NEW YORK (Reuters) – Levon Helm, the drummer for The Band whose twangy vocals brought a poignancy and earthiness to songs like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “Up on Cripple Creek,” died on Thursday at the age of 71 from cancer, his manager said.

The three-time Grammy Award winner had been fighting throat cancer since 1998.

“Levon Helm passed peacefully this afternoon,” Helm’s manager Barbara O’Brien said in a statement.

“He was surrounded by family, friends and band mates and will be remembered by all he touched as a brilliant musician and a beautiful soul.”

Tributes immediately began pouring in from fans, popping up on Twitter at a fast rate.

Although the cancer silenced Helm’s crystal-clear tenor for a while, he strengthened his voice sufficiently to resume singing in 2004. He hosted a regular series of what he called “Midnight Ramble” concerts that often featured big-name stars at his home-studio in Woodstock, New York.

In addition to singing, Helm played drums, mandolin and other string instruments in The Band, one of the most revered and influential rock groups to emerge from the 1960s. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, it played a brand of rustic rock that drew on country, blues and rhythm and blues and sounded quintessentially American – even though Helm was the only member not from Canada.

NEW YORK, April 5 (Reuters) – Wyoming-based author C.J. Box has just released “Force of Nature,” the 12th in his series of mysteries starring Joe Pickett, a game warden in the Bighorn Mountains.

“Force of Nature” features Pickett’s longtime friend Nate Romanowski, a man with a secret past that comes back to haunt him and puts Pickett and his family in danger.

Box spoke to Reuters about the series, developing his characters and the writing process.

Q: You’ve said you never set out to write a series. How did it come about, and how do you keep the characters fresh and appealing after 12 books?

A: “There are writers out there who sit down and say, ‘I’m going to write a series about a game warden.’ No, nobody says that. Nobody is that dumb, but (to write about) some kind of sleuth with a quirky something and I didn’t do that.

“The first book “Open Season” in my mind was more about the issue of endangered species and how well-meaning legislation can go screwy on the ground, and the protagonist happened to be a game warden. To me it was more about the issue.

“It took four years after I finished it for a publisher to want to publish it, and it was Penguin Putnam, and when they bought it, they offered to give me a contract for two other books with Joe Pickett. So that’s how it got started.”

By Ellen Wulfhorst

(Reuters) – More than two dozen people faced criminal charges on Sunday after violence broke out as fans celebrated the University of Kentucky’s win over arch rival Louisville in their NCAA Final Four match-up, officials said.

Thousands of fans filled the streets of Lexington downtown and near the campus Saturday night following Kentucky’s defeat of Louisville 69-61 in New Orleans, but the party was marred by violence, authorities said.

Revelers set fires, torching couches, chairs and other furniture, according to officials. A car was turned over and set ablaze as well.

As of Sunday, 27 people were under arrest, said Susan Straub, a spokeswoman for Lexington Mayor Jim Gray. Earlier information that had been released saying there were 58 arrests was inaccurate, she said.

Most face charges of disorderly conduct and alcohol intoxication, although two people were charged with arson, she said.

As rocks and bottles were thrown, a campus police officer suffered a cut hand when she was struck by a bottle, a university spokesman said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Police on Tuesday said they found a body believed to be that of missing Craigslist prostitute Shannan Gilbert in a marsh on Long Island where she likely got stuck while fleeing a client’s home and died.

“We went in with the idea we were going in one last time to see if we could find anything and we did,” said Suffolk County, New York Police Commissioner Richard Dormer of the body discovered on Tuesday morning.

Gilbert had advertised her services on the online classified service, Craigslist.

Police believe she was fleeing the home of a male customer in the seaside neighborhood of Oak Beach on Long Island when she became mired in a marsh overgrown with thick brambles.

Suffolk County Police have been searching Long Island beaches for Gilbert, 23, of Jersey City, New Jersey since she went missing in May 2010.

In the process of searching for Gilbert, they turned up 10 bodies they believe are the victims of a single serial killer.

Dormer’s announcement comes one year after the first bodies were found on a remote Long Island beach.

NEW YORK, Nov 8 (Reuters) – Efforts to expand gambling to shore up strapped municipal finances and help job creation headed for defeat in Maine voting on Tuesday while New Jersey voters cast their support for sports betting.

With 73 percent of the votes counted, Maine voters rejected two ballot questions that would have expanded the number of licensed gambling halls in the state to five from two.

One question asked Maine voters to approve creation of two “racinos,” or harness racing tracks with slot machines located about 250 miles (400 km) apart in coastal Maine.

It was rejected by 56 percent of the votes counted, according to unofficial results compiled by the Bangor Daily News.

Nearly 64 percent of Maine voters rejected a second question on allowing a casino with slot machines and table games such as craps and roulette in Lewiston, a former center of the textile industry and the state’s second-largest city.

New Jersey voters, meanwhile, were asked if they wanted to seek to overturn a federal law prohibiting sports betting.

With votes in five of the state’s 21 counties tallied, some 90,000 voters approved the measure with about 55,000 opposed.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Efforts to expand gambling to shore up strapped municipal finances and help job creation headed for defeat in Maine voting on Tuesday while New Jersey voters cast their support for sports betting.

