The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing a new interpretation of the key study of Avandia's heart attack risks, which suggests the drug is as safe as older diabetes drugs. At a highly unusual meeting this week, the FDA will ask a panel of experts to vote on a range of options for the drug, including lifting restrictions on its use.

The positive safety review from Duke University researchers is the latest twist in a yearslong debate over Avandia, which has divided medical experts, cost Glaxo billions of dollars and possibly resulted in an unknown number of patient heart attacks.

First approved in 1999, Avandia became the top-selling diabetes pill in the world by 2006 with sales of $3.4 billion. But prescriptions plummeted the following year after an analysis of dozens of studies suggested Avandia could raise the risk of heart attack.

For three years the FDA struggled to answer a seemingly simple question: Does Avandia increase the risk of heart attacks? A definitive answer has never been reached, in part because patients with diabetes are already predisposed to heart problems. That makes it extremely difficult to tell which heart attacks are drug-related and which are simply a result of the underlying disease.

Finally in 2010 the FDA decided to restrict the drug's use to all but the rarest of cases. Regulators in Europe banned the drug outright.

FDA critics have speculated that the real purpose of this week's meeting is to vindicate FDA officials who have kept Avandia on the market for so many years. They say regulators appear poised to roll back safety limits on the drug.

"It's the wrong reason to take a regulatory action," said Dr. Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic, who authored the 2007 analysis that first raised public safety concerns about Avandia.

"You want to take a regulatory action because it's going to benefit patients. I don't see how patients could possibly benefit from lifting these regulatory restrictions."

Nissen says he requested time to make a formal presentation during the meeting but was turned down by FDA officials.

The FDA says Wednesday and Thursday's meeting was prompted by a new analysis of the lone study of Avandia's heart risks. Known as RECORD, the study followed 4,400 patients and tracked rates of heart attack, hospitalization and death for six years.

The results were first reported in 2009 and medical experts have been debating their legitimacy ever since.

At the last Avandia panel meeting in 2010, FDA leadership generally backed RECORD's findings that Avandia appeared as safe as other standard diabetes drugs. But FDA staff scientists said the study was unreliable because of underreported heart attacks and other design flaws. Because of that disagreement the FDA asked Glaxo to obtain an independent analysis by an outside party.

The new analysis by the Duke Clinical Research Institute generally supports Glaxo's original findings. In a review memo posted Monday, three senior FDA drug officials state: "After re-adjudication, we do not find a cardiovascular signal of concern in RECORD. The mortality data are, in fact, reassuring."

Despite that assessment, the agency says it "has not reached any final updated conclusions" on the heart safety of Avandia.

The FDA will seek advice from two panels comprised of outside experts in the fields of diabetes and drug safety. The panelists will be asked to vote on four options for Avandia:

Removing the drug's safety restrictions

Leaving the safety restrictions in place

Modifying the safety restrictions

Withdrawing the drug from the market entirely

At the last FDA meeting on Avandia in 2010, the panelists voted 21 to 12 to leave Avandia on the market. The group's recommendations are not binding and are only one part of the government's decision-making process.

Even if the latest reassessment clears Avandia's safety record, the real-world impact could be minimal.

Avandia is currently prescribed to just 3,000 patients in the U.S. In 2009 the drug was prescribed 2.7 million times.

Because of FDA restrictions put in place in 2010, patients can now only get the drug after signing a waiver from their doctor indicating that they understand the risks and have tried all other drug options to treat their disease.

Glaxo executives say they believe the drug should remain available for patients with hard-to-treat diabetes, but the company has no plans to resume advertising of the drug.

"I think there are patients who benefit from this drug and I would hope the committee continues to allow Avandia to be prescribed to the right patients," said Glaxo vice president Murray Stewart.

Stewart stressed that Glaxo did not request the panel meeting, which was set up by the FDA.

"We were phoned up earlier in the year and told they were having an advisory meeting and that GSK should present," Stewart said.

Wall Street analysts have dubbed the meeting a "non-event" from a financial perspective, since Glaxo's stock price long ago absorbed the impact of the Avandia controversy.

