Music royalty rocks NYC in Sandy benefit concert

NEW YORK (AP) — New Jersey shore hero Bruce Springsteen opened a benefit concert for victims of Superstorm Sandy on Wednesday by making a plea that what made his boyhood home special not be forgotten when it is rebuilt.

Music royalty from the Rolling Stones to Kanye West, including several artists with direct ties to the New York metropolitan area, gathered at Madison Square Garden for a concert being televised, streamed online and aired on radio all over the world.

Springsteen and his E Street Band began the show with a roar, singing "Land of Hope and Dreams" and "Wrecking Ball." He addressed the rebuilding process before his song "My City of Ruins." He noted that the song was written about the hard times suffered by Asbury Park, N.J., before a renaissance over the past decade.

He lauded the Jersey shore as an inclusive area, where the rich and the poor can find a place.

"I pray that that characteristic remains along the Jersey shore because that's what makes it special," Springsteen said.

He mixed "My City of Ruins" with part of Tom Waits' "Jersey Girl" before bringing neighbor Jon Bon Jovi out to sing "Born to Run" with him.

Comic Billy Crystal got an immediate laugh by taking a shot at a Long Island lighting company that drew criticism for the slow pace of power restoration after the storm hit the area on Oct. 29.

Roger Waters played a set of Pink Floyd's spacey rock, joined by Eddie Vedder for "Comfortably Numb." Waters stuck to the music and left the fundraising to others.

"Can't chat," he said, "because we only have 30 minutes."

The sold-out "12-12-12" concert was being shown on 37 television stations in the United States and more than 200 others worldwide. It was to be streamed on 30 websites, including YouTube and Yahoo, and played on radio stations. Theaters, including 27 in the New York region and dozens more elsewhere, were showing it live. More than 2 billion people were expected to have access to the performance.

Proceeds from the show will be distributed through the Robin Hood Foundation. More than $30 million was raised through ticket sales alone.

The powerful storm left parts of New York City underwater and left millions of people in several states without heat or electricity for weeks. It's blamed for at least 125 deaths, including 104 in New York and New Jersey, and it destroyed or damaged 305,000 housing units in New York alone.

Other concert performers were to include Long Islander Billy Joel ("New York State of Mind") and New Yorker Alicia Keys ("Empire State of Mind"). Even Liverpool's Paul McCartney has a New York office, Hamptons home and a wife, Nancy Shevell, who spent a decade on the board of the agency that runs New York's public transit system.

The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger said he wasn't in New York for the storm but his apartment was flooded with 2 feet of water.

"Imagine you hadn't known it was coming," he said in an interview. "It would have been pretty dire. I think it's good to do events to support people in the area where you're very familiar with. I mean, I've been coming here for a long time."

Other artists expected to perform included Eric Clapton, Dave Grohl, Chris Martin and The Who.

It's a lineup heavily weighted toward classic rock, which has the type of fans able to afford a show for which ticket prices ranged from $150 to $2,500. Even with those prices, people with tickets have been offering them for more on broker sites such as StubHub, an attempt at profiteering that producers fumed was "despicable."

The concert came a day after the death of sitar master Ravi Shankar, a performer at the 1971 "Concert for Bangladesh" considered the grandfather of music benefits. That also was in Madison Square Garden.

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AP Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu in New York contributed to this report.

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Congress examines science behind HGH test for NFL

WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional committee has opened a hearing to examine the science behind a human growth hormone test the NFL wants to start using on its players.

Nearly two full seasons have passed since the league and the players' union signed a labor deal that set the stage for HGH testing.

The NFL Players Association won't concede the validity of a test that's used by Olympic sports and Major League Baseball, and the sides haven't been able to agree on a scientist to help resolve that impasse.

Among the witnesses before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday is Pro Football Hall of Fame member Dick Butkus. In his prepared statement, Butkus writes: "Now, let's get on with it. The HGH testing process is proven to be reliable."

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Public's response saved lives in rampage

Citizens' coolheadedness and individual preparation for coping with gunfire in public settings may have curtailed the casualty count from Tuesday's shooting at a Portland, Ore., shopping mall, law officers suggested on the day after the tragedy.

