Streep voices admiration for "Iron Lady" she played in film

LONDON (Reuters) - Actress Meryl Streep, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in the 2011 film "The Iron Lady", praised the former British prime minister on Monday as a pioneer for the role of women in politics.

Britain's first and only female political leader died on Monday, aged 87, after suffering a stroke.

Streep, 63, described Thatcher as a trailblazer, "willingly or unwillingly", for female political leaders. "To me she was a figure of awe for her personal strength and grit," the American actress said in a statement.

"To have given women and girls around the world reason to supplant fantasies of being princesses with a different dream: the real-life option of leading their nation; this was groundbreaking and admirable."

Streep paid tribute to Thatcher for rising to the position of prime minister from her upbringing as a grocer's daughter on the back of her own hard work.

The multi-Oscar-winning actress acknowledged that the right-wing Thatcher divided opinion. But Streep said Thatcher deserved credit for standing by her convictions despite the "special hatred and ridicule, unprecedented in my opinion, leveled in our time at a public figure who was not a mass murderer".

Streep said she was honored to try to imagine Thatcher's late life journey in playing her in "Iron Lady" but only really had a "glancing understanding" of Thatcher's struggles.

"I wish to convey my respectful condolences to her family and many friends," she said.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Magazine releases recording of senior Republican's campaign meeting

By Susan Heavey, Andy Sullivan and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A liberal magazine reported on Tuesday that it had obtained a recording of 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 nor 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.

In a statement issued through a spokesperson, Judd called the meeting "yet another example of the politics of personal destruction....We expected nothing less from Mitch McConnell and his camp than to take a personal struggle such as depression, which many Americans cope with on a daily basis, and turn it into a laughing matter."

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 staff members had spent time researching Judd's past comments on everything from abortion to coal mining. Several other staff members 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 can not use their office computers, 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 an 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, Jackie Frank and Cynthia Osterman)

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British "test tube baby" pioneer Robert Edwards dies

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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Chinese abstract painter Zao Wou-ki dies aged 93

ZURICH (Reuters) - Abstract master Zao Wou-ki, one of China's most significant artists whose works routinely fetch millions of dollars at auction, has died in Switzerland aged 93.

Zao, who suffered from Alzheimer's, died on Tuesday and had been in hospital for 10 days in the western Swiss town of Nyon, his widow's lawyer Marc Bonnant told Reuters.

Born in Beijing, Zao moved to Paris in 1948 before the Communist takeover of his country. In Europe, he was inspired by artists like Paul Klee, Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miro and had his first solo exhibition in New York in 1959.

He became a French citizen in 1964 and only returned to China for the first time since leaving in 1972.

Zao's son from a previous marriage, Jialing Zhao, had fought a legal battle with his third wife Francoise Marquet over guardianship of the artist since the couple moved to Switzerland in 2011, Bonnant said.

Renowned for combining Chinese and European influences, his paintings -- like "10.1.68" and "Hommage a Tou-Fou" -- have sold for millions of dollars at auction in recent years.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius expressed sadness at the passing of a "great artist".

"He mixed Western influences with his Chinese identity to give his work a universal scope," Fabius said in a statement. "With him, we are losing an emblematic figure of lyrical abstraction whose work made ​​an outstanding contribution."

Soaring Chinese demand has driven prices for expensive art and luxury goods in recent years although that trend has cooled along with the pace of growth of China's economy.

(Reporting by Emma Thomasson, additional reporting by John Irish and Chine Labbe in Paris, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Kenny Rogers to join Country Music Hall of Fame

By Vernell Hackett

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - Veteran singers and songwriters Kenny Rogers, Bobby Bare and "Cowboy" Jack Clement will be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, organizers said on Wednesday, achieving one of the highest honors in the music industry.

Rogers, 74, the husky-voiced three-time Grammy winner best known for songs like The Gambler" and "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town," will be inducted in the "Modern Era" category, the Country Music Association announced.

"Everything pales in comparison to this," Rogers said, tearing up because the honor came in his lifetime.

"My older sons thought I was already in here. Maybe now I can really impress them," he told Reuters, referring to his 8-year-old twin sons from his fifth marriage.

Rogers, a country-pop crossover artist who scored a big hit with the 1983 duet "Islands in the Stream" with Dolly Parton, has charted hit singles in each of the past six decades, and is due to play at the Glastonbury pop music festival in England in June.

Wednesday's three new inductees will bring membership of the Country Music Hall of Fame to 121 since its creation in 1961, including the likes of Parton, Elvis Presley, Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Glen Campbell and Willie Nelson.

Bare, 78, was born in Ohio and moved to California, where he had a hit with "The All American Boy" in the pop field in 1959. He later moved to Nashville, was signed to a record deal by guitar player Chet Atkins, and went on to have hits with "Detroit City," and "500 Miles Away From Home."

"This is real huge," Bare said on Wednesday. "This is the culmination of a 19-year-old boy's dream who left Ohio to be a singer."

Clements, 82, is a producer and songwriter from Texas who moved to Memphis just as Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis, whom he discovered, were breaking into the music scene in the mid-1950s.

He persuaded George Jones to record one of his early hits, "She Thinks I Still Care," and also persuaded a record label to sign Charley Pride, one of the few African-American singers to make it big in the country music scene.

Clement, who also produced tracks in Memphis for U2's "Rattle and Hum" album, will be inducted as a non-performer in the ceremony to be held later this year at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Mohammad Zargham)

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Director Julie Taymor settles "Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark" suit

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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Anderson Cooper, Nate Silver, Tim Cook top Out's 2013 power list

By Greg Gilman

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Apple CEO Tim Cook is still the number one most powerful member of the gay community, according to Out magazine's seventh annual "Power 50" list released on Wednesday.

The publication credits Steve Jobs' successor, who ranked number one in 2012, with successfully guiding the tech company through significant upgrades on all of the company's product lines. Under his leadership, the brand's market share increased a whopping 20 percent in the United States.

Daytime talk show queen Ellen DeGeneres once again follows in second place, with Anderson Cooper moving up from sixth to fifth place and newcomer Nate Silver - the famed New York Times statistician who predicted the 2012 Presidential Election with 100 percent accuracy - entering the gay and lesbian power ranking in sixth place.

"Glee" creator Ryan Murphy and MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow each moved up one slot from 2012's list, being placed third and fourth, respectively.

Frank Ocean, the R&B star who admitted he once had a romantic relationship with a man last year, landed the number 10 slot, while the first openly gay U.S. senator, Tammy Baldwin, followed at number nine.

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Malawi labels Madonna an "uncouth" bully in scathing attack

By Mabvuto Banda

LILONGWE (Reuters) - The Malawi government has branded pop star Madonna an "uncouth" bully who exaggerates her charitable work in the country and demands preferential treatment when she visits.

Malawi President Joyce Banda's government accused the "Material Girl" of bullying officials after she complained about her latest trip to the southern African country this month.

"Among the many things that Madonna needs to learn as a matter of urgency is the decency of telling the truth," said an 11-point statement from Malawi's State House.

Media reports said Madonna and her children were forced to join a check-in queue and go through security with ordinary passengers at a Malawi airport when they left the country.

The "Holiday" singer dismissed Malawi's comments as "lies" in a statement on the website of her Raising Malawi foundation.

"I'm saddened that Malawi's President Joyce Banda has chosen to release lies about what we've accomplished, my intentions, how I personally conducted myself while visiting Malawi and other untruths," Madonna said.

Malawi said Madonna expected the government to be forever chained in an "obligation of gratitude" towards her for adopting two Malawian children and contributing to the construction of classrooms in the country.

"Kindness, as far as its ordinary meaning is concerned, is free and anonymous. If it can't be free and silent, it is not kindness; it is something else," the statement said. "Blackmail is the closest it becomes."

The singer said she came to Malawi seven years ago with honorable intentions and returned earlier this month to view the new schools built by her foundation.

"I did not ever ask or demand special treatment at the airport or elsewhere during my visit," Madonna said.

"I will not be distracted or discouraged by other people's political agendas. I made a promise to the children of Malawi and I am keeping that promise."

She said the disagreement was rooted in her history with President Banda's sister, Anjimile Mtila Oponyo, who once headed Raising Malawi. Oponyo was fired and sued the charity for wrongful termination.

The Malawi government said in its statement the current dispute had nothing to do with Oponyo, however.

"For her to accuse Mrs. Oponyo for indiscretions that have clearly arisen from her personal frustrations that her ego has not been massaged by the state is uncouth, and speaks volumes of a musician who desperately thinks she must generate recognition by bullying state officials instead of playing decent music on the stage."

(Writing by Paul Casciato; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

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Korean rapper Psy releases single to follow "Gangnam" hit

By Narae Kim and Elaine Lies

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean rapper Psy released his much-anticipated new single on Thursday hoping to repeat the success of "Gangnam Style" that made him the biggest star to emerge from the growing K-pop music scene.

The video for "Gangnam Style" has become the most watched item on YouTube with more than 1.5 billion hits and Psy's horse-riding moves sparked an international dance craze.