Last July the company pleaded guilty to failing to report safety problems with Avandia to government officials over a seven-year period. The guilty plea was part of a larger $3 billion settlement with the Department of Justice for various criminal and civil violations involving 10 Glaxo drugs.

In November, the company paid $90 million to settle allegations from 38 state governments that the company misrepresented the risks of Avandia.

The company has also settled tens of thousands of personal injury lawsuits filed by Avandia patients, though it has never specified the exact number. Last month there were 3,750 cases pending before U.S. District Court Judge Cynthia Rufe in Philadelphia, where various Avandia cases from around the country have been consolidated.

U.S. shares of GlaxoSmithKline PLC rose 20 cents to close at $51.97 Monday. They traded as high as $54 last Tuesday and are up almost 25 percent from their 52-week low of $41.68 last November.

Cunningham, 71, was released from home confinement, said Chris Burke, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons who declined to say where or explain the circumstances, citing privacy and safety concerns. Typically authorities meet an inmate at home, work or mutually agreeable place to make the release official.

Cunningham told a federal judge last year that he planned to live near his mother and brother in a remote part of Arkansas, writing books in a small cabin. But in a brief interview with The Associated Press in April, he said he might settle with military friends in Florida, where he would write his memoirs.

"I'm like a tenderfoot in the forest," he said. "I'm just unsure where to find a branch to sit on."

Cunningham, an eight-term Republican congressman from San Diego, was sentenced to eight years, four months in prison in March 2006 after pleading guilty to accepting bribes from companies in exchange for steering government contracts their way. The bribes included a luxury house, yacht, Rolls-Royce, travel, lavish meals, $40,000 Persian rugs and antique furniture.

The bribes the largest known to be accepted by a member of Congress were one of several scandals afflicting Republicans at the time, allowing Democrats to portray a culture of corruption in midterm elections that made San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi the first female Speaker of the House. Cunningham's downfall also fed controversy over congressional earmarks that allow lawmakers to direct money to pet projects.

When he tearfully announced his resignation outside San Diego's federal courthouse, Cunningham said he disgraced his office. At his sentencing, he told U.S. District Judge Larry Burns that he took "a very wrong turn" and that he would repent for the rest of his life.

The contrition didn't last. Cunningham told news organizations and others that he regretted his guilty plea and complained that the Internal Revenue Service was draining his savings.

"You can only push a man so far, your honor," Cunningham wrote the judge in 2010. He acknowledged mistakes but added in the same sentence that he was "one of the most highly decorated veterans in this nation" who gave a life of service.

His sentence required he pay $1.8 million for back taxes and forfeit an additional $1.85 million for bribes he received, plus proceeds from the sale of a home in the highly exclusive San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe. He was ordered to pay $1,500 a month in prison and $1,000 monthly after his release.

Cunningham, who had his sentence cut 392 days for good behavior, wrote the judge last year that he would live on $1,700 a month after his release, saying the IRS "has me poor for the rest of my life." He portrayed the loss of his home and other property as an example of how veterans are mistreated.

"This dark period in my life is about to get a little lighter but do not think it will ever get sunny," he wrote.

In his letter, Cunningham pleaded for a gun permit, saying he longed to hunt in Arkansas. Burns denied the request as being beyond the scope of his authority.

"I flew aircraft that could disintegrate your building with a half second burst and now can't carry a 22 cal. Pls help me your honor," Cunningham wrote.

Cunningham, a former fighter pilot who invoked his war heroics throughout his career, took an interest in military affairs while in Congress. He also supported socially conservative positions but may have drawn most attention for his outbursts. During a floor debate in 1995, he attacked his adversaries as "the same ones that would put homos in the military."

Two people who bribed Cunningham also were convicted. Former contractor Brent Wilkes was convicted in 2007 and sentenced to 12 years for bribery and other charges for lavishing Cunningham with more than $700,000 in cash and other gifts in exchange for nearly $90 million in defense work. He is free while appealing the verdict.

Mitchell Wade was released from prison in 2011 after a 2-year sentence. He pleaded guilty to giving the congressman more than $1 million in gifts including a yacht that Cunningham named "Duke-Stir" in exchange for about $150 million in contracts.

