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Federal marshals seized disgraced financier Bernard Madoff’s $7 million Manhattan penthouse on Thursday and forced his wife to move out and leave her possessions behind, including a fur coat she had asked to take with her, an official told The Associated Press.

Proceeds from a sale of the property and its contents could be used to help reimburse those who lost billions of dollars investing with Madoff before he confessed to running a Ponzi scheme.

U.S. Marshal Joseph Guccione said the marshals arrived at the property at noon with a court order permitting them to take custody of the apartment and to make anyone living there move out. Guccione said Madoff’s wife Ruth had been advised in advance of the marshals’ plans and was leaving the residence and surrendering all personal property.

“She will be leaving,” he said at midday. “Restitution for the victims is the government’s top priority.”

Typically, the U.S. Marshals Service changes all locks and secures a property when it seizes a location.

By about 1 p.m. EDT, 67-year-old Ruth Madoff had left. It was not immediately clear where she went to live.

Ruth Madoff first argued with marshals who came to the apartment and asked to stay, then asked if she could take a fur coat with her, a federal official informed of Ruth Madoff’s departure told The AP. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss details of her encounter with marshals and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Ruth Madoff walked out of the apartment carrying just a straw bag after she was told she couldn’t take her coat, the official said.

“This cheap effort to smear Ruth Madoff is meritless — with a little over two days to pack up her entire life of 68 years and find a new place to live, Ruth still managed to move out right on time, in an orderly fashion and in total compliance with her court approved agreement,” said her lawyer, Peter Chavkin. “And it was she who forfeited the furs last Friday as the publicly filed stipulation states.”

“These anonymous attacks on her should stop,” Chavkin added.

The 71-year-old Madoff was sentenced Monday to 150 years in prison. He pleaded guilty in March to charges that his investment advisory business was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that wiped out thousands of investors and ruined charities.

Authorities said Madoff had carried out the fraud for at least two decades before confessing to his sons in December that his investment business was a fraud and that he had lost as much as $50 billion.

Last week, Ruth Madoff agreed to give up all of her possessions in return for a promise that federal prosecutors would not pursue $2.5 million not tied to the fraud. The money, though, is not protected from civil legal actions that might be pursued by a court-appointed trustee liquidating Madoff’s assets or by investor lawsuits.

Ruth Madoff broke her silence Monday when she said in a statement that her husband “stunned us all with his confession and is responsible for this terrible situation in which so many now find themselves.”

Before she agreed on a deal with the government to resolve her finances a week ago, Ruth Madoff had indicated through lawyers that she planned to try to keep the penthouse and an additional $62 million in assets as unrelated to the fraud.

Before the fraud was exposed, the Madoffs had homes in Palm Beach, Fla., the south of France and the tip of Long Island along with the midtown Manhattan penthouse. They also traveled by private jet and yacht.

The couple met at their Queens high school and married in 1959. Ruth Madoff worked with her husband when he started his financial business in 1960 and she reportedly still had an office near his when the fraud was exposed.

Madoff has said he operated his fraud without the knowledge of his family.

The couple were photographed together at London’s Heathrow airport yesterday (08.06.09) where they boarded a plane for Los Angeles.

Lindsay has further fuelled reconciliation rumours by posting a cryptic message on her Twitter page.

She wrote: “Leaving London but with my favorite favorite!!!-travel buddy+great news to share!! Maybe…. (sic)”

After reuniting at the airport Lindsay and Samantha reportedly demanded to sit together and walked to the first class lounge holding hands.

The 22-year-old Hollywood star and Samantha, 31, stayed in separate hotels during their UK break and were hardly seen together during the trip, despite Lindsay’s desperate attempts to track the DJ down last Wednesday evening (03.06.09).

Friends of the couple - who have dated on and off for two years - have confirmed their relationship is back on.

One pal said: “They haven’t started fighting yet, but they are back together as far as Lindsay is concerned. Lindsay has been doing so much better and has been giving Samantha her space. She is really dedicated to making it work.”

“Gossip Girl” creators and executive producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage are proceeding with a spinoff to be aired as an episode on May 11.

The new CW project will serve as a prequel to the hot sophomore drama and chronicle the wild teen years of “Gossip Girl’s” Lily van der Woodsen (Kelly Rutherford) in Los Angeles in the 1980s, when she was known by her maiden name, Lily Rhodes.

The spinoff will center on young Lily Rhodes, who, after a falling out with her parents, is forced to move in with her sister, the black sheep of the Rhodes family. Overnight, Lily has to transition from a life of luxury and schooling at a wealthy Montecito boarding school to living deep in the San Fernando Valley she once made fun of and going to public school.

Caught between two worlds, Lily dives into the fast-paced Sunset Strip and the Hollywood lifestyle of the 1980s, journeying over the hill to a world of wealth and excess that used to be her own. Eventually, she meets rocker Rufus Humphrey for a fling that will result in Lily’s secret pregnancy.