With 73 percent of the votes counted, Maine voters rejected two ballot questions that would have expanded the number of licensed gambling halls in the state to five from two.

One question asked Maine voters to approve creation of two “racinos,” or harness racing tracks with slot machines located about 250 miles apart in coastal Maine.

It was rejected by 56 percent of the votes counted, according to unofficial results compiled by the Bangor Daily News.

Nearly 64 percent of Maine voters rejected a second question on allowing a casino with slot machines and table games such as craps and roulette in Lewiston, a former center of the textile industry and the state’s second-largest city.

New Jersey voters, meanwhile, were asked if they wanted to seek to overturn a federal law prohibiting sports betting.

With votes in five of the state’s 21 counties tallied, some 90,000 voters approved the measure with about 55,000 opposed.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Officials in New York City on Friday postponed a planned clean-up of the downtown Manhattan park where anti-Wall Street protesters set up camp a month ago, averting what many feared could have been a showdown with authorities.

Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said the private owner of Zuccotti Park, Brookfield Office Properties, decided late on Thursday to delay the cleaning, which had been slated to begin at 7 a.m. (1100 GMT). He offered no reason for the delay.

Protesters celebrated the postponement at the publicly accessible park, where the mood was festive.

However, at least seven people were seen being arrested when several hundred people left the park and marched through the downtown financial district. A spokesman for the New York Police Department confirmed there were arrests but did not say how many or provide any details.

Many protesters had feared the cleaning would be an attempt to shut down the movement that has sparked solidarity protests in more than 1,400 cities. There were plans for global rallies on Saturday in 71 countries, according to Occupy Together and United for Global Change.

Protesters are upset that the billions of dollars in U.S. bank bailouts doled out during the recession allowed banks to resume earning huge profits while average Americans have had scant relief from high unemployment and job insecurity.

They also believe the richest 1 percent of Americans do not pay their fair share in taxes.

NEW YORK, Oct 14 (Reuters) – Anti-Wall Street protesters are preparing on Friday to block efforts to clean up the Lower Manhattan park where they set up camp nearly a month ago, raising concerns of a possible showdown with authorities.

The private owner of the publicly accessible Zuccotti Park, Brookfield Office Properties, plans to start cleaning at 7 a.m. (1100 GMT) the area where several hundred protesters from the Occupy Wall Street movement have been camping since Sept. 17.

Protesters fear it is an attempt to shut down the movement that has sparked solidarity protests in more than 1,400 cities and plans for global rallies on Saturday in 71 countries, according to Occupy Together and United for Global Change.

Occupy Wall Street has called on protesters to “defend the occupation from eviction” on Friday. Progressive group MoveOn.Org also called on its supporters to “stand with the protesters at the moment when they need us most.”

“Be warned, this is a tactic that (New York City Mayor Michael) Bloomberg has used to shut down protests in the past, and a tactic used recently in similar protests throughout Europe,” protest organizers said on a Facebook page.

Brookfield said conditions at the park were “unsanitary and unsafe,” with no toilets and a shortage of garbage cans. Neighbors complain of lewdness, drug use, harassment and offensive odors from the protesters, Brookfield said.

Brookfield representatives, escorted by police, handed out notices to the protesters on Thursday to tell them that the park would be cleaned in three stages and would reopen for public use consistent with park regulations.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New Jersey voters strongly approve of Governor Chris Christie’s decision not to run for president, giving him their highest approval ratings since he took office in 2010, poll results showed on Wednesday.

Voters surveyed in the Quinnipiac University poll believed Christie, who said last week he would not seek the Republican nomination for 2012, would have won a race for the White House. But they backed his decision not to run by an eight-to-one margin.

The poll found Christie with a 58 percent job approval rating, his best ever, Quinnipiac said. Christie, who this week threw his support behind Republican former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, took office in January 2010.

Another poll, by the Monmouth University Polling Institute, also found Christie with his highest job approval rating so far, at 54 percent.

Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth Institute, attributed Christie’s poll boost to his flirtation with a presidential bid and his job performance during Hurricane Irene.

Those two events overshadowed the more heated state issues of education and property tax reforms, he said.

“Those were the issues that were causing women, particularly independent women, to be skeptical about Christie in the past,” Murray said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Labor unions including nurses, and transit workers were set to join the growing anti-Wall Street movement march on Wednesday through New York’s financial district, and some college students walked out of classes in solidarity.

The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, Communications Workers of America and the Amalgamated Transit Union said they would be joining the protesters voicing discontent and anger over such issues as high unemployment, home foreclosures and the 2008 corporate bailouts.

The nation’s largest union of nurses, National Nurses United, also said it would join the New York march, set for late afternoon in downtown Manhattan.

Students on college campuses added their voices, with walkouts set on Wednesday at some 75 universities across the nation.

“We stand in solidarity with those protesting Wall Street’s greed,” said Gerald McEntee, president of the 1.6 million-member AFSCME union, in a statement. “The economy that has wrecked so many lives, obliterated jobs, and left millions of Americans homeless and hopeless is the fault of banks that gamble with our future.”

The CWA, representing 600,000 workers, said in its statement:

“It is an appropriate expression of anger for all Americans, but especially for those who have been left behind by Wall Street.”