Two people died and one was critically wounded before the shooter, 22-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts of Portland, killed himself a few minutes after running into the food court at the Clackamas Town Center mall. Officials say Mr. Roberts, wearing camouflage and a white hockey mask, had methodically fired "multiple" rounds from an assault-style rifle at random shoppers.

Most of the 10,000 Christmas shoppers at the mall appeared nearly as ready and able as police to deal with a gunman appearing suddenly in their midst, Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said on Wednesday.

"Many people have asked me why there were so few victims during this incident," said Sheriff Roberts. He listed the fact that Mr. Roberts's AR-15 semiautomatic rifle intermittently jammed and noted a well-practiced mall lockdown procedure. But he also credited "10,000 people in the mall who at one time kept a level head, got themselves out of the mall, helped others get out, secured themselves in stores.… It was really about a whole group of people coming together to make a difference."

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Law officers said during a Wednesday press conference that they did not know whether any member of the public carrying a concealed weapon had counterattacked Roberts. But they said they are certain that Roberts died by his own hand after fleeing down a stairwell from the mall's upper level.

The death rate from mass shootings has ticked up slightly in recent years, even as deaths in single-victim incidents have decreased, according to a recent analysis of FBI crime data by the Huffington Post. The worst recent mass shooting came in July in Aurora, Colo., where a gunman killed 12 people and injured 58 during a midnight screening of a new "Batman" movie.

Gun-control advocates seized on the mall shooting as a possible result of the expiration in 2004 of a national ban on assault weapons.

"Santa Claus could have been shot in the mall," said Penny Okamoto, executive director of Ceasefire Oregon, in an interview with the Portland Tribune. "If you're sick of this, you should call your legislators to tell them to fix the laws so that assault weapons don't end up in the hands of felons."

Many versions of the AR-15 were banned under the assault weapons law, but it's not known if the gun used in the Clackamas mall shooting was one of them.

Police said Roberts had no criminal record and had stolen the AR-15 from "someone he knew."

Does the collected response by shoppers at the Clackamas Town Center indicate that Americans are becoming less daunted by senseless violence and, perhaps, better ready to react? Those who back broad gun rights under the Constitution's Second Amendment suggest a shift may be under way in people's readiness to respond.

In blocking Illinois's ban on concealed weapons, the last such law in the nation, Seventh US Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner on Tuesday implied that self-defense readiness in public is not only protected by the US Constitution, but may be good social policy. An awareness "that many law-abiding citizens are walking the streets armed may make criminals timid," he wrote in his ruling.

"As far as a social shift, I think people are getting more intelligent and appropriate in their reactions to shooters," says Dave Kopel, research director at the Independence Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank in Golden, Colo. "Police training has changed in significant ways since the Columbine [High School] shooting [in 1999], where they no longer wait for the SWAT team to arrive but go in immediately with … the army they have. There's also an awareness [among police and the public] that if you're trying to stop a gangster from robbing a liquor store, you may have a [heck] of a fight on your hands, but that these publicity-seeking guys with mental illness, they basically crumble at first opposition."

The upshot, says Mr. Kopel: "Lying down and cowering doesn't seem to work very well, so law enforcement has gotten smarter and civilians have gotten smarter."

In Clackamas County, Sheriff Roberts said local law-enforcement personnel had trained earlier this year for a shooting scenario at Clackamas Town Center, an exercise that involved both police and retailers. On Tuesday, arriving police, in keeping with evolving police tactics nationwide, formed small teams and quickly entered the mall to pursue the shooter. Police could not say Wednesday whether any officers saw the shooter before he killed himself.

Dennis Curtis, the mall's general manager, noted that police officers told him that they were amazed "how many stores were secured and people were locked in place" upon entering the mall to look for the shooter.

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North Korea declares rocket launch a success

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired a long-range rocket Wednesday morning in its second launch under its new leader, defying warnings from the U.N. and Washington only days before South Korean presidential elections.

North Korea declared the launch of a rocket and satellite a success, and state television planned a special broadcast about the launch at noon (0300 GMT).