The details of his latest single, "Gentleman", were kept under wraps until the song was released at midnight in New Zealand (1200 GMT).

The song, with a techno beat, was full of puns in Korean and contained the lines "I am a party mafia!" and the refrain, "I am a mother father gentleman".

Psy, 35, will perform "Gentleman" in public for the first time on Saturday at a concert at Seoul's World Cup stadium but he has been coy about what dance to expect this time, except to hint that it is based on traditional Korean moves.

"All Koreans know this dance but (those in) other countries haven't seen it," Psy told South Korean television last week.

He has asked fans to wear white to Saturday's event and his stylist told Reuters last month that the concept for the new song would again be a formal suit with "an unexpected twist of fun".

In "Gangnam Style", written as a commentary on materialism in the wealthy Seoul suburb of Gangnam, Psy was decked out in sunglasses, a white dress shirt, bow tie and tuxedo jackets.

The song racked up 3.59 million digital sales last year in the United States and Canada, according to Nielsen SoundScan and Nielsen BDS, putting it ninth in the best-selling list. It was third on Amazon's MP3 song bestseller list for 2012.

"Gangnam Style" catapulted Psy to global fame after an rocky career in the music business over the past decade.

Psy, whose real name is Park Jae-sang, graduated from the Berklee College of Music in the United States and made his debut in 2001 with the album "PSY from the Psycho World".

But he ran into trouble with the authorities for "inappropriate" content in the lead song on that album, which was seen as sexually suggestive. He was also charged with possession of marijuana in 2002.

Since then he has released five more albums.

Psy's brash style - at a concert last year he parodied Lady Gaga, complete with fake breasts that he set on fire - stands in stark contrast to the squeaky clean singers that dominate K-pop which is finding an increasingly large international audience.

A Music Industry White Paper published by the Korean Creative Content Agency said sales of K-pop outside Korea surged 135 percent in 2011 from a year earlier to $196 million. In 2006 overseas sales were worth $16.7 million.

Psy acknowledged last month that the stress of following up Gangnam was taking its toll.

He tweeted a picture of himself covering his face at a recording studio, with the caption: "The pain of creation."

(Reporting by Narae Kim, writing by Elaine Lies, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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McCartney tops UK music rich list, Adele richest youngster

LONDON (Reuters) - Former Beatle Paul McCartney's 680-million-pound ($1.04 billion) fortune put him at the top of a list ranking the UK and Ireland's richest musicians that also highlighted Adele as the wealthiest young music millionaire.

McCartney was followed closely by music and stage impresario Andrew Lloyd-Webber at 620 million pounds, Irish rock band U2 and singer Elton John in the Sunday Times Rich List 2013 to be published on April 21, an emailed statement from the paper said.

McCartney, 70, has topped all the charts for the country's wealthiest musicians since the Rich List began in 1989, when the former Beatle was worth just 80 million pounds.

Aside from starring roles at Queen Elizabeth's diamond jubilee as well as the closing and opening ceremonies for the London Olympics, McCartney's "On the Run" tour grossed $57 million from 18 dates in 2012.

His total was also boosted by wife Nancy Shevell's stake in her father's New England Motor Freight trucking operation.

Profits from Lloyd-Webber's hugely successful stage shows, such as "Phantom of the Opera", "Evita" and "Cats", helped to boost the composer and theatre owner's fortune to keep him in second place ahead of U2 at 520 million and "Candle in the Wind" singer John in third at 240 million pounds.

Rolling Stone Mick Jagger came joint fifth at 200 million pounds alongside former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham and her soccer player husband David Beckham.

Adele topped the 2013 Young Music Rich List of entertainers aged 30 and under with a 30 million pound fortune. With the continued worldwide success of her album "21", this was a 50 percent increase on the 20 million pounds which put the Oscar-winning singer-songwriter atop the list in 2012.

New entries to the youngsters' list, each worth 5 million pounds, included singer-songwriters Emeli Sandé, aged 26, Ed Sheeran, 22, and all five members of boy band One Direction, Niall Horan, 19, Zayn Malik, 20, Liam Payne, 19, Harry Styles, 19, and Louis Tomlinson, 21.

One Direction have become Britain's richest boy band, with combined wealth of 25 million pounds. This puts them just 1 million pounds ahead of the combined wealth of the four members of JLS, Jonathan (JB) Gill, 26, Marvin Humes, 28, Aston Merrygold, 25, and Ortisé Williams, 26, who now share a total fortune of 24 million pounds.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; editing by Stephen Addison)

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