In related sartorial news, Jay-Z has teamed up with Nike to design a range of blacked-out Air Force 1’s commemorating the World Basketball Festival. The only way to get your hands on a pair is to bid in eBay’s charity auction, and all proceeds will benefit the Shawn Carter Scholarship Foundation. You have until August 22.

Photos: Roger Kisby / FilmMagic / Getty Images (Jay-Z); Frank Micelotta / Getty Images (Kurt Cobain); Getty Images (Bing Crosby)

Photo: Robert Mitra

A year after the brand was sold for more than 10 million euros ($13.05 million) to two directors from advertising agency Young & Rubicam, Jacques Bungert and Frederic Torloting, Courreges is now also aiming to expand its perfume business.

The simple shapes and minimalist black and white palette of the couturier Andre Courreges — a protege of Balenciaga — had their heydey in the 1960s and 70s, rivaling Chanel and Dior, before being sold to Japanese investors in the 1980s.

A decade later Courreges and his wife Coqueline bought back the brand but it largely disappeared from sight before the purchase by Bungert and Torloting in January 2011.

“We’re hoping that the brand returns, in five to 10 years, to its former stature as a global brand with its dimension of innovation that earlier made its success,” Bungert told Reuters.

“When the feeling of a brand is respected, it can be reborn without losing its integrity,” he added.

Currently, Courreges clothes and accessories are sold at its Paris boutique in the posh Eighth Arrondissement, where sales have risen 40 percent in a year, Bungert said. Total revenue for the brand is now about 20 million, the executives said.

Internet sales begin February 1, and women will be able to shop online for nearly all the clothes and accessories currently sold in the boutique.

Torloting said Courreges’ design lends itself well to online sales, as the brand does not use the kind of delicate fabrics that could get damaged in transit.

As for perfume, Courreges’ “Empreinte” and “Eau de Courreges,” currently sold only in the boutique, will now be distributed more widely, and a publicity campaign, the first since 1996, is planned.

As Paris Fashion Week launched Monday with its bi-annual Haute Couture shows, Torloting said he has no intention of parading twice-yearly collections on the catwalk at the industry’s fashion weeks.

Founder Andre Courreges refused to use celebrities to promote his swinging sixties styles, claiming designs such as his 1964 “Space Age” collection were created for the “ordinary woman.”

“The idea of creating collections that push each other out is not very modern in our view,” Torloting told Reuters.

“We don’t want to manufacture our own obsolescence,” he said.

(Writing by Alexandria Sage, editing by Paul Casciato)

Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin last week criticized the Dalai Lama for not only failing to denounce the self-immolations but for playing them up and even asking people to “follow the example.

The state news agency Xinhua said, citing officials from Aba’s religious affairs bureau, said exiles were being the self-immolation attempts.

“Some organizations with political motives have been spreading rumors and it’s not the first time that (they have used) this practice of misleading the public,” the office of the ministry’s spokesman said in a statement.

The Foreign Ministry said it had not heard of the shootings by the police.

“INSTIGATED”

Xinhua report quoted bureau head Song Tendargye as saying that the Tibetan community in Aba was “disgusted” that a former “living Buddha” of the Kirti monastery in Aba had led prayer services for those who had attempted self-immolation.

Free Tibet Director Stephanie Brigden said in a statement late on Monday her group had “grave concerns that greater force may be deployed if protests spread.”

China has ruled Tibet with an iron fist since Communist troops marched in 1950.

But it rejects the criticism of rights groups and exiled Tibetans, saying its rule has bought much needed development to a poor and backward region.

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee, Additional reporting by Huang Yan and Chris Buckley, Editing by Robert Birsel)

“(They) showed signs of having been instigated by a clique jockeying for power in the overseas Tibetan community under the Dalai Lama,” the news agency said.

Rights groups say the unrest could lead to a crackdown in Aba, which erupted in violence in March 2008 when Buddhist monks and other Tibetans loyal to the exiled Dalai Lama, their exiled religious leader, confronted police and troops.

On Monday, a 20-year-old nun, Tenzin Wangmo, set fire to herself outside a nunnery in the same region, the ninth self-immolation this year in Tibetan parts of China, Free Tibet said.

He did not mention the Dalai Lama on Tuesday but said: “We believe that promoting and encouraging harm to life is immoral.”

The self-immolation and the protests would appear to signal that anger is growing in Aba prefecture, a mainly ethnic Tibetan part of the southwestern province of Sichuan that has been the center of defiance of Chinese control.

“We hope everyone treats such information with caution.”

