LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - E! president Suzanne Kolb on Wednesday sent a letter to eight striking "Fashion Police" writers, defending the show's host Joan Rivers and insisting on a sanctioned election before it would come to the negotiating table.

The writers have been on strike since April 17, after expressing a desire to organize and join the Writers Guild of America West. The writers want the network to recognize the WGA as their bargaining representative, while the network is insisting that a National Labor Relations Board election be held first.

"Why strike over an election if you believe the vote will be in favor of representation?" Kolb asks in the letter.

The writers maintain that demanding an election before negotiating is a stalling tactic, since they've made their desire to be in the guild clear.

Weeks before going on strike, the writers filed $1.5 million in wage and hour claims with the California Division of Labor Standard Enforcement (DLSE) against the network and show host Joan Rivers' production company, Rugby productions. They are seeking payment for unpaid regular and overtime hours worked.

Here's Kolb's complete letter:

Let me begin by thanking you for the work you have done for Fashion Police, and for your time in reading this letter. My purpose in writing is to share with you the network's position, as well as correct some of the false information that surrounds this issue, and most importantly reemphasize the resolution that can bring us all to the negotiating table.

First, Joan Rivers has been and remains emphatically supportive of you. And, despite what has been reported to the contrary, her company does not produce Fashion Police nor set the compensation of E! Networks Productions' writers. The personal attacks on Joan have been grossly unfair and inaccurate as the responsibility of the show lies on my shoulders, not hers.

Additionally, I want to make it clear that E! is not anti-WGA. We have other WGA shows, and we will negotiate with the guild should you formally elect them as your representative. We require an NLRB administered election prior to collective bargaining because it is a fair and important part of the process. Although the WGA claims to have a practice of not participating in NLRB elections, they in fact participated in them for Chelsea Lately and The Soup, both of which now have guild deals. The WGA has convinced you that a strike is necessary in order to gain a union contract. But history at E! has shown that not to be true. You are actually losing paychecks because of the guild's dislike of elections.

This leads me to ask you, why strike over an election if you believe the vote will be in favor of representation? Please reconsider striking over something as democratic as an election. There will be no resolution to this matter without one.

Police picked up several supporters of candidate Hasan Rowhani after he delivered a speech Saturday night, his campaign manager, Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, told the semiofficial Mehr news agency.

"Some people were detained on the street after leaving the meeting," he said.

The June 14 election is to choose a replacement for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who cannot run for a third term. Authorities have already pared down the list of candidates to eight, disqualifying Ahmadinejad's top aide and a former president who could have galvanized opposition to the harsh clerical system.

That was a clear indication that Iran's rulers did not want an open contest that could end up in a disputed outcome of the type that set off widespread riots when Ahmadinejad was re-elected in 2009.

On Sunday, after the arrests, a top official warned that Rowhani and others would be limited in their election drive.

"Police will confront individuals who have counter-revolutionary behavior" during campaigning, said the Iranian police chief, Gen. Ismail Moghadam, according to the police website. "It is natural that police have carried out their tasks."

An exile-based Iranian opposition website reported that authorities arrested at least seven people who attended Rowhani's campaign appearance.

It said the arrests were made after participants chanted slogans calling for the release of Mir Hossein Mousavi, an opposition leader and candidate in the disputed 2009 election, who has been under house arrest for more than two years.

A council of advisers to influential former reformist President Mohammad Khatami has urged Rowhani to unite with the other major reform-leaning candidate, Mohamed Reza Aref.

A statement on Khatami's personal website expressed hope that the two could form a "united front" to field a single nominee.

Nematzadeh, Rowhani's spokesman, said the two candidates have not met to discuss the possibility.

Aref's star has been rising since his performance in a Friday debate of the eight candidates, restoring some energy to the reform movement after their main candidate, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was disqualified.

Also Sunday, four aides to another candidate, Saeed Jalili, were injured in a road accident. Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, is considered a front-runner in the campaign. The accident happened on the way to the city of Ghazvin, about 120 kilometers (70 miles) west of Tehran. Jalili was in a different vehicle and was not hurt.

Iran is among the world's leaders in the number of road accidents per capita. More than 20,000 people are killed on the roads there every year.

The legislation has been decades in the making, and is currently being considered by the House of Representatives, where it will likely face some opposition.