Cunningham served nearly all his sentence at a minimum-security federal work camp in Tucson, Ariz., where inmates earn 12 to 40 cents an hour doing landscaping, maintenance work and food preparation. He moved to a New Orleans halfway house in December and, two months later, to a home where he lived under house arrest.

It was the longest prison sentence for a member of Congress for taking bribes until Louisiana Democrat William Jefferson got 13 years in 2009.

Cunningham, who has battled prostate cancer, said in April that he "did some things that I'm sorry for" but declined to address specific questions. He said he's done drawing attention to himself.

"What I'm trying to do is make a new start," he said. "It's like being reborn almost."

The 1992 search has been at the center of two decades of litigation that's become known as the "driving while black" case. U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins has shown an unyielding effort to combat racial profiling in drug stops through three subsequent lawsuits, the final one ultimately decided just this year.

Wilkins, whom Obama nominated Tuesday to the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has said his family's roadside detention for an eventual search by a drug-sniffing dog was a "humiliating and degrading experience" and he's been determined to use the courts to prevent it from happening to others.

The Wilkins stop came on May 8, 1992, during an all-night road trip home from his grandfather's funeral in Chicago. His cousin Scott El-Amin was driving in their rented Cadillac, and his uncle and his uncle's wife were also in the car. Wilkins has said they were hurrying because they were all due at work in the morning Wilkins, then a public defender in Washington, had a court appearance scheduled.

The family was stopped by a trooper who said they were going 60 mph in a 40 mph zone, and El-Amin was cited for speeding. They declined the trooper's request to search their car and were told as a consequence they would have to wait for a canine search. As Wilkins tells it, the officer mentioned something about "problems with rental cars coming up and down the highway with drugs."

Wilkins said he identified himself as a public defender and cited Supreme Court precedent that they could not be held for a dog search without a reasonable suspicion they were carrying drugs. But Wilkins said the family was made to stand in the rain while the German shepherd sniffed over the car and found nothing, while the delay caused him to miss his court appearance, according to an account he provided at a 2009 world conference on racism held at the United Nations in Switzerland.

"It is hard to describe the frustration and pain you feel when people presume you to be guilty for no good reason and you know that you are innocent," Wilkins said in remarks prepared for delivery at the conference.

Wilkins noted the stop came the same week as the Los Angeles riots in response to the police beating of Rodney King. "This was a time when black people all over the United States were asking themselves whether the country was making tangible progress in fighting racial discrimination and whether the country's vaunted legal system was truly equipped and able to right these wrongs. We decided to take legal action," he said.

Wilkins said they uncovered a Maryland State Police criminal intelligence report that notified troopers of crack cocaine coming through the mountainous region of western Maryland, with traffickers who were predominantly black and traveling early in the morning or late at night in rental cars with Virginia registration.

"Well, we fit the profile to a tee," Wilkins said. "We were traveling on I-68, early in the morning, in a Virginia rental car. And, my cousin and I, the front seat passengers, were young black males. The only problem was that we were not dangerous, armed drug traffickers. It should not be suspicious to travel on the highway early in the morning in a Virginia rental car. And it should not be suspicious to be black."

Their suit was settled was settled in 1995. The Maryland State Police paid $50,000 to the four family members, $46,000 in attorney fees and banned racial profiling in drug stops. It required record keeping for all traffic stops with a narcotics dog, monitoring by a federal judge, training for troopers on the new policy and discipline for those who violated it.

Wilkins said his family began to monitor Maryland State Police data and immediately saw a disturbing trend 70-75 percent of those searched on Interstate 95 were black, even though only blacks made up only 17 percent of drivers traveling there. Wilkins said they filed another suit this time a class action on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and all minority motorists targeted for stops. After several years of negotiation, a second settlement was reached in 2003 requiring enhanced trooper training, a new process to handle racial profiling complaints and more oversight of the agency's handling of it.

Wilkins said although he believed both settlements resulted in improvements, the agency's own data continued to show vast disparities in the number of stops and searches of minority motorists and that complaints of racial profiling were not being taken seriously. Police investigations found no merit in any of almost 100 complaints of racial profiling that were filed.

Maryland's highest court ruled in January that the police must release the investigation files, over the state's objection that the documents were personnel records that were exempt from public disclosure. The department was able to black out officers' names to protect their identity.