Schwartz and Savage said they didn’t want to diminish “Gossip Girl” or upset the show’s chemistry by spinning off a character; they also said they didn’t want to dilute the metropolitan feel of the New York-set original — hence the decision to set the spinoff in 1980s L.A.

“We are inspired by the opportunity to tell overlapping stories and introduce characters that will appear in the past and the present-and hopefully enrich both shows,” said Schwartz. “We love exploring fashion, pop culture, music and a heightened world that’s just a little more fun than the one we actually live in. L.A. in the ’80s totally fits the bill.”

Who says sportswear is only for exercise? It can also be sensual, rock and roll, and even … theatrical.

Qiaodan, the leading fashion house in China, recently showed off its latest sportswear collection.

The show was a joyous fashion adventure, full of individuality and freedom. The new collection’s highlight was a surprising and incongruous combination of colors and designs that are hybrids of ready-to-wear, lingerie, street fashion and active wear. Deliberately mismatching genres, underwear meets outerwear, seduction blends with street wear, and paradoxes confront each other to create a big range of looks and attitudes. Retro cuts of corsets girdles and push-ups are reinterpreted and updated; flounces, bows and frilly details create a dramatic cabaret look in sensual satin, transparent panels and luxurious lace.

A number of designs also showcased future trends combining technology with sensuality, such as feather-light garments with minimum construction, body-hugging garments with streamlined details and “no stitch” finishes. Chinese elements are also used, such as Peking opera faces printed on sports shoes.

“The essential link between the trends is body wear that is comfortable and innovative as well as with high-performance,” said Meng Xianfang, the designing supervisor of the fashion house. According to Meng, for most people, sport is not their profession, but a healthy and trendy lifestyle to follow.

“Thus I am not interested in just making sportswear for competition’s sake. My aim is to arouse people’s interest in sports,” he said, “because only when consumers cannot wait to exercise and show off their new sportswear can my designs be called successful.”

Juan Martin del Potroof Argentina kept alive his chance of qualifying for the Masters Cup semifinals with a straight-set win over France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga here on Tuesday.

The seventh seed wrapped up a vital 7-6(4), 7-6(5) win after both men had lost their opening games in the Gold Group.

Del Potro edged a tight first set and held off a Tsonga fight back in the second before winning the battle of the Masters Cup debutants.

The unbeaten pair of Novak Djokovic and Nikolay Davydenko meet in the other Gold Group match later on Tuesday.

The top two will go through to the semi-finals, along with two from the Red Group of Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Andy Roddick and Gilles Simon.

Tsonga’s hopes of progressing are hanging by a thread after his defeat in what was an open and entertaining encounter.

The Frenchman fired 17 aces throughout the match but also committed 38 unforced errors which cost him dear at crucial moments, and Del Potro, with four aces and 18 unforced errors for the match, played a more consistent game and gained himself the victory in two close sets.

Tsonga was broken in the very first game but continued to go for his shots and he broke back to level at 2-2 with a rasping cross-court forehand.

From then on the first set went with serve and into a tie-break, where Tsonga’s errors proved far more costly.

Del Potro clinched the set with a big serve of his own and started the second set in confident fashion, breaking to lead 2-0.

Tsonga quickly fought back again to level and also kept his hopes alive when he trailed 15-30 at 4-5 with a slam-dunk smash and equally athletic volley that helped him hold.

The Frenchman’s impressive performance was captivating, and the atmosphere reached fever pitch as the entranced crowd burst into applause.

But Del Potro again seized control of the second-set tie-break with a run of four straight points, capped by a rasping forehand winner on the run, and he sealed his victory with an overhead.

Over a hundred buildings in Hong Kong, including some landmark skyscrapers, joined at least 70 other cities across Asia to turn their lights off for an hour on Saturday evening in a major lights-out campaign.

Wim Chang and Kimmie Yip had a lights-out period of half an hour at their wedding ceremony on Saturday night, which the couple said was just as romantic.

“The guests will have no difficulty relating a wedding ceremony in the dark with the romance of the first night,” said Chang, the bridegroom who had studied climate change for his masters degree in the United Kingdom and started recording his own carbon emission since July last year with the aim of reducing it.

Chang, who was born in Taiwan, China, said he felt for the south Pacific islanders after seeing photos of rising water marks on the south Pacific island Tuvalu.

Guests at the wedding could only light a few candles during the lights-out.

Hahn Chu Hon-keung, environmental affairs manager of environmental group Friends of the Earth, said at least 142 buildings on both sides of Hong Kong’s famous Victoria Harbor had their lights out for an hour starting from 8:30 p.m., including landmarks such as the city’s highest skyscraper International Finance Center II.