South Korean and Japanese officials confirmed that liftoff took place shortly before 10 a.m. (0100 GMT), while the United States did not immediately comment on it. Each nation had been urging North Korea to refrain from a launch widely seen as a cover for a test of banned ballistic missile technology.

South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told a nationally televised news conference that a South Korean Aegis-equipped destroyer deployed in the Yellow Sea detected the launch but South Korea still didn't know the launch was successful. North Korea had indicated technical problems with the rocket earlier and had extended its launch window to Dec. 29.

Japan said one part of the rocket fell into waters west of the Korean Peninsula and another part fell in the sea east of the Philippines. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak planned an emergency national security council meeting Wednesday, and Japan protested the rocket launch.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took power after his father Kim Jong Il died on Dec. 17 last year, and the launch also comes about a month before President Barack Obama is inaugurated for his second term.

The North says the Unha rocket was meant to put a satellite in orbit. A similar launch in April broke apart shortly after liftoff, and the condemnation that attempt received is likely to be repeated. Washington sees the launch as a cover for a test of technology for missiles that could be used to strike the United States.

Rocket tests are seen as crucial to advancing North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions. North Korea is thought to have only a handful of rudimentary nuclear bombs. But Pyongyang is not yet believed capable of building warheads small enough to mount on a missile that could threaten the United States.

North Korea has spent decades trying to perfect a multistage, long-range rocket. Experts say that ballistic missiles and rockets in satellite launches share similar bodies, engines and other technology. This is the fifth attempt at a long-range launch since 1998, when Pyongyang sent a rocket hurtling over Japan. Previous launches of three-stage rockets weren't considered successful.

Washington sees North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles as a threat to world security and to its Asian allies, Japan and South Korea.

North Korea under new leader Kim has pledged to bolster its nuclear arsenal unless Washington scraps what Pyongyang calls a hostile policy.

The launches Wednesday and in April came from a site on the west coast, in the village of Tongchang-ri, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) from the Chinese border city of Dandong, across the Yalu River from North Korea. The site is 45 miles (70 kilometers) from the North's main Yongbyon nuclear complex, and is said to have better roads and facilities than previous sites and to allow a southerly flight path meant to keep the rocket from flying over other countries.

Tensions are high between the rival Koreas. The Korean Peninsula remains technically at war, as the 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, and Washington stations nearly 30,000 troops in South Korea as a buttress against any North Korean aggression. Tens of thousands more are in nearby Japan.

This year is the centennial of the birth of national founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong Un. According to North Korean propaganda, 2012 is meant to put the North on a path toward a "strong, prosperous and great nation."

The launch also follows South Korea's recent cancellation, because of technical problems, of an attempt to launch its first satellite from its own territory. Two previous attempts in 2009 and 2010 failed.

International condemnation is likely to follow quickly.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed two rounds of sanctions on North Korea following its nuclear tests, and a 2009 resolution orders the North not to conduct any launch using ballistic missile technology.

The council condemned a failed North Korean launch in April and ordered seizure of assets of three North Korean state companies linked to financing, exporting and procuring weapons and missile technology.

Under Security Council resolutions, nations are also barred from buying or selling weapons with North Korea, a key source of revenue for its authoritarian government.

North Korea has capable short- and medium-range missiles, but long-range launches in 1998, 2006, 2009 and in April of this year ended in failure. North Korea is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for at least half a dozen bombs, according to U.S. experts. In 2010 it revealed a uranium enrichment program that could provide a second source of material for nuclear weapons.

Six-nation negotiations on dismantling North Korea's nuclear program in exchange for aid fell apart in early 2009.

A February deal for the United States to provide 240,000 metric tons of food aid in exchange for a freeze in nuclear and missile activities collapsed after the North's April launch.

North Korea said it chose a safe flight path so debris won't endanger neighboring countries. But there are still concerns over falling debris, and Japan's defense minister issued an order to missile units to prepare to intercept the rocket if it or its fragments threaten to hit Japan. Government spokesman Osamu Fujimura said Wednesday that no debris hit Japanese territory.