Her death comes seven months after a Tibetan Buddhist monk, Phuntsog, 21, from the restive Kirti monastery, burned himself to death. As a result, security forces detained about 300 monks for a month.

The condition and whereabouts of the two protesters who were shot and wounded, Dawa and Druklo, were not known, the London-based Free Tibet group said.

The nun had called for religious freedom in Tibet and for the return of the Dalai Lama as she set herself alight, the Free Tibet group said.

BEIJING (Reuters) A Tibetan nun in China burned herself to death on Monday a day after police shot and wounded two Tibetan demonstrators, a group advocating Tibetan self-determination said, the latest protests against Chinese rule of the Himalayan region.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama denies the accusation and says he wants autonomy and not independence for Tibet.

The Palm Springs International Film Festival has already announced plans to honor “The Artist” director Michel Hazanavicius with its Sonny Bono Visionary Award.

“In an age of sight and sound spectacle, there is great risk in a silent film,” said Durling in the press release announcing the awards to Dujardin and Bejo. “Jean and Bérénice’s acting is an amazing pas des deux both physically and emotionally – recalling classic Hollywood pairings like Hepburn and Tracy, and of course indelibly Ginger and Fred.”

The Santa Barbara announcement, which was made by festival executive director Roger Durling, makes “The Artist” a rare film that will be feted at both of Southern California’s January film festivals, which often compete to bestow awards on Oscar contenders.

The awards will be presented at the Arlington Theater on Saturday, February 4, during the 11-day run of the 27th Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The festival begins on January 26.

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, the stars of the silent film “The Artist,” will receive the Cinema Vanguard Award from the 2012 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, SBIFF announced on Tuesday evening.

Before breaking into American consciousness with “The Artist,” Dujardin appeared in “The Brice Man” and in Hazanavicius’ spy spoofs “OSS 11: Cairo, Nest of Spies” and “OSS 117: Lost in Rio.” Bejo appeared in the first of those movies, as well as in “A Knight’s Tale.”

The award, which in the past has gone to the likes of Nicole Kidman, Christoph Waltz, Stanley Tucci and Vera Farmiga, is designed to recognize actors who are “taking artistic risks and making a significant and unique contribution to film.”

News of the hacking of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission surfaced earlier this month when an amateur “hacktivist” group purporting to operate in India published what it said was a memo from an Indian Military Intelligence unit to which extracts from commission e-mails were attached.

But U.S. officials who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said the roundabout way the commission’s emails were obtained strongly suggests the intrusion originated in China, possibly by amateurs, and not from India’s spy service.

A large cache of raw email data from the security breach, reviewed by Reuters, indicates that the principal target of the intruders was not the commission, but instead a Washington-based non-governmental pro-trade group called the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC).

The trade council is headed by William Reinsch, a former top U.S. Commerce Department official who until recently served as the U.S.-China Commission’s chairman.

A large proportion of the raw email traffic downloaded by the hackers consists of messages to and from Reinsch at his NFTC email address. Many of the emails were spam, but some related to the work of the commission, which was set up by Congress to take a critical look at a wide range of U.S. dealings with China.

Reinsch told Reuters that the NFTC first became aware in November that large quantities of its message traffic had been hacked. He said that law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, had been quickly notified. The FBI has declined comment.

Reinsch said he could think of “no particular reason” why the Indian government or Indian hackers would be interested in him. By contrast, he and several other U.S. officials said that Chinese hackers, whether amateur or directly affiliated with Chinese government, would have great interest in the U.S.-China Commission’s activities, both public and private.

SOFT TARGET

Sources familiar with the hacking and the related investigation said they draw two inferences from the fact that the principal target of the hack appears to have been Reinsch’s email account at NFTC.

First of all, the sources said they found it difficult to believe anyone connected with India would have taken the time or effort to track down Reinsch or his NFTC account, whereas his chairmanship of the U.S.-China Commission made him a potential major target for Chinese hackers.

Secondly, said the sources, the fact that Reinsch’s NFTC emails were the principal target suggests that whoever hacked them was hunting for a soft target with poor cyber-security. This suggests the hackers were amateurs rather than a foreign spy service.

Pinning down the origin and perpetrator of a particular cyber-intrusion can be fiendishly difficult, if not impossible, as hackers frequently take steps to mask their identity or appear that they are from a third country.

One official familiar with the matter said that it was possible that all the hacked email traffic, including messages related to the U.S.-China Commission, originated with the NFTC.