The Bank of China Tower, HSBC Headquarters, the Legislative Council, the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center and the Time Square on the Hong Kong Island, the Brand Hong Kong dragon logo neon and the Olympic Rings in Tsim Sha Tsui, and many government buildings also joined the campaign by dimming at least the decorative lightings.

Hundreds of people had a lights-out party at Charter Garden on the Island, with some turning off environmental flash lights as they counted down to the lights-out.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government also participated in the campaign by dimming lights at dozens of government buildings and canceling a famous neon lighting show that involved numerous skyscrapers on both sides of the harbor.

Chu said the campaign was the biggest lights out event ever held in Hong Kong, adding that it was a concerted demonstration against climate change and air pollution and calling on the public to join the campaign.

At least 70 other cities across Asia, including the Chinese mainland, China’s Taiwan and Japan as well as South Korea, also joined the campaign, he said.

Hokkaido has decided to show its appreciation to Feng Xiaogang, director of Chinese movie “If You Are the One” (Fei Cheng Wu Rao), which helped the northmost Japanese prefecture attract a huge influx of Chinese tourists, local media reported Thursday.

A certificate of appreciation will be presented to Feng by Yoji Takahara, deputy governor of Hokkaido prefecture, and the mayors of Kushiro and Abashiri, when they visit Beijing and Shanghai in April 20-24.

“If You Are the One”, Feng’s New Year Celebration Film of 2009, relates a love story involving two young Chinese and their romance that was spawned while they were sightseeing in Hokkaido. It became a blockbuster in China and has turned the Japanese island of Hokkaido into a new tourism spot for Chinese travelers.

A recent test showed that bird flu still existed in northern Cao Bang province, the last locality of Vietnam facing the disease, local newspaper the Saigon Liberation reported Tuesday.

Specimens taken on Dec. 29, 2005 from poultry in Doc Lap commune of Quang Uyen district were tested positive to bird flu viruses. Local relevant agencies have culled 290 chickens and ducks in the affected areas.

Since Nov. 2005, bird flu cases have been spotted in 25 communes in Cao Bang, killing and leading to the forced culling of nearly 11,000 fowls, the newspaper report said. Except Doc Lap, all other communes have seen no new outbreaks for at least three weeks.

On Monday, the Department of Animal Health under Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said Ha Giang and Cao Bang in the northern region on Sunday became Vietnam’s last two provinces meeting criteria for declaring their territory free of bird flu (detecting no new outbreak for at least three weeks).

The department has yet to confirm the new outbreak in Cao Bang.

Since Oct. 1, 2005, a total of 21 cities and provinces of Vietnam have been hit by the disease, which has killed and led to the forced killing of roughly 4 million fowls, the department said.

The Vietnamese government has instructed the Agriculture Ministry and the Health Ministry to make greater efforts to lead to no bird flu reoccurrence among poultry and humans in 2006.

Recently, the government instructed the Agriculture Ministry toremove a ban on the import of processed poultry products, which was in place in late October 2005. The government is considering the possibility of abolishing a ban on the import of live fowls and eggs from unaffected countries.

In late October 2005, the Agriculture Ministry decided to cease import of all kinds of poultry, including ornamental birds, and related products between November 2005 and March 2006

Few people had heard of Ai Qingqingprior to October 15, 2006, when she announced online she would trade a paperclip for a house within 100 days.

“I have no money, but I heard about a young Canadian guy who traded a paperclip for a two-storey house. I want to achieve the same kind of miracle in 100 days. Will you help me realize my dream?” her posting read.

People soon began to react. More than 1,000 people said they would like to exchange things with Ai.

As photos and cellphones, old wine and jade bangles were tossed into the ring, Ai started trading and the value of the articles she received started to grow… and grow… and grow.

Another Internet “miracle” was being born in front of people’s astonished eyes. TV stations and newspapers began to enthusiastically follow the website “miracle” story. Millions of netizens, TV viewers and readers tuned in to track the latest developments.

But, as we all know, things are not always what they seem. It turned out that Ai’s spontaneity had been carefully scripted by an invisible partner.

The trading ended on January 23 this year, when Ai signed a contract with a record company to become a singer and broke up with the man who was the brains behind the operation.

Yang Xiuyu, nicknamed Li Er, has revealed he masterminded the whole thing, not just the idea of copying the Canadian miracle butevery step along the trading route.

He wrote the blog and chatted with netizens using the name Ai Qingqing. In real life Ai Qingqing was Wang Xiaoguang, just an actress in the drama produced and directed by Yang.

The 34-year-old discovered the money-making potential of Internet advertising and promotion four years ago when he was working in a Shanghai-based foreign company and surfing on the Internet to kill time like many other white-collared workers.

He said he planned to act as Wang’s manager when Wang became famous with his help.

“I could have earned more than a million yuan (about 130,000 U.S. dollars) from this operation,” Yang boasted.

