NEW YORK (Reuters) - American chef Richard Blais may be best known for using gimmicks and gadgets in his television appearances but in his first cookbook, "Try This At Home!", he shows his cooking can be fun and tasty without being complicated.

The 41-year-old used often used liquid nitrogen and immersion circulators to make dishes on the U.S. cooking competition show "Top Chef All-Stars," which he won more than two years ago.

Blais, a marathon runner and soccer fan, was born in Uniondale, New York and now lives in Atlanta where he owns The Spence and several other restaurants.

The classically trained chef spoke to Reuters about his reputation as a molecular chef, cooking for his family and being a celebrity.

Q: Is there a misconception about your cooking?

A: My food has gotten a rap that it's really overly complicated, scientific, tech-driven. That's not necessarily the case. I cook simple food at home. People could buy the book and cook from it, not just look at the pretty pictures. It's not just about showcasing the food at the restaurant but also the simple food we make every day as well.

Q: How would you describe your cuisine?

A: My food is generally modern American. We take joy in interpreting classic food. The cookbook might take a beef goulash or a roast chicken or pizzas broken down in different ways. We like to take common comfortable American dishes and reinvent them or re-imagine them.

Q: Are there recipes in your book aimed at people who watched you cooking with liquid nitrogen and immersion circulators on television?

A: Those recipes are in the book as well. They are there to take a dish to the next step. We definitely want to put that style and those techniques in the book. We want to educate more people about those techniques and show them how they are applicable for the home cook.

Q: What specific points or techniques do you want readers to learn from your book?

A: Hopefully the book teaches them to cook a little better ... But the main thing is that cooking should be fun. It's an adventure. It's OK to make mistakes. Hopefully it opens up people's minds to have more fun in the kitchen and be more creative.

Q: What do you cook for your family?

A: We roast chickens. We do make a lot of pasta at home. We eat simple food whether it's a bowl of salad or a grilled cheese sandwich. Even though I'm a chef, we eat like most American families do.

Q: Do you find it interesting that you might be better known than some of your mentors like Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud because of television?

A: It is funny to me, for sure. These are my personal heroes and two of my personal mentors, chefs who are much more experienced, wiser and better. That's one part that's scary and also crazy to me.

Q: What advice do you have for aspiring chefs?

A: Make sure you love cooking and feeding people and keeping them happy. It took me 10 years before I popped up on a television show. It was 10 years of six-day work weeks and 16-hour days, doing some of the lowest level work, peeling potatoes and chopping vegetables. If you are in it just to be on a TV show or just to get some popularity because you cook, it's probably not a right choice you made for your career.

Q: But there might be those who look to you and others and think being on television is a good shortcut to achieve success.

A: Most of us who have been on the show 'Top Chef' have been accomplishing things before we got the call to be on a television show. Keep sending in applications. Go for it. Most of the chefs on my team are constantly sending out applications and answering casting calls for various shows. I recommend it. But make sure you are in the industry because you love to cook. For me, tomorrow if there is no more book and no more TV, I'll still be cooking and that'll make me happy.

Potato chip omelet (serves 4)

12 large eggs

3 tablespoons heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 tablespoon minced fresh chives

6 cups plain kettle-cooked potato chips

2 tablespoons unsalted butter or vegetable oil

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degree Fahrenheit. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, cream, white pepper, parsley, and chives together until combined. Fold in the potato chips until they are completely covered in the egg mixture, but try not to crush the chips too much. Let stand for 10 minutes, until the chips soften slightly.

2. Heat the butter in an over-proof 12-inch non-stick skillet over medium-high heat, swirling the pan to coat the bottom completely, until very hot. Carefully pour in the egg mixture and spread it evenly in the pan, then immediately reduce the heat to low. Cook until the eggs are set and the bottom is light golden, about 15 minutes. If the bottom is golden but the eggs are still runny on the top transfer the skillet to the preheated oven and bake until the eggs are completely set, 3 to 4 minutes.

3. To serve, invert a large flat plate over the pan and flip the pan and the plate to invert the omelet onto the plate. Let stand for at least 5 minutes before cutting into wedges and serving.

(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Eric Walsh)

The agency will still be able to fight wildfires across the West in spite of the force reduction of about 5 percent, Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell said, in part because three new air tankers are being put into service, including one being used to combat a massive wildfire in southern California. Four more planes sought by the Forest Service have been delayed because of a protest by a losing bidder.

Tidwell told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that the Forest Service expects to hire about 10,000 firefighters this year, down from 10,500 last year. The agency also will have less equipment than last year.

Even so, with a highly mobile workforce and a focus on high-risk areas, "it is likely that high levels of initial attack success will continue," Tidwell said, noting that the agency expects to continue to be able to put out about 98 percent of wildfires on initial attack.

Combined with the Interior Department, the federal government expects to have nearly 13,000 firefighters available this summer, including highly trained smoke jumpers and interagency incident management teams, Tidwell said. If needed, the agency also will bring in private contractors, although Tidwell said that would increase overall costs since short-term contractors can charge up to twice the rate of full-time workers.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management should do more to reduce the severity of major wildfires by clearing small trees and underbrush that serve as fuel for fires.

"The message has not gotten through with respect to the choice: You can spend more modest amounts on the front end with preventive kinds of efforts or you can invest substantially more money trying to play catch-up as these infernos rip their way through the West," Wyden said.

Tidwell said he agreed with Wyden in principle, but added that in tight budgets, money often is needed to fight fires as they happen. "It comes down to the simple reality to address (fire) suppression needs," he said.

Tidwell said climate change has resulted in wildfire seasons that are a full two months longer than in the 1970s. Instead of the traditional summer fire season, wildfires now begin as early as April and can stretch into October, federal officials say.

Wildfires on average now burn twice as many acres as they did in the 1970s, with bigger, hotter fires far more common.

Budgets for the Forest Service and Interior Department were reduced by 5 percent under automatic spending cuts that took effect March 1 after Congress and the president could not agree on a plan to cut the deficit.

A dry winter and early warming has created conditions for a wildfire season that could burn as much as last year, when states such as New Mexico and Oregon posted new records for burned acreage. More than 9.3 million acres burned in 2012.

Crews already have fought major blazes in Colorado and California. Improved weather conditions Tuesday enabled crews to contain a destructive wildfire north of Los Angeles, a day after evacuation orders were lifted for nearly 3,000 residents.

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Follow Matthew Daly on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - Lady Antebellum are growing up and getting sassy with their fourth studio album, "Golden," embracing a stripped-down sound to showcase their vocal strength as they prepare for an upcoming tour with a baby on board.

The country band, formed by vocalists Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and guitarist Dave Haywood in Nashville, Tennessee, released its latest album this week, which saw band members drawing on their live tour experiences.

"When we went into the studio we wanted the new record to have that live band sound and we wanted it to be different from the last record," Haywood told Reuters.

The trio, who have picked up seven Grammy awards since their debut self-titled album in 2008 and have become a strong force in the cross-over between country music and pop music, hoped fans would hear a new side to the Lady Antebellum sound.

By keeping the production simple, Haywood said the band wanted to showcase the vocals on "Golden," due in part to the band being more secure in how their voices blend together.

Scott added that the final 12 tracks selected for the album leant themselves to the simpler production.

"It made sense to dial it back, which allowed us more time to spend on vocals and get them exactly the way we wanted them," the singer said.

While most of the band's songs feature romantic lyrics, such as "American Honey," the lead single "Downtown" from the latest album saw the band take on an edgier feel as a sassy Scott sings about demanding her boyfriend to take her out in town.

"I love the song and thought it could be a huge hit. I thought it might be a risk if the fans didn't accept it, but the boys kept saying, 'We've seen you get sassy, and everybody else needs to see that side of you too,'" Scott said.

'ROAD BABY'

Along with a new album and upcoming tour, the band is also preparing for a big change within its dynamic, as Scott and her husband, the band's drummer Chris Tyrrell, prepare for the birth of their first child.

Scott, the daughter of country singer Linda Davis, said she grew up as a "road baby" on tour with her mother and hoped her child would benefit from the same experiences.

"I adapted as a child to my surroundings and I turned out okay, I hope, and I think our little girl will do the same. I have a feeling that being home will be more of an adjustment for her than being on the road," she said.

Kelley was also excited by the prospect of raising a child on the tour bus, saying "that baby is gonna see things no baby gets to see."

After more than five years of touring, the band said they are growing more comfortable musically and as a group, as they enter a new chapter in their career.

All three members are eager to leave an imprint with their fans as they continue to grow as a band, and they hoped they would leave a legacy behind, the central theme in the final song on the album, "Generation Away."

"One of the coolest things going on in our genre right now is the undercurrent of friendship among all the artists who came along around the same time that we did. I want to be remembered as that group of artists who were best friends, almost a Rat Pack type of thing," Kelley said.

(Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Eric Kelsey)

The Jascon-4 capsized early on Sunday at a mooring point around 30 km (20 miles) off oil-producing Delta state. Of 12 people who had been on board, one was rescued alive and another is still missing.

"The search and rescue operation that has been under way since 26 May has had to be stopped for safety reasons," the ship's owner West African Ventures said in a statement.

"The vessel, which is located some 30 metres under water in an upside-down position, has become so unstable that the risk of injury to our rescue divers has become unacceptably high," said West African Ventures, which is owned by Sea Trucks Group.

Chevron operates offshore and onshore joint ventures with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp and says it spends around $3 billion a year on its Nigerian operations.

The U.S. energy firm's 2012 net daily production from Nigeria was 238,000 barrels of crude oil, 165 million cubic feet of natural gas and 4,000 barrels of liquefied petroleum gas.

Many Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people who live in energy-rich Xinjiang, chafe at Chinese restrictions on their culture, language and religion, and the region is frequently the scene of deadly ethnic violence.

Last month, 21 people were killed in clashes in the heavily ethnic Uighur part of Xinjiang near the old Silk Road city of Kashgar, the deadliest unrest since July 2009, when nearly 200 people were killed in riots in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi.

China says it offers broad freedoms in Xinjiang, though few Chinese officials make the effort to learn the Uighur language or understand much about Islam in what is officially an atheist country.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing, deputy Xinjiang governor Shi Dagang said he had worked in southern Xinjiang for more than a decade and never had to carry a gun or have a police escort.

This was the common experience of government officials who are members of the majority Han Chinese ethnicity, many of whom work in areas heavily populated by minorities, he said.

"There is mutual respect by Han cadres and ethnic minorities, and we are friends. When we go into their houses as guests we are treated to meat and wine, with song and dance," Shi said.

"The ethnic minorities are simple-hearted and honest, very kind and unaffected. They love guests," he added. "I hope people don't have misapprehensions and go to Xinjiang and see for themselves."

China dismisses accusations its policies are connected to unrest, saying armed Uighur groups have links to Central Asian and Pakistani Islamist militants, and of carrying out attacks to establish an independent state they call East Turkistan.

"Those minority of people, the violent terrorists, ethnic splittists and religions extremists who want to cause trouble, their organizations are all outside the country, as are their backers behind the scenes," Shi said.

"How could we let this minority of people split Xinjiang off from the rest of the country and destroy this peaceful and harmonious society? It's impossible."

Many rights groups say China has long overplayed the threat posed to justify its tough controls in Xinjiang, which lies strategically on the borders of Central Asia, India and Pakistan.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)

BRESCIA, Italy (Reuters) - Italian Vincenzo Nibali followed up his victory in the 2010 Tour of Spain by winning the Giro d'Italia in Brescia on Sunday to claim victory in cycling's second biggest Grand Tour.

The Team Astana rider's triumph came ahead of Colombian Rigoberto Uran with Australia's Cadel Evans third.

Following the withdrawal of Giro pre-race favorite and 2012 Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins due to illness, Nibali began to build toward victory. stretching his competitors to breaking point in the stage 18 time trial at Polsa.

On Saturday's final mountain top stage finish at Tre Cime di Lavaredo, Nibali launched one last attack to stamp his authority and claimed his second stage victory of the race.

"I came here with a team that wanted to win the Giro, that was united with me from beginning to end and which really supported me all the way through," Nibali said after hoisting his trophy.

"And I knew from stage eight that I could win the Giro this year. And I have.

"My only serious difficulty came in the stage seven finish at Pescara, when I crashed twice on the descent, and I didn't know if I was going to recover from that."

Uran's runners-up spot is the best position for a Colombian rider in the Giro's history.