Under this scenario, the reason commission traffic was included in the hacked material was that it consisted of copies of commission messages which were sent to Reinsch at his NFTC email address. But other officials said it was also still possible some emails were stolen directly from the commission or private email accounts of other commissioners.

A person familiar with details of the incident and related investigation said the hacked emails spanned a six-month period from late March to late October last year. The source said that about 85 percent of the traffic consisted of emails incoming to the NFTC, with the other 15 percent being outgoing messages from NFTC’s server.

The source said that there were significant gaps in the hacked traffic, covering both day-long and week-long periods, bolstering the notion the hacking was done by amateurs.

Investigators are still trying to determine if the hacker successfully targeted NFTC’s local network or a network which fed messages to a mobile device used by Reinsch.

INDIAN MEMO

The purported Indian intelligence memo implied that the commission emails had somehow been hacked using know-how supplied to the Indian government by mobile phone companies who, as payback, were afforded greater access to the Indian market.

One of the mobile phone manufactures named in the purported memo, Apple, denied giving the Indian government backdoor access to its products. A second, Research in Motion, said the company does not typically comment on rumor or speculation, and a third manufacturer, Nokia, declined to comment.

Indian government officials and agencies declined repeated requests for comment on the alleged government document, although some former Indian officials labeled the memo a fabrication.

Two U.S. officials familiar with the hacking incident said they were puzzled why India would go to the trouble of hacking emails related to the U.S.-China Commission, since its work had little if anything to do with India, and Indian officials and diplomats had never showed much interest in its activities.

By contrast, the commission has been a regular target for what officials describe as persistent attempted hacking intrusions, many through the technique of “phishing,” which involves sending bogus but convincing emails which purport to come from insiders but contain malicious code. Investigators strongly suspect these intrusions were launched by people from, or operating on behalf of, China.

A large proportion of the hacked traffic examined by Reuters appeared to be what could be categorized as spam, including summaries of news articles and political fundraising pitches.

Some hacked traffic from the U.S.-China Commission had potentially sensitive implications, however, including messages in which commission personnel discuss matters under deliberation by the organization. These issues included the commission’s attitude toward alleged Chinese theft of intellectual property and congressional deliberations about alleged Chinese currency manipulation.

U.S. officials said there was no indication hackers managed to gain access to electronic files related to the commission’s most sensitive project – a classified version of its annual public report. Electronic materials related to this project are kept on classified servers, isolated from the Internet, which are operated by agencies other than the commission itself, one official said.

(Editing by Eric Beech)

“Welcome to Occupy Van Halen, ladies and gentleman!” frontman David Lee Roth yelled just before the band launched into “You Really Got Me,” the first in an approximately hour-long, high energy set.

The show was at the famed Café Wha? in New York’s West Village a club owned by Manny Roth, the uncle of Roth.

David Lee Roth noted some of the greats that played in the club including Bob Dylan and told the crowd, “I’m more nervous about this gig than I would ever be in the Garden,” referring to Madison Square Garden.

The band will soon be playing the Garden and other venues like it, as they kick off a nationwide tour next month. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famers start the tour in Louisville,Wholesale Juicy Couture jackets, Ky., on Feb. 16, and will tour through June, hitting cities like Boston, Atlanta and Chicago. They’ll also be promoting a new album: The group announced Wednesday that they’ll release “A Different Kind of Truth” on Feb. 7, the group’s first album with Roth since their celebrated album “1984,” released that same year.

Van Halen has gone through plenty of changes since then. Roth left the band for a solo career and was replaced with Sammy Hagar in a messy breakup; he later returned to the band as Hagar exited in a split that had just as much discord. There would be more turmoil as bassist Michael Anthony was replaced a few years ago with Wolfgang Van Halen, the son of guitar great Eddie Van Halen.

But it was all smiles on Wednesday, as father and son, along with Eddie’s brother and drummer Alex were all on hand as the reconstituted group played a warm-up of sorts before their nationwide tour, their first together in almost four years.

“This has been a really long time coming,” Roth told the audience.

The band hardly seemed rusty. Though his mic was weak, Roth’s voice wasn’t, as his signature screech was in top form, as was Eddie Van Halen’s scorching guitar play on songs like “Hot for Teacher” and “Dance the Night Away.”

Roth joked about the small size of the club: “The last time I stood on a stage this low, I had to get the car home by midnight.”

Later, he talked about how he used to wander through the club as a kid, dreaming of a chance to play on its stage.

“It took us 50 years to get this gig. It was easier to get in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame than to get this gig,” he said.

Roth’s uncle Manny, now 92, was in the audience, sitting next to John McEnroe, one of several luminaries in the crowd.