“More than 30 media covered the bartering. Those companies should really have spent more than 5 million yuan for the coverage we gave them,” Yang said.

Companies and small businesses including a bar, a jewelry company, a wine producer and a publishing company clamored to provide things for Wang to barter.

Yang said several other companies had called to offer their products but were turned down because the things were “not suitable for the drama”.

After splitting from his “actress”, Yang’s profit turned out to be considerably less than he had hoped.

But the operation was nevertheless a lucrative affair, netting him a six-digit profit. “I should have signed a formal contract with her. I’ll do that next time,” Yang said.

He is proud of his creativity in what was his debut on the “Internet promotion stage”.

Before establishing his own studio, Yang worked for another cyber world promoter, Yang Jun, the driving force behind cyber star “Tian Xian Mei Mei” or “Fairy Girl”.

The “Fairy Girl”, from the Qiang ethnic group, allegedly lived in a remote village in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

She was promoted as a pure beauty, who had never known the outside world. In reality, she had been a professional dancer in a local ensemble.

After becoming famous, she was chosen by Sony Ericsson to promote its new mobile phone models.

Being no longer able to get on with his former boss, Yang Xiuyu left and set up his own studio last year.

In an era of grassroots entertainment, he looks for attractive cyberspace projects that everybody can take part in, such as the “paperclip for house event”.

“These events entertain people and give companies an opportunity to promote their products, and often a cyber star can be created as a by-product,” Yang said.

According to official statistics, China had 137 million Internet users by the end of 2006 and the country’s online population will hit 200 million by 2010.

The cyber world has become a crucial space for enterprises to promote their products and also for gold diggers, such as Ai Qingqing or the “Fairy Girl”.

If the Internet events become big enough, they inevitably attract coverage from traditional media.

Jin Lingyun, a senior editor with the Beijing Times, which covered the “paperclip for house event” along with many other media, including China Central Television (CCTV) and Hong Kong-based Phoenix Satellite Television, said Internet surfing had become an integral part of journalism.

“But when we choose news from the Internet, our rules state that the event must really have happened and the identities of the main figures should be clear,” Jin said.

He initially doubted the authenticity of the “paperclip for house event”, but many other media had already started to run stories about it.

“If we hadn’t reported it while our competitors were doing so, we would have lost readers,” Jin said.

In the end, the media competed with each other to establish Ai’s fame and later discovered they had been hoodwinked.

“What happened is going to harm our newspaper’s reputation even if, in the end, we did help readers realize that the whole thing was a con,” Jin said.

Jin said when he and his colleagues reviewed the episode, they realized they failed to follow their own rules.

“We did not clarify the identities of the people who exchanged things with the girl,” Jin said.

He said that time pressures made it difficult for his news team to check people one by one.

Chen Changfeng, a professor with the Peking University School of Journalism and Communication, said the episode revealed fierce market competition.

“The media need advertising revenue and to attract advertisers they must have sufficient readers which means they are always on the lookout for eye-catching news. Cyber promoters capitalize on this,” she said.

She said earlier cyber stars, such as “Sister Lotus”, the lip synching boys and “Little Fatty”, some of whom achieved world fame, were all boosted by different teams of cyber promoters.

“Behind the cyber stars are clever hands able to manipulate the market, lure common people with dreams of fame, tempt advertisers into promoting their clients and seduce the media into gullibility,” Chen said.

She said the media should establish general rules of self-discipline and stick to professional journalism.

Jin Lingyun believes all the traditional media will be much more careful in the future in dealing with Internet news.

But Yang Xiuyu was unrepentant. He said he would continue to target the Internet market. “The traditional media will get trapped again,” he grinned.

“You know, anyone can become a promoter and create a story on the Internet,” he said.

Japanese zookeepers have wondered for a while why two polar bears that they had hoped would mate have shown little interest in each other.

The answer came this month when the zoo discovered both the bears were female, the zoo said Wednesday.

Tsuyoshi, a 4-year-old polar bear, and 11-year-old Kurumi have been living in the same enclosure at the Kushiro Municipal Zoo in Hokkaido in northern Japan since June.

The zoo said it thought Tsuyoshi was male because of the bear’s appearance. It did not explain further. Male polar bears are generally significantly larger than females.

“Observing his behaviors, we got suspicious as to whether Tsuyoshi was really a male,” the zoo said in a statement Wednesday.

Experts say when polar bears are young, it is difficult to determine their sex because their long hair covers their reproductive organs. Tsuyoshi was determined to be male at 3 months old.

But earlier this month, the zoo put Tsuyoshi under an anesthetic and learned he was a she.

“I have mixed feelings considering the need for breeding,” said Yoshio Yamaguchi, head of the zoo.

Tsuyoshi is very popular with visitors, and Kyodo News agency said the bear would keep her name, even though Tsuyoshi is a common Japanese name for boys.