The first stage of the rocket was expected to fall in the Yellow Sea and the second stage in waters east of the Philippines, according to South Korea. Fujimura described two confirmed debris sites in those general areas after the launch.North Korea said it chose a safe flight path so debris won't endanger neighboring countries. But there are still concerns over falling debris, and Japan's defense minister issued an order to missile units to prepare to intercept the rocket if it or its fragments threaten to hit Japan. Government spokesman Osamu Fujimura said Wednesday that no debris hit Japanese territory.

The first stage of the rocket was expected to fall in the Yellow Sea and the second stage in waters east of the Philippines, according to South Korea. Fujimura described two confirmed debris sites in those general areas after the launch.

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California PUC Finalizing Free Cell Phone Service for the Poor

As noted by KGO, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) intends to approve a free lifeline cell phone plan that benefits California‘s poor and homeless residents. Funding for initial setup will come from the federal government.

What are the initial details of the plan?

Qualifying Californians pay an initial $ 20 fee to sign up for a monthly cell coverage plan. It offers 250 free minutes as well as 250 free text messages. From then on, the minutes and message count refill every month as long as the participant qualifies for the program. Assured Wireless — the name of the plan devised by Virgin Mobile, KERN Radio notes — has proposed this coverage to the CPUC.

Unlike the landline lifeline service, which only reduces a phone bill, this cell phone service is actually free of charge for participants. The company notes that plan participants can pay extra for international calling and for the purchase of additional minutes. The phone is free and network service is provided by Sprint. It is not known at this time if paying cell phone service customers will be charged a surcharge or fee to fund the program.

Who benefits from the free cell phone service?

The Coalition on Homelessness notes that those living on the streets will see an immediate benefit. “It’s so huge if you’re living outside you can dial 9-1-1 in the middle of the night; if you need to get in touch with your loved ones, you have a phone, if you’re trying to get in touch with a potential employer,” the Coalition on Homelessness’ Jennifer Friedenbach explained. Low-income wage earners, too, benefit since they no longer have to take money from other budget line items to afford a cell phone.

What is the wage income maximum for a qualifying program participant?

Participants cannot earn more than about $ 15,000 per year to qualify for the free cell phone program.

Is this type of program new?

This is not a new program. There are already 36 states that offer cell phone lifeline programs. The California PUC has thus far been unwilling to approve the program for the State of California.

Why does California need free cell phone service in the first place?

Although the State of California does participate in the federal lifeline landline service via local phone service providers, the number of landlines in service has decreased by 43 percent since 2000. On the flipside, the number of cell phones in use has increased by 123 percent.

What do critics say?

As noted by KERN, there is a question of taxpayer and cell phone customer cost. In other states, Sprint contributes to the program. It then has the option of charging its paying customers a fee that funds the program.

What do proponents say?

As noted by 4-Traders, Assurance Wireless has crunched the numbers for the entire nation and purports, “If all 28.5 million adults eligible for Lifeline Assistance were to take advantage of the program and earn at the same rate and level as [the study] sample, it would result in $ 3.7 billion in fresh income for the poor and near poor.”

What happens next?

As noted by the San Francisco Chronicle, the CPUC has already approved the Golden State’s participation in the program. It now needs to work out the details of Assurance Wireless’ promotional programs to advertise the free cell phone service. Program finalization is tentatively set for two weeks from now.

Sylvia Cochran is a Los Angeles area resident with a firm finger on the pulse of California politics. Talk radio junkie, community volunteer and politically independent, she scrutinizes the good and the bad from both sides of the political aisle.

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LA prosecutors seek to violate Lohan's probation

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles prosecutors on Tuesday asked a judge to revoke Lindsay Lohan's probation and schedule a hearing that could lead to the actress' return to jail.

The filing came one day before Lohan is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday on three misdemeanor charges filed last month related to a June car crash.

Lohan will not need to be present for Wednesday's arraignment on charges she lied to Santa Monica police, was driving recklessly and obstructed an officer from performing duties related to the crash investigation. She remains on probation for a 2011 necklace theft case and could be sentenced to 245 days in jail if a judge determines her conduct was a probation violation.