Nonetheless, many states are hoping it will pass, saying an Internet sales tax will allow them to bring in much-needed revenue.

The total estimates of how much money states can make by taxing purchases from outside their borders remains to be seen, and S&P said it "believes revenues would be unlikely to boost tax revenues significantly in the near term compared with the size of total state budgets."

S&P also said there will be no near-term credit implications.

But if the bill is delayed for several years and states do not pursue other revenue sources, there is a possibility state revenues will erode. That, in turn, would hurt their credit, the agency said.

(Reporting by Caryn Trokie, additional reporting by Lisa Lambert in Washington)

MIAMI (Reuters) - San Francisco is favored to be named the host city for the 50th Super Bowl when National Football League (NFL) owners vote Tuesday on the site of the 2016 championship game.

The Californian city, home to the NFL's 49ers, is up against South Florida (Miami) while Houston will compete with the losing bid for the 2017 game, which will also be decided on Tuesday.

All the focus, however, is on the prestige of hosting the 50th anniversary game, which the NFL is promising to make the biggest and best finale ever.

The San Francisco Bay Area has hosted one Super Bowl, in 1985, while the Miami area has enjoyed the economic boost from hosting the NFL's championship game a record-tying 10 times, most recently in 2010.

But that extra experience appears to be the only obvious advantage Miami has.

The NFL has said for several years that they wanted to see upgrades made to the 26-year-old Miami Gardens venue but a bid by Dolphins owner Stephen Ross to get state funding for a major redevelopment failed and the billionaire has made it clear he will not fund the changes alone.

That setback has left the South Florida bid committee talking about a 'Plan B' with the existing stadium but they have been badly damaged by the dropping of the planned upgrade.

"Following the Miami Dolphins' failure to secure public funding for renovations ... San Francisco sits in the driver's seat," Albert Breer wrote on the NFL website on Monday.

While the South Florida bid is now left to focus on downtown events and beachside activities, San Francisco, in contrast, is proudly highlighting the state-of-the-art nature of their $1.2 billion stadium in Santa Clara set to open next year.

The San Francisco bid, which was presented to the NFL's 32 owners on shiny, new iPads, and which has been backed by some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, such as Apple and Google, promises an unmatched venue.

As well as ultra-luxury suits, Levi's Stadium will feature stadium-wide wifi, streaming video, mobile connectivity, in-seat tablet holders and huge HD video boards measuring over 13,000 square feet.

"I think we will win on our own right," Steve Van Dorn, chief executive of the Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce, told the Silicon Valley Mercury News, "I'm feeling very good about it."

If that confidence proves well-placed, Miami would be left to fight Houston for the 2017 game with the Texas city viewed as favorite in that contest.

Houston's indoor Reliant Stadium hosted the Super Bowl in 2004 and is considered superior to Miami's ageing arena and the setback in getting Florida funds for the stadium was seen as a major boost for Houston.

"Certainly what happened doesn't help Miami's bid. There's no doubt about that," Houston Texans owner Bob McNair said. "But that doesn't say that the owners couldn't decide to still go to Miami."

South Florida will hope that being better provided for the week-long build up of events and parties could yet swing a big game their way.

"We're extremely optimistic that our bid is going to set a new level and they're going to have a tough decision to make," Miami bid chairman Rodney Barreto said recently.

"We've put some new things on the table that are really exciting and are exciting for the South Florida area."

Next year's Super Bowl will be played in East Rutherford, New Jersey, at the shared home of the New York Giants and New York Jets while the 2015 game will be played in Glendale, Arizona, at the home of the Arizona Cardinals.

(Editing by Frank Pingue)

A Tuesday news release says the musician-actor will release "Magnificent Vibration" in May 2014 on the Simon & Schuster imprint Touchstone.

Springfield is best known as the multi-platinum "Jessie's Girl" singer and "General Hospital" star, but his memoir "Late, Late at Night" was a surprise New York Times best-seller. He said in the statement the experience "reminded me how much I love the craft."

Springfield's novel is about a tough-times protagonist who receives a 1-800 phone connection with God through a self-help book. The book comes during a busy period for the musician. He recently participated in Dave Grohl's "Sound City" documentary and album and appeared on "Californication" and "Hawaii Five-O."