Maryland State Police spokesman Greg Shipley said the agency maintains that it doesn't engage in racial profiling. He said they have implemented all the requirements of the court settlement and have gone further, including by distributing brochures at each traffic stop explaining the complaint process and installing cameras in patrol vehicles that are monitored by supervisors.

"We maintain a very strong policy against using race against any police action," Shipley said. And he added that the agency congratulates Wilkins on his nomination and wishes him all the best.

___

Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nedrapickler

DUBLIN, Ohio (Reuters) - Tiger Woods ended a largely forgettable week at the Memorial Tournament languishing joint 65th in a field of 73, and conceding that he needs to clean up every aspect of his game before the upcoming U.S. Open.

A five-times winner at Muirfield Village Golf Club where he was the defending champion, Woods struggled with his putting on lightning-fast greens for all four rounds as he finished up a distant 20 strokes behind winner Matt Kuchar.

Though his accuracy off the tee was surprisingly good throughout the tournament, Woods totaled 119 putts during the week and paid a hefty price after running up big numbers on certain holes at a venue he knows as well as anyone.

"It happens," Woods told reporters after closing with a level-par 72 at Muirfield Village to finish at eight-over 296, the second-highest score of his career. His highest in a 72-hole event was 298 at the 2010 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational

"It happens to us all," said world number one Woods, who had triumphed three times in his previous four starts on the PGA Tour. "I will go home next week and practice.

"It's just one of those weeks. This week I obviously didn't putt well. I had bad speed all week. I thought the greens didn't look that fast, but they were putting fast. I could never get the speed of them."

The second major of the year, the June 13-16 U.S. Open at Merion in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, is fast approaching and Woods gave a succinct reply when asked which areas of his game needed improving.

"Everything," said the 37-year-old American, who won the most recent of his 14 major titles at the 2008 U.S. Open.

"You want everything clicking on all cylinders, especially at the U.S. Open, because everything is tested in the U.S. Open."

AMONG THE BACK-MARKERS

Woods began the final round among the back-markers for a second day in a row and ran into trouble when he triple-bogeyed the par-three 12th after taking two shots to escape from a terrible lie in a greenside bunker, then three-putted.

"I was just trying to put the ball against the face on the upslope on the other side so I had a chance to spin the next one," he said of his first bunker shot.

"And it actually rolled back on the bottom where there's no sand. I hit a decent shot and obviously it skipped by. And the first putt was awful, just bad speed. The second putt I pulled, as well."

Woods dropped another stroke at the par-four 14th before finally being rewarded with a birdie at the par-five 15th where he struck a wedge to four foot and buried the putt.

Woods had astonishingly recorded a bogey and two doubles there in the three previous rounds.

"I birdied in a conventional way, I guess," he said of the 15th. "With a wedge in there to about three-and-a-half feet behind it.

"Other times (this week) I had a chance to go for it (the green in two) and knock it on there and I didn't make very good shots."

He also bogeyed the 14th before picking up his first shots of the day at the 15th and 17th to reach the turn in two-over 38.

Woods fared a lot better on his back nine, sandwiching birdies at the second, fourth and fifth around a lone bogey at the third to come home in two-under 34.

"It wasn't like it was that far off today," he said of his overall game, having hit 12 of 14 fairways and 13 of 18 greens in regulation. "It was just one hole that cost me obviously a few shots."

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes; Editing by Julian Linden)

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Electronic publishing is allowing authors to be more creative and the best ones are successfully blending video and online content with traditional text, says cult writer Irvine Welsh.

The author of "Trainspotting" and "The Acid House", who has also written short stories and plays, said e-publishing meant writers had to work harder to grab readers' attention in an age when wireless devices are rapidly replacing paperback books.

Welsh, 54, said he struggled to combine marketing of his books with writing, but that a combination of the two was needed if writers were going to break into the e-book world while also writing for TV, movies and traditional readers.

"You can't just be into one thing, you have to be into TV adaptations, movie adaptations," Welsh, whose "Trainspotting" was turned into a hit movie by director Danny Boyle, told Reuters at a conference in Brussels on digital media trends.