“It’s come full circle,” said a beaming David Lee Roth amid the audience’s cheers.

___

http://www.van-halen.com

___

Nekesa Mumbi Moody is the AP’s music editor. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi

The changes won’t come without risk, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said. But he called it acceptable and, because of budget restraints, inevitable.

In a presentation at the Pentagon, Obama said the U.S. is “turning a page” after having killed Osama bin Laden,Inflatable Bouncers, withdrawn troops from Iraq and begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. He outlined a vision for the future that some Republican lawmakers quickly dubbed wrong-headed.

“Our military will be leaner, but the world must know the United States is going to maintain our military superiority,” Obama said with Panetta and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey, at his side.

In a presidential election year the strategy gives Obama a rhetorical tool to defend his Pentagon budget-cutting choices. Republican contenders for the White House already have attacked him on national security issues including missile defense, Iran and planned reductions in ground forces.

Obama unveiled the results of an eight-month defense strategy review that is intended to guide decisions on cutting hundreds of billions from planned Pentagon spending over the coming decade. The eight-page document contained no details about how broad concepts for reshaping the military such as focusing more on Asia and less on Europe will translate into troop or weapons cuts.

Those details will be included in the 2013 defense budget to be submitted to Congress next month.

In about every major war or defense speech Obama hits themes intended to resonate with American voters mainly, that the United States is turning a page from two wars, and that any nation-building will focus on improving the United States, not strategic allies abroad.

The economy is more likely to determine Obama’s re-election fate than national security. To keep his promises to shrink the deficit and to prove he is serious about fiscal management to voters wary of enormous government spending, Obama must show the oft-protected Pentagon is not exempt.

The political danger, though, is that his opponents will use any slashing of spending to paint the president as weak on security.

Both Panetta and Dempsey said they anticipate heavy criticism of their new strategy, which was begun last spring by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates after Obama called for defense spending cuts. The Pentagon now faces at least $487 billion in cuts in planned defense spending over 10 years.

The criticism from Republicans came quickly.

Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, issued a statement saying, “This is a lead-from-behind strategy for a left-behind America.” He called it a “retreat from the world in the guise of a new strategy.”

Panetta said that smaller military budgets will mean some trade-offs and that the U.S. will take on “some level of additional but acceptable risk.” But in a changing world the Pentagon would have been forced to make a strategy shift anyway, he said. The money crisis merely forced the government’s hand.

Obama wants the new strategy to represent a pivotal point in his stewardship of defense policy, which has been burdened by two expensive wars begun under President George W. Bush. The drag those conflicts placed on military resources has deferred other priorities.

Obama said his administration would not repeat the mistakes made after World War II and Vietnam when defense reductions left the military ill-prepared.

“As commander in chief, I will not let that happen again,” he said. “Not on my watch.”

Obama’s involvement in the defense review and his decision to personally announce it at the Pentagon underscore that he is not just a commander in chief coping with a slimmer military in debt-ridden times. He is also an incumbent president seeking a second term and wanting to show who’s in charge.

Dempsey praised the military strategy and the work of crafting it, calling it inclusive and comprehensive.

“It’s not perfect,” the general said. “There will be people who think it goes too far. Others will say it doesn’t go nearly far enough. That probably makes it about right. It gives us what we need.”

Obama said the military will be reshaped between now and 2020 with an emphasis on countering terrorism, maintaining a nuclear deterrent, protecting the U.S. homeland and “deterring and defeating aggression by any potential adversary.”

Those are not new military missions, and Obama announced no new capabilities or defense initiatives. He described a U.S. force that will retain much of its recent focus, with the exception of fighting a large-scale, prolonged conflict like the recently ended Iraq mission or the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

“U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations,” the strategy document said, referring to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Left unsaid: The military was not sized for those unexpectedly long wars when they began. The Army had to be expanded by tens of thousands of soldiers and the Marine Corps also grew. The military at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was being shaped in somewhat the same form as Obama’s vision for 2020: agile, flexible, reliant on high-tech weaponry and dependent on allies.

The new strategy moves the U.S. further from its longstanding goal of being able to successfully fight two major regional wars at the same time.

It said the U.S. will maintain a robust nuclear arsenal but hinted at reductions.

“It is possible that our deterrence goals can be achieved with a smaller nuclear force, which would reduce the number of nuclear weapons in our inventory as well as their role in U.S. national security strategy,” the strategy said.