___

Online:

http://rickspringfield.com

The agri-processing company said diluted headline earnings per share for the year to end-March totalled 942.3 cents from 819.4 cents a year ago.

Total sugar output rose 9 percent to 1.254 million tonnes. Tongaat Hulett has interests in land management and property development, but its main business is sugar production and milling.

Kerry, attending the African Union's 50th anniversary, backed the Nigerian government's efforts to root out Boko Haram, an al-Qaida-linked radical sect. But he said there is no excuse for abuses by armed forces in Nigeria's long-neglected north, where President Goodluck Jonathan has declared emergency rule.

"We defend the right completely of the government of Nigeria to defend itself and to fight back against terrorists," Kerry said. He added, however, that he has raised his concerns with Nigerian officials to insist on the military "adhering to the highest standards and not itself engaging in atrocities."

"One person's atrocities do not excuse another's," said Kerry, who later made his case directly to Jonathan over lunch. "Revenge is not the motive. It's good governance, it's ridding yourself of a terrorist organization so that you can establish a standard of law that people can respect."

Amnesty International says Nigeria's military has committed "grave human rights violations" over the last three years, including executions and kidnappings. It is reporting continued wrongdoing, while Human Rights Watch says satellite images showed "massive destruction of civilian property" in a military raid last week.

Speaking to reporters alongside Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Kerry also blamed Sudan's government for much of the tension along its volatile border with South Sudan. He says residents in the contested areas of Blue Nile and South Kordofan don't want to be subjected to strict Islamist rules.

Both areas border the new nation of South Sudan, which gained independence in 2011 under an agreement that ended decades of civil war. Many residents are sympathetic to the South, and both areas have experienced regular violence in recent years.

"There are very significant border challenges, but they're bigger than that," Kerry said. "You have people who for a long time have felt that they want their secular governance and their identity respected."

"They don't want independence; they are not trying to break away from Sudan," he said. But he said the response from Sudan's government has been to "press on them through authoritarian means and violence an adherence to a standard that they simply don't want to accept with respect to Islamism."

"That's the fundamental clash," Kerry said.

He acknowledged, however, the North's concerns that the South is fueling rebels in the areas and said the U.S. would try to work with Ethiopia and other international partners to ease tensions. He said he'd soon appoint a new American envoy to both countries.

Kerry met Sudan's foreign minister later Saturday.

In Ethiopia's capital, Kerry also spoke with the U.N. and African Union chiefs and Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, whom he urged to make further economic reforms so that Congress can approve more U.S. aid to Egypt.

Kerry departs Sunday to Jordan, where he'll attend a business conference and outline plans to help revitalize the Palestinian economy. He travels Monday to Paris for discussions about Syria with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, before returning to Washington after eight days overseas.

Wuerffel and the Gators bounced back from that record-breaking 62-24 smackdown to take the title the next season.

The former quarterbacks will cross paths again in December, when they are inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

Wuerffel and Frazier, along with Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dayne, highlighted the latest Hall of Fame class of 12 players and two coaches announced by the National Football Foundation on Tuesday.

The rest of the players to be inducted in Manhattan are: Miami Heisman winner Vinny Testaverde, whose selection was announced Monday; Ted Brown of North Carolina State; Tedy Bruschi of Arizona; Jerry Gray of Texas; Steve Meilinger of Kentucky; Orlando Pace of Ohio State; Rod Shoate of Oklahoma; Percy Snow of Michigan State; and Don Trull of Baylor.

The new Hall of Fame coaches are Wayne Hardin, who led Navy and Temple, and Bill McCartney of Colorado.

Florida and Nebraska fans have been eagerly awaiting the inductions of their beloved All-Americans for years.

Wuerffel won the Heisman in 1996, when he led the Gators to the national championship, throwing for 3,625 yards and 39 touchdowns in coach Steve Spurrier's Fun-n-Gun offense.

"I'm thankful for what college football has meant in my life ... and how it allowed me to help other people," said Wuerffel, who appeared at a news conference with Bruschi at the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in Times Square.

Wuerffel finished his college career as one of the most prolific passers in major college football history with 10,875 yards and 114 touchdown passes.

After a short NFL career, he retired to dedicate himself to ministry work in New Orleans, where he played from 1997-99 with the Saints.

In 2011, Wuerffel was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder Guillain-Barre syndrome, which causes paralysis and problems with the nervous system but is treatable.