"It will come out in book format, it will be shot and come out in film format, and at the same time it will come out in series format. And that will happen instantaneously."

The Scotsman, who burst onto the literary scene when "Trainspotting" was published in his mid-30s, heaped praise on fellow Scot Ewan Morrison, who has wooed the book world by including web links to short films as part of his novel "Tales from the Mall", which examines the seedy allure of capitalism.

Morrison had established an innovative niche between a book and a game, said Welsh, predicting that such a multimedia style would become common practice for tomorrow's e-book producers.

E-book sales have grown rapidly in recent years with the popularity of tablets and e-readers. Industry group BookStats reported that sales were up 44 percent in the United States during 2012, rising to a little over $3 billion.

Sales of regular books remain far larger and have also climbed, although far more slowly, gaining around 7 percent to $15 billion, thanks in large part to blockbusters such as "Fifty Shades of Grey", a book first published online.

CREATIVITY FIRST

In his latest novel, which is not yet named, Welsh explores the relationship between two women living in Miami, a personal trainer and an artist, who are obsessed with each other. The book is due out in April next year and a screenplay, currently under discussion, may follow in November.

"It's a very self-centered narcissistic process. That is why it runs the risk of being crap," said Welsh, acknowledging that a focus on female characters was a departure from his favored gritty, drug-addicted male protagonists.

"You can't really put strong women characters into that world because any strong woman would go nowhere near these guys," he said by way of explanation.

While Welsh is an advocate of digital publishing, his own works are more difficult to translate into e-book form as he frequently plays with font sizes and other techniques which digital readers cannot easily capture.

Whether traditional publishing or e-publishing is the way forward, one thing authors should rigidly adhere to is creative license, Welsh said. Some books start online, others are published traditionally. The only winning ingredient is originality and creativity.

"The success of self-publishing shows that publishers and agents and editors don't always know (what works)," he said.

(Reporting By Claire Davenport; editing by Luke Baker)

PARIS (Reuters) - Top seed Serena Williams said her "psycho" side is under wraps after motoring into the third round of the French Open with a 6-1 6-2 defeat of French wildcard Caroline Garcia on Wednesday.

The American world number one has courted controversy in the past with her on-court behavior but after a controlled and powerful demolition of the 19-year-old Garcia she gave the impression that all is calm.

"I haven't seen her either in a while," she said, answering a question referring to a TV documentary in which she gave her various moods different names.

"I have been trying to keep that one under wraps.

"I think that's a girl that gets really crazy on the tennis court and just really fights really hard. Just, you know, takes it a little too far sometimes."

Williams famously ranted at a line judge in the U.S. Open semi-final in 2009 and was effectively defaulted after receiving a point penalty on match point down to Kim Clijsters.

There was no need for her to get angry on Phillipe Chatrier Court against an opponent who gave Maria Sharapova a run for her money on her previous appearance on the big stage in Paris.

Williams roared into a 5-0 lead in the opening set before Garcia, ranked 114 in the world, held serve to generous applause from the crowd who had earlier witnessed victories for Frenchmen Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gael Monfils.

There was precious little hope of a hat-trick of home wins on Chatrier though with Williams, who came into the match on a career-best 25-match winning streak, wrapping up the opening set in 27 minutes.

Garcia offered more resistance in the second set but was still no match for the 15-times grand slam champion who looks in the mood to add to her single French Open title.

The 31-year-old said she might even ask for a little help from "Summer" - another one of her character traits, when she takes on Romania's Sorana Cirstea in the third round.

"Summer is my assistant who lives inside my body. It's weird. She's very effective. She's unbelievable. She's really like organized and she's amazing. I love her."

But one thing for certain is that "Laquanda" is "not allowed to come out. She's on probation!"

(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Representative Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, on Thursday became the latest lawmaker to propose legislation that would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration greater regulatory authority over drug compounding.

U.S. lawmakers, responding to a deadly meningitis outbreak in 2012, continue to wrestle with ways to regulate the pharmacies that compound large volumes of drugs for hospitals, individuals and clinics.

The meningitis outbreak, which has killed 53 people and sickened more than 700, was linked to tainted steroid injections distributed by the Framingham, Massachusetts-based New England Compounding Center.