Her attorney Shawn Holley did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

City attorney's spokesman Frank Mateljan said any probation violation proceedings are likely to be heard after the Santa Monica case. Prosecutors allege Lohan lied about being a passenger in her Porsche when it crashed on Pacific Coast Highway on the way to a film shoot.

The "Liz and Dick" star was released from supervised probation in March after completing several months of court appearances and morgue cleanup duty.

Lohan has yet to be booked on the new charges and a judge on Wednesday will likely set bail and the terms of her release.

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DA investigating Texas' troubled $3B cancer agency

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Turmoil surrounding an unprecedented $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas worsened Tuesday when its executive director offered his resignation and the state's chief public corruption prosecutor announced an investigation into the beleaguered agency.

No specific criminal allegations are driving the latest probe into the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, said Gregg Cox, director of the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit. But his influential office opened a case only weeks after the embattled agency disclosed that an $11 million grant to a private company bypassed review.

That award is the latest trouble in a tumultuous year for CPRIT, which controls the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars. Amid the mounting problems, the agency announced Tuesday that Executive Director Bill Gimson had submitted his letter of resignation.

"Unfortunately, I have also been placed in a situation where I feel I can no longer be effective," Gimson wrote in a letter dated Monday.

Gimson said the troubles have resulted in "wasted efforts expended in low value activities" at the agency, instead of a focused fight against cancer. Gimson offered to stay on until January, and the agency's board must still approve his request to step down.

His departure would complete a remarkable house-cleaning at CPRIT in a span of just eight months. It began in May, when Dr. Alfred Gilman resigned as chief science officer in protest over a different grant that the Nobel laureate wanted approved by a panel of scientists. He warned it would be "the bomb that destroys CPRIT."

Gilman was followed by Chief Commercialization Officer Jerry Cobbs, whose resignation in November came after an internal audit showed Cobbs included an $11 million proposal in a funding slate without a required outside review of the project's merits. The lucrative grant was given to Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics, a biomedical startup.

Gimson chalked up Peloton's award to an honest mistake and has said that, to his knowledge, no one associated with CPRIT stood to benefit financially from the company receiving the taxpayer funds. That hasn't satisfied some members of the agency's governing board, who called last week for more assurances that no one personally profited.

Cox said he has been following the agency's problems and his office received a number of concerned phone calls. His department in Austin is charged with prosecuting crimes related to government officials; his most famous cases include winning a conviction against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in 2010 on money laundering charges.

"We have to gather the facts and figure what, if any, crime occurred so that (the investigation) can be focused more," Cox said.

Gimson's resignation letter was dated the same day the Texas attorney general's office also announced its investigation of the agency. Cox said his department would work cooperatively with state investigators, but he made clear the probes would be separate.

Peloton's award marks the second time this year that a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant authorized by CPRIT instigated backlash and raised questions about oversight. The first involved the $20 million grant to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston that Gilman described as a thin proposal that should have first been scrutinized by an outside panel of scientific peer-reviewers, even though none was required under the agency's rules.

Dozens of the nation's top scientists agreed. They resigned en masse from the agency's peer-review panels along with Gilman. Some accused the agency of "hucksterism" and charting a politically-driven path that was putting commercial product-development above science.

The latest shake-up at CPRIT caught Gilman's successor off-guard. Dr. Margaret Kripke, who was introduced to reporters Tuesday, acknowledged that she wasn't even sure who she would be answering to now that Gimson was stepping down. She said that although she wasn't with the agency when her predecessor announced his resignation, she was aware of the concerns and allegations.

"I don't think people would resign frivolously, so there must be some substance to those concerns," Kripke said.

Kripke also acknowledged the challenge of restocking the peer-review panels after the agency's credibility was so publicly smeared by some of the country's top scientists. She said she took the job because she felt the agency's mission and potential was too important to lose.

Only the National Institutes of Health doles out more cancer research dollars than CPRIT, which has awarded more than $700 million so far.

Gov. Rick Perry told reporters in Houston on Tuesday that he wasn't previously aware of the resignation but said Gimson's decision to step down was his own.