Wuerffel said he is just about all the way back to his old self, but endured a difficult year and a half with little energy or strength.

"You're trying to live a normal life with 20 percent of your energy, 40 percent of your energy," he said.

Frazier, from Bradenton, Fla., was a four-year starter at Nebraska, running coach Tom Osborne's option attack.

"He was an outstanding leader and catalyst and made everyone around him better," Osborne said in a statement. "Tommie managed the game very well, and was a natural option quarterback. He had a good sense of timing, when to pitch, when not to pitch. He had excellent balance, good speed and was very strong.

"Tommie was better prepared to start as a freshman than any quarterback we had. That's not easy to do, but he was unusually mature and competitive."

Frazier was the centerpiece of Nebraska's last great dynasty. The Huskers were 33-3 in games he started and won back-to-back national titles in 1994 and '95.

"I think it's been a longer time coming than most of us would have thought," said former teammate Aaron Graham, a center on those great Nebraska teams. "The guy was the best college football player of our era and certainly deserving of one of the highest honors you can achieve as a college football player."

Frazier's famous tackling-breaking 75-yard touchdown run put an exclamation point on Nebraska's 62-24 victory over Wuerffel and Florida in that '96 Fiesta Bowl.

"I've seen that run a lot of times," Wuerffel said.

That loss helped propel the Gators into next season, Wuerffel said.

"I think most people would say the 1995 team was more talented," he said. "I think (the loss to Nebraska) helped that team mature."

Frazier finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1995 as a senior and finished his career with 5,476 total yards of offense and 79 total touchdowns.

"You never play the game and think you are going to be in the Hall of Fame one day," Frazier said in a statement released by Nebraska. "You just go out and try to be the best you can and whatever happens, happens. I was fortunate good things happened."

Dayne is the NCAA's career rushing leader with 6,397 yards rushing, though his bowl game yards would boost his career total past 7,000 yards if he hadn't played when the NCAA did not count them in regular season stats. The burly tailback won the Heisman for the Badgers in 1999.

"In my opinion, Ron was simply the most dominant running back that ever played college football," said Dayne's former coach and current Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez in a statement.

Bruschi had 52 sacks as part of Arizona's Desert Swarm defenses during the mid-1990s.

"I don't know who came up with that nickname, but thank you," Bruschi said.

___

AP Sports Writer Eric Olson in Omaha, Neb., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Ralph D. Russo at www.Twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP

These asteroids and comet fragments are usually no bigger than 3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 meters) across about 10 times smaller than the , Russia, in February. Small space rocks burn up in Earth's atmosphere, never making it to the ground, but they can do damage on Mars because the planet has a much thinner atmosphere.

The holes gouged out by these asteroids are typically at least 12.8 feet (3.9 meters) wide, the researchers say. The 200-per-year space rockl impact rate for Mars was based on a portion of the 248 new Martian craters that have been identified in the past decade using images from the , a NASA spacecraft that has been circling the Red Planet since 2006.

"It's exciting to find these new craters right after they form," study researcher Ingrid Daubar of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said in a statement. "It reminds you Mars is an active planet, and we can study processes that are happening today."

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera snapped amazingly detailed pictures of the fresh craters at sites where before-and-after images had been taken by the orbiter's wider-view Context Camera and cameras on other orbiters studying the Red Planet, scientists said. The same method could be used to estimate the age of other recent features on the planet, including some that may be the result of Martian climate change.

The new calculation of Mars' cratering rate dwarfs earlier estimates. Based on studies of lunar craters and moon rocks collected by NASA's Apollo astronauts, scientists had calculated that there were just three to 10 yearly impacts on Mars.

"Mars now has the best-known current rate of cratering in the solar system," said HiRISE principal investigator Alfred McEwen.The research was detailed online this month in the journal Icarus.

Follow SPACE.com on Twitter . We're also onand . Original story on .

"There has been a serious accusation from the Toronto Star that I use crack cocaine. I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine," he told a news conference.

"As for a video, I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen or does not exist."

The Toronto Star and Gawker Media reported last week they had separately seen a cellphone video that allegedly shows Ford smoking crack-cocaine while in the company of people involved in the drug trade.

(Reporting by Julie Gordon and Cameron French; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson)