Afghan capital, Kabul, that killed four American service members.

Karzai on Wednesday announced his government is out of the peace talks, apparently angered by the way Kabul had been sidelined in the U.S.-Taliban bid for rapprochement.

The Afghan president also suspended negotiations with the United States on a bilateral security agreement that would cover American troops who will remain behind after the final withdrawal of NATO combat troops at the end of 2014.

Suhail said the Taliban are insistent that they want their first interlocutors to be the United States. "First we talk to the Americans about those issues concerning the Americans and us (because) for those issues implementation is only in the hands of the Americans," he said.

"We want foreign troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan," he added. "If there are troops in Afghanistan then there will be a continuation of the war."

Suhail indicated the Taliban could approve of American trainers and advisers for the Afghan troops, saying that "of course, there is cooperation between countries in other things. We need that cooperation."

He said that once the Taliban concluded talks with the United States, they would participate in all-inclusive Afghan talks.

Suhail ruled out exclusive talks with Karzai's High Peace Council, which has been a condition of the Afghan president who previously said he wanted talks in Doha to be restricted to his representatives and the Taliban. Instead, the Taliban would talk to all Afghan groups, Suhail said.

"After we finish the phase of talking to the Americans, then we would start the internal phase ... that would include all Afghans," he said. "Having all groups involved will guarantee peace and stability."

On Thursday, Karzai's government appeared to throw another spanner into the mix, demanding that Pakistan release imprisoned Afghan Taliban leaders.

"It is a good time to release these Taliban leaders jailed in Pakistan, and then the Afghan High Peace Council together with them will begin talks with the Taliban inside Afghanistan or in Qatar," a statement from the foreign ministry in Kabul said.

It wasn't clear, however, whether the Taliban in Pakistani custody would be willing to participate in peace talks as members of Karzai's council. Pakistan last year and earlier this year released dozens of Taliban prisoners, most of whom returned to the ranks of the Taliban.

The Afghan government has repeatedly sought the release of the Taliban's former No. 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, picked up by Pakistan in 2010 on a CIA tip.

Pakistan has so far refused, and two senior U.S. officials told the AP that the U.S. has asked Pakistan not to release Baradar or if he is released, to give them advance notice so they could monitor his movements. The two officials, both knowledgeable of the process, spoke earlier this year, on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.

The reconciliation process with the Taliban has been a long and bumpy one that began nearly two years ago when the U.S. opened secret talks that were later scuttled by Karzai when he learned of them.

It was then that the U.S. and Taliban discussed prisoner exchanges and for a brief time it appeared that the five Guantanamo Bay prisoners would be released and sent to Doha to help further the peace process. But Karzai stepped in again and demanded they be returned to Afghanistan over Taliban objections.

Since then, the U.S. has been trying to jumpstart peace talks and the Taliban have made small gestures including an offer to share power. The Taliban have also attended several international conferences and held meetings with representatives of about 30 countries.

If the Taliban hold talks with Kerry in the next few days, they will be the first U.S.-Taliban talks in nearly 1 years.

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Associated Press writers Kay Johnson in Kabul and Brian Murphy in Dubai contributed to this report.

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Kathy Gannon is AP Special Regional Correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan and can be reached at www.twitter.com/kathygannon

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EVERGREEN, Colo. (AP) A new wildfire in the foothills southwest of Denver forced the evacuation of dozens of homes Wednesday as hot and windy conditions in the West made it easy for fires to start and spread.

The Lime Gulch Fire in Pike National Forest was small but devouring trees about 30 miles southwest of Denver in southern Jefferson County. More than 100 people were told to leave, but no structures appeared to be threatened, Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink said.

"The good news is, it's a very sparsely populated area as far as houses go," Mink said.

He said the fire might have been sparked by lightning a day earlier, then quickly grew in high winds Wednesday. The U.S. Forest Service estimated it was burning on 500 acres.

The fire zone was in steep, heavily forested mountain terrain, south of where last year's Lower North Fork Fire damaged and destroyed 23 homes and killed three people. That fire was triggered by a prescribed burn that escaped containment lines.

The blaze came as up to 600 Arizona firefighters battled a wildfire in Prescott National Forest that has scorched nearly 8 square miles and was zero percent contained. It erupted Tuesday afternoon and led to the evacuation of 460 homes.

Smoke from another fire that broke out Wednesday afternoon was visible from Grand Canyon National Park. It had burned about 60 acres, and no structures were immediately threatened.

A large blaze in New Mexico, meanwhile, charred southern New Mexico's Gila National Forest and grew to 47 square miles.

In Colorado, some evacuees said they were ready to leave Wednesday in minutes, having practiced fire evacuations after last year's Lower North Fork Fire.

Karalyn Pytel was at home vacuuming when her husband called, saying he had received an alert on his cellphone telling the family to leave. The 34-year-old said she quickly left the house.

She grabbed her 6-year-old daughter's favorite blanket, a laptop computer, a jewelry box and some family heirlooms.

"I grabbed a laundry basket and just threw stuff in it. I don't even know what clothes they are," Pytel said as she arrived at an evacuation center.

Two U.S. Air Force Reserve C-130s arrived quickly to drop slurry around the fire in Colorado. The specially equipped cargo planes, attached to the 302nd Airlift Wing at Peterson Air Force Base, were operating out of Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in suburban Denver, said Airlift Wing spokeswoman Ann Skarban.

The C-130s had just finished duty Sunday fighting a 22-square-mile wildfire near Colorado Springs that destroyed 509 homes and killed two people. More than 960 fire personnel at the Black Forest Fire contended with wind gusts Wednesday as they tried to contain the fire and find and extinguish hot spots.

Authorities said Marc and Robin Herklotz were killed as that fire erupted June 11. Their bodies were found in their garage by a car, as if they were trying to flee, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa has said.

Marc Herklotz, 52, and Robin Herklotz, 50, worked at Air Force Space Command, which operates military satellites, and were based at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, the Air Force said. Marc Herklotz entered the Air Force in 1983 but most recently was working as a civilian employee. Robin Herklotz was an Air Force contractor.

Other fires around Colorado were also putting up thick clouds of smoke.

In western Colorado, a wind-driven wildfire near Rangely prompted the evacuation of a youth camp as a precaution. Rio Blanco County Undersheriff Michael Joos said the camp wasn't in immediate danger, but about 40 kids and a half dozen adults were asked to leave due to high winds.

Evacuations also were ordered due to a wildfire in rural Huerfano County in southern Colorado.

Back in Evergreen, Pytel was asked whether Wednesday's evacuation has changed their minds about living in a mountainous area at high risk for wildfires.

"No matter where you go, really, it's always something. It's either a tornado, a hurricane, an earthquake (or) a fire. For us, it's our tornado," Pytel said.

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