Joining the mounting criticism of CPRIT is the woman credited with brainstorming the idea for the agency in the first place. Cathy Bonner, who served under former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, teamed with cancer survivor Lance Armstrong in selling Texas voters in 2007 on a constitutional amendment to create an unprecedented state-run effort to finance a war on disease.

Now Bonner says politics have sullied an agency that she said was built to fund research, not subsidize private companies.

"There appears to be a cover-up going on," Bonner said.

Peloton has declined comment about its award and has referred questions to CPRIT. The agency has said the company wasn't aware that its application was never scrutinized by an outside panel, as required under agency rules.

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Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

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Gunman, 2 others dead in Oregon mall shooting

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Police say the man who opened fire in a suburban Portland shopping mall apparently killed himself after fatally shooting two people and wounding a third.

Clackamas County sheriff's Lt. James Rhodes says law enforcement who flooded the Clackamas Town Center in response to the afternoon shooting didn't fire any shots.

Witnesses described a scene of chaos and disbelief as a gunman wearing some sort of camouflage outfit and a white mask shot an initial burst of fire and then more rounds near the mall's food court.

Many shoppers fled and others hid in the backrooms of stores.

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Australian DJs apologize for royal hoax call

SYDNEY (AP) — They say they expected a hang-up and a few laughs. Instead, the Australian DJs behind a hoax phone call to the London hospital where the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was being treated were deeply apologetic Monday as they described how their joke ended up going too far.

The phone call — in which they impersonated Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles — went through, and their station broadcast and even trumpeted the confidential information received. Whatever pride there had been over the hoax was obliterated by worldwide public outrage after Friday's death of Jacintha Saldanha, the first nurse they talked to.

"There's not a minute that goes by that we don't think about her family and what they must be going through," 2DayFM radio host Mel Greig told Australia's "A Current Affair," her voice shaking. "And the thought that we may have played a part in that is gut-wrenching."

Police have not disclosed the cause of Saldanha's death, but many have assumed it was related to the stress from the call. An autopsy is being held Tuesday.

Prime Minister David Cameron said at a luncheon Monday that "the suicide of this nurse, who worked incredibly hard and obviously was incredibly dedicated ... is an absolute tragedy."

His office later said Cameron's comment was not an official acknowledgment that the death was a suicide.

Greig and co-host Michael Christian spoke publicly about the prank for the first time in the televised interview. Another interview on rival show "Today Tonight" also aired Monday.

The hoax has sparked broad outrage, with the hosts receiving death threats and demands they be fired.

The radio station's owner said Greig and Christian were receiving psychological counseling to deal with the tragedy. A British lawmaker said he wished that much was being done for Saldanha's grieving family.

"They are devastated by what has happened," said Labour legislator Keith Vaz, who has visited Saldanha's husband and two children at their home in Bristol, southwest England.

"They want the facts to be established so that they can effectively grieve," Vaz said. "What is needed, clearly, is an inquiry by the hospital into how this tragic case happened."

Both DJs apologized for the hoax and cried when asked about the moment they learned that the Saldanha was dead. But neither described having reservations before the hoax tape was broadcast; they said higher-ups at the station had made the decision to air it.

"We didn't have that discussion," Greig said.

Southern Cross Austereo, the parent company of 2DayFM, released a statement Monday saying that Greig and Christian's show had been terminated and there would be a company-wide suspension of prank calls. The DJs themselves remain suspended.

Saldanha, 46, had transferred their call last week to a fellow nurse caring for the duchess, who was being treated for acute morning sickness at King Edward VII Hospital in London. That nurse said the former Kate Middleton "hasn't had any retching with me and she's been sleeping on and off."

Three days later, Saldanha was found dead at the hospital's nurses' accommodation.

The DJs said when the idea for the call came up in a team meeting, no one expected that they would actually be put through to the duchess' ward.

"We just assumed we'd get cut off at every single point and that'd be it," Christian said.

"The joke 100 percent was on us," he said. "The idea was never, 'Let's call up and get through to Kate,' or 'Let's speak to a nurse.' The joke was our accents are horrible, they don't sound anything like who they're intended to be."

Southern Cross Austereo CEO Rhys Holleran has called Saldanha's death a tragedy but defended the prank as a standard part of radio culture. He has also insisted the station had not broken any laws. He told Fairfax Radio on Monday that his station had tried at least five times to contact the London hospital to discuss the prank before it aired, but never succeeded.