Markey's proposal differs from legislation approved by a Senate committee on Wednesday that would give the FDA oversight only over compounding pharmacies that make sterile products and ship them across state lines. The agency would not have primary authority over compounding pharmacies, even very large ones, that operate within the confines of a single state.

A number of experts have said the risk of contamination of a sterile product does not substantially change based on whether it travels across a state line, although the longer a product is left to sit the greater the potential for bacteria to grow.

The Senate plan places a considerable burden on state boards of pharmacies who sometimes have limited knowledge of what individual pharmacies are selling and where.

"State pharmacy regulators vary widely in their ability to oversee large-scale non-traditional compounding," the Pew Charitable Trusts, an independent research and public policy organization wrote in comments earlier this month to the Senate health committee drafting the bill.

Under the Senate bill, if a compounding pharmacy makes and ships both sterile and non-sterile products across state lines, the FDA would have authority over the sterile products, while the state would have authority over the non-sterile products.

Markey's bill would give the FDA authority over both.

The FDA has expressed broad support for the Senate bill, with a number of caveats.

The Senate bill would create a new class of drug company, called "compounding manufacturers," that would be regulated by the FDA and not by state pharmacy boards. However, they would be exempt from many of the federal requirements governing pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

The agency is concerned that the Senate bill as written would allow some companies to masquerade as compounding manufacturers to skirt regulations that would otherwise require them to get prior FDA approval before selling a new drug.

In a statement on Wednesday, the FDA said the proposed bill "does not yet provide the clarity necessary to appropriately oversee this industry and may limit FDA's ability to effectively protect the public health." It said it is working with the committee to address the issues.

It is unclear when the full Senate will take up the compounding bill, or whether Markey's proposal will advance, but it appears likely that new rules of some sort will be established.

"I'm pretty confident the House will pass some legislation," said Glenn Engelmann, a former executive with drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc who now works for the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery. "There seems to be a lot of momentum to do something here."

(Reporting by Toni Clarke in Washington; Editing by Ros Krasny and Tim Dobbyn)

Knox, 25, spent four years in prison for the murder of Meredith Kercher while they were exchange students in Perugia, a hilltop Italian university town popular with foreigners. Knox, who became a tabloid sensation in Britain and Italy, was acquitted on appeal in 2011. She returned to her Seattle-area home, but Italy's high court last month ordered a retrial.

In the hotly anticipated memoir, published by HarperCollins and in bookstores on Tuesday, Knox maintained her innocence and wrote that she regretted that in prison she had never reached out to Kercher's family to say that the girl's death had been a "heartbreak to so many."

The memoir was released in conjunction with an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer that is due to air on Tuesday evening.

Knox wrote that she wished she had reached out to Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner whom Knox falsely accused of the murder. Lumumba, who was briefly jailed and then cleared, said in 2011 that Knox's accusation destroyed his life.

"Naming him was unforgivable, and he didn't deserve it, but I wanted to say that it wasn't about him," Knox wrote. "I was pushed so hard that I'd have named anyone."

Knox penned letters to both, but her lawyers advised against sending them because it would hurt her legal case.

In the 457-page memoir, Knox writes of arriving in Italy at age 20 with "rookie Italian" and a penchant for "immature antics," eager to develop independence and come into her own.

Knox writes that she and Kercher bonded right away: "We did what all girls do: we talked about the guys we liked in Perugia and the ones we'd left behind."

She denies that the relationship soured and describes a friendly final encounter as Knox and her new boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, left the shared apartment hours before the murder.

Knox writes that she did not understand that she was a suspect in Kercher's murder, and believed that she could help investigators find the killer.

"I was too confused to know what the truth was," she writes at one point, after implicating Lumumba and saying she witnessed the murder.

Her "bafflement" at the situation eventually gave way to "quiet indignation and defiance," Knox writes.

"I followed their directions like a lost, pathetic child," she writes of the investigation leading up to her arrest. "I didn't question, I didn't object, I just put my head down when they told me to and trusted that this would all make sense soon."

Knox, dubbed "Foxy Knoxy" in many early media reports, was initially portrayed as promiscuous and dishonest but a lobbying campaign by her family helped change perceptions.

Kercher's half-naked body, with more than 40 wounds and a deep gash in the throat, was found in the apartment she shared with Knox in the town in central Italy. A student at Leeds University, she was 21 when she died.

The Italian high court in March also overturned the acquittal of Sollecito, Knox's former boyfriend, and ordered a new trial on a date still to be set.

The acquittal came after independent forensic experts said the police scientific evidence was deeply flawed and the investigation had been bungled.

An Ivorian drifter named Rudy Guede, was found guilty and sentenced to 16 years in a separate trial. He is now the only person serving time for the murder, although prosecutors say he could not have killed Kercher by himself.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Lisa Shumaker)

But when it comes to her upcoming walk down the aisle with Justin Theroux, the actress is still deciding on what to wear.

"No, I don't," she told E! News when asked if she had a wedding gown picked out yet.

Adding that wedding planning "might make me crazy."

The 44-year-old star sported a black strapless pantsuit on the red carpet, where she told Access Hollywood about her new project with Lifetime, which is a series of five short films dealing with mental health issues.

"It's not anything to be ashamed of because that's the biggest problem is that people feel because it's mental and it's your brain, you feel crazy and that's such a catchphrase that people are accused of. And it's like any ailment, any disease that's taking place in our body," she said of what she hopes the film sheds light on.

Adding, "There's a big stigma around mental illness and there just doesn't have to be, you can live a very successful life."

Jennifer also made a statement showing off cupping marks (caused by the Eastern medicine practice of attaching glass cups to the skin via heat or suction to help with circulation.)

Numerous cupping circles could be seen dotting the star's back.

-- Jesse Spero

Copyright 2013 by . All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Christie's auction house raised $38.8 million through a charity art auction and donations, Christie's said on Tuesday, with proceeds to benefit environmental and conservation causes.

The 33 works in The 11th Hour Auction organized by the star of the new film "The Great Gatsby" sold for $31.74 million on Monday evening and set 13 records for artists including Carol Bove, Joe Bradley, Mark Grotjahn, Raymond Pettibon and Mark Ryden among others.

A $5 million matching donation for three of the lots and additional gifts from donors brought the overall total to $38.8 million for The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, according to Christie's.

"All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you," DiCaprio told the audience at the end of the auction.

Many of the works, which were created for and donated to the auction by the artists, sold in spirited bidding in a packed auction house. Art collectors from around the globe also placed bids by telephone.

"Christie's is thrilled with the exceptional results of the sale, which realized $38.8 million," said Loic Gouzer, international specialist at Christie's and the head of the sale.

"The works of art were of incredible quality and range, and highlight the generosity of the many artists who donated," he added.

A panel of environmental experts and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation will decide which conservation projects will benefit from the proceeds of the sale.

At the opening of the auction, DiCaprio, who has supported environmental issues through his foundation since 1988 and also produced and narrated the 2007 documentary "The 11th Hour" about the state of the environment, urged the audience to dig deep into their pockets.

"Bid as if the fate of the planet depended on us," he said.

And they did. All of the 33 works were sold and many fetched prices that were three or four times their pre-sale estimates.

The top lot of the sale was an oil on cardboard mounted on canvas by Mark Grotjahn called "Untitled (Standard Lotus No. II, Bird of Paradise, Tiger Mouth Face 44.01)," which sold for $6.2 million as two determined bidders pushed up the price.

Zeng Fanzhi's "The Tiger," an oil on canvas, fetched nearly double its high estimate with a price of $4.8 million, and Bharti Kher's sculpture "The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own" went for $1.7 million.

Each of the three works had a pre-sale estimate of $1.5 million to $2.5 million.

DiCaprio donated "Ocean V" by Andreas Gursky, which sold for $600,000, and he bought an acrylic on canvas by Takashi Murakami for $700,000.

A portrait of DiCaprio painted by Elizabeth Peyton sold for $1 million.

Gouzer and DiCaprio had approached the artists and explained what they had hoped to accomplish with the auction, which they have been planning for a year.

"We explained that we wanted great works and they were very reactive because of the cause. The artists are very sensitive to the fact that we are destroying our planet," Gouzer said in an interview ahead of the sale.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Vicki Allen)