The new strategy strongly suggests a reduced U.S. military presence in Europe, notwithstanding a continuing close relationship with NATO, and says Asia will be a bigger priority. It also emphasizes improving U.S. capabilities in the areas of cyberwarfare, missile defense, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen praised the U.S. strategy, calling it consistent with the alliance’s vision for collective defense.

___

Associated Press writers Ben Feller and Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.

• Robert Burns can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/robertburnsAP

Which organizations are affected?

The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan explains the three tax credits. The Public Contribution Credit covered institutions like public broadcasting stations, higher education facilities, colleges, universities, university fundraising groups, donations of publicly displayed artwork, public libraries and museums. The Community Foundation Credit provided credits for local civic organizations. The Homeless Shelter and Food Bank Credit reimbursed contributions made to rescue missions, food kitchens and pantries and organizations whose purpose is to provide accommodation for indigent persons.

How much is the charitable tax credit worth?

Michigan Legislature defines the three credits as 50 percent nonrefundable amounts that can only be used to reduce owed taxes. On each credit, married couples filing jointly can claim up to $200 for $400 in contributions. Individual filers receive up to $100 back. CBS Local said about 250,000 residents took advantage of the credit in 2010. Snyder eliminated the Michigan Business Tax as well. That tax included charitable giving credits. These credits saved taxpayers $40 million in income taxes. Gov. Snyder is hoping to recover some of those lost income tax funds to revitalize Michigan’s struggling economy.

Can donations made last year be claimed?

Donations to nonprofit organizations made before Dec.31 can be claimed on 2011′s income taxes. The Holland Sentinel says mailed donations made close to the end of the year cannot count because the payment might not have processed and a receipt issued in time. Electronic, Automatic Clearing House or credit card donations are easier to claim because they provide an immediate confirmation number for payment, even though the bill may not be paid yet. All receipts for charitable gifts should be saved.

How will this affect local organizations?

The charitable contribution credits have brought in $100 million for nonprofit organizations, says CBS Detroit. Of that amount, the 2011 Community Education/Foundation and Homeless Shelter/Food Bank Credits Report says the MBT contributed a significant portion to public institutions. The majority of IIT funds went to support homeless shelters and community food banks.

Marilisa Kinney Sachteleben writes about people,wholesale Ed hardy shoes, places, events and issues in her home state of “Pure Michigan.”

The San Jose, California-based company kicked off a months-long overhaul last year that has included layoffs and asset sales.

Cisco said in an email on Wednesday in response to blogs that it had decided to no longer sell Cisco umi hardware as a consumer offering. In April Cisco said it would shut down its popular Flip video camera division as part of a larger revamp.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Cisco had yet to remove the product from its home product store, where interested customers were told only that the product was currently not available for shipment.

Just a little more than two months ago, Cisco announced that the umi system would be available in Best Buy’s Magnolia Home Theaters in time for the holiday shopping season.

“While we are ending the sale of umi, the umi service remains unchanged,” Cisco said, adding that existing customers will continue to be able to use the service to make calls to other umi subscribers or to Google video chat accounts.

Some users worried what the decision would mean for them.

“Let’s hope they make them Tandberg compatible. I have 7 units I use in a mental health agency for a variety of purposes,” a user by the name of umi Rumford said on Cisco’s umi chat forum, referring to Norwegian video-conferencing company Tandberg, a business acquired by Cisco in 2010.

“The new year is only four days old, and already another consumer product from Cisco Systems has been put out to pasture: This time, it’s the consumer videoconferencing product umi,” that person also said.

Cisco had launched the $599 umi home videoconference system in October 2010 as a high-quality rival to Skype and other low-cost providers, hoping to expand in the consumer market.

Marthin De Beer,Cheap Ed hardy t-shirts, head of Cisco’s emerging technologies business group, said at the time umi’s quality made it different from others.

“It is different, it’s a new class of product and you will see that the experience is transformational,” he said at the time of the launch.

Cisco declined to give sales figures for the umi system.

Videoconference start-up Vidyo, which unveiled a new technology in November that allowed its service to run using virtual servers, said the Cisco decision confirmed the trend in the industry away from hardware and toward software.

“The only way to introduce new services is through solutions

that work on devices people already own such as smart phones and tablets,” Vidyo Chief Executive Ofer Shapiro said.

Rival Skype pointed to a blog on its site written at the launch of umi and said the blog was still valid.

Skype said at the time that a $599 device could be “subject to obsoletism at the hands of mass-market options.”

(Reporting By Nicola Leske in New York, additional reporting by Tarmo Virki in Helsinki; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

(This story corrects paragraph four, which should read, “As of Wednesday afternoon …”)