When asked why the company made the attempts, Holleran replied "because we did want to speak with them about it." When pressed as to whether this meant the station had reservations about the pre-recorded prank, Holleran said only, "I think that that's a process that we follow and we have checks and balances on all those things."

The King Edward VII Hospital denied that its management had been contacted by the radio station.

"Following the hoax call, the radio station did not speak to anyone in the hospital's senior management or anyone at the company that handles our media inquiries," the hospital said in a statement.

It also announced a memorial fund to help support the nurse's family, with the hospital making the first donation.

Saldanha's children and husband, Ben Barboza, on Monday visited the hospital, which said it was offering assistance to the family.

Barboza expressed his sadness on his Facebook page with a short note "Obituary Jacintha."

"I am devastated with the tragic loss of my beloved wife Jacintha in tragic circumstances," he wrote. He said she will be laid to rest in Shirva, India.

Meanwhile, there were indications that the Duchess of Cambridge still struggled with acute morning sickness over the weekend when her husband, Prince William, cancelled a Sunday night engagement.

Palace officials said no final decision had been made on whether Kate would attend Wednesday's British premiere of "The Hobbit," where she and William are to be the guests of honor.

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Associated Press writers Jill Lawless, Gregory Katz and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.

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'Skyfall' launches back to top spot with $10.8M

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The James Bond blockbuster "Skyfall" has risen back to the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office, taking in $10.8 million.

That brought its domestic total to $261.4 million and its worldwide haul to a franchise record of $918 million.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "Skyfall," Sony, $10,780,201, 3,401 locations, $3,170 average, $261,400,281, five weeks.

2. "Rise of the Guardians," Paramount, $10,400,618, 3,639 locations, $2,858 average, $61,774,192, three weeks.

3. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2," Summit, $9,156,265, 3,646 locations, $2,511 average, $268,691,029, four weeks.

4. "Lincoln," $8,916,813, 2,014 locations, $4,427 average, $97,137,447, five weeks.

5. "Life of Pi," Fox, $8,330,764, 2,946 locations, $2,828 average, $60,948,293, three weeks.

6. "Playing For Keeps," FilmDistrict, $5,750,288, 2,837 locations, $2,027 average, $5,750,288, one week.

7. "Wreck-It Ralph," Disney, $4,859,368, 2,746 locations, $1,770 average, $164,402,934, six weeks.

8. "Red Dawn," FilmDistrict, $4,236,105, 2,754 locations, $1,538 average, $37,240,920, three weeks.

9. "Flight," Paramount, $3,130,305, 2,431 locations, $1,288 average, $86,202,541, six weeks.

10. "Killing Them Softly," Weinstein Co., $2,806,901, 2,424 locations, $1,158 average, $11,830,638, two weeks.

11. "Silver Linings Playbook," Weinstein Co., $2,171,665, 371 locations, $5,854 average, $13,964,405, four weeks.

12. "Anna Karenina," Focus, $1,544,859, 422 locations, $3,661 average, $6,603,042, four weeks.

13. "The Collection," LD Entertainment, $1,487,655, 1,403 locations, $1,060 average, $5,455,328, two weeks.

14. "Argo," Warner Bros., $1,482,346, 944 locations, $1,570 average, $103,160,015, nine weeks.

15. "End of Watch," Open Road Films, $751,623, 1,259 locations, $597 average, $39,989,766, 12 weeks.

16. "Hitchcock," Fox Searchlight, $712,544, 181 locations, $3,937 average, $1,661,670, three weeks.

17. "Talaash," Reliance Big Pictures, $449,195, 161 locations, $2,790 average, $2,397,909, two weeks.

18. "Taken 2," Fox, $387,227, 430 locations, $901 average, $137,700,304, 10 weeks.

19. "Pitch Perfect," Universal, $305,765, 387 locations, $790 average, $63,517,408, 11 weeks.

20. "The Sessions," Fox, $218,973, 197 locations, $1,112 average, $4,948,342, eight weeks.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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