"I couldn't be happier, I came here with one job, which was to work for (leader and team mate) Bradley Wiggins, but when he had to abandon the team regrouped around me and I've got on the podium," Uran told reporters.

"If I can, I'm going to come back here and win the Giro next year."

Evans, at 36 years three months, is the oldest rider to make it onto a Giro podium since 1928.

"I came to this Giro with few reference points from earlier in the season and little by little I've come through," Evans told reporters.

"But I'll be back at the Tour, which is my team's biggest target of the season."

The 21st and final stage of the race, from Riese Pio X to Brescia, went to Briton Mark Cavendish in a bunch sprint that handed him the red points leader's jersey.

After losing by a single point in last year's Giro, Cavendish becomes the fifth rider to claim the points jersey on all three Grand Tours.

"I lost it by so little last time and there was no way I was going home without it this year," a jubilant Cavendish told reporters.

(Editing by Mark Pangallo)

Albrecht, who averages under eight minutes and two points a game, had 17 with time still left in the first half. He was 6 of 7 overall from the floor.

Player of the Year Trey Burke scored seven points over the first 2:44 for the Wolverines to match his entire output from Saturday night's semifinal. But he also drew his second foul with 11:09 and was lifted from the game by coach John Beilein.

Not to worry. With his shooting streak, Albrecht improved to 9-for-9 from long range so far in the tournament. He hasn't missed a 3-pointer since March 3. Before this game, he had only scored 67 points all season.

Wayne Blackshear had five points for Louisville, which was having trouble matching Michigan shot-for-shot. The Wolverines were shooting 52 percent, while the Cardinals were at 39.

Watching from the stands were all five members of the Fab Five, the brash group of sophomores who led Michigan (31-7) to the final in 1993 the program's last appearance at the Final Four.

That included Chris Webber, who infamously called a timeout the Wolverines didn't have at the end of Michigan's 77-71 loss to North Carolina in the 1993 final. He has had very little to do with his alma mater in recent years, but was seen getting out of his car and heading into the Georgia Dome shortly before tip-off.

Top-seeded Louisville (34-5) is trying to bring its first title back to the state of Kentucky's "other" school since 1986. Sitting on the bench with the Cardinals is sophomore guard Kevin Ware, the team's inspiration since snapping his tibia in the regional final last weekend.

Cardinals coach Rick Pitino is working the sideline hours after being named to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.

Pitino is trying to become the first coach to lead two programs to national championships. He took Kentucky to the title in 1996.

Russ Smith, the Louisville team leader who Pitino has nicknamed "Russdiculous" for some of his wild and wildly effective antics on the court, scores 18.9 points a game for the Cardinals during the season but has picked up the scoring in the tournament, averaging 25 in the five Louisville wins.

The Cardinals are playing without their main reserve, Ware, who broke his leg in the regional final against Duke. Needing a pickup without Ware, reserve swingman Luke Hancock scored 20 points in the 72-68 win over Wichita State. And rarely used walk-on Tim Henderson made two key 3-pointers during the comeback.

"The other night, we were not going to play in the championship game unless a walk-on steps up and makes a play to give us momentum," Pitino said in a pregame interview.

Michigan topped Syracuse 61-56 on Saturday despite an off night from Burke, who finished with only seven points on 1-for-8 shooting.

Burke, a sophomore, seriously considered leaving for the NBA after last season but decided he had unfinished business left in Ann Arbor. He picked up the AP Player of the Year award, among others, and is now one victory away from the ultimate prize in college hoops.

Before leaving the locker room, Beilein gave his team a pep talk: "You play with poise, play with confidence, you do all those things today and we're going to have one heck of a celebration," he said.

Monday night's game is the final act in what has been an ugly season overall in college hoops, with scoring at its lowest (67.49 points per team) since 1951-52 and shooting at its worst (43.3 percent) since 1964-65. The 131.2-points-per-game average during March Madness is the lowest since the 3-point line was brought to the game in 1987, though the teams were on pace to easily surpass that midway through the first half.

[More from BGR: ]

BBM is by far the most compelling wireless experience and wireless social-networking environment,Lazaridis said. Not only is BlackBerry back in a big way with BB10, [Heins is] also showing he can expand that vision to other platforms.

[More from BGR: ]

The free service is currently used by 60 million BlackBerry customers who send and receive more than 10 million messages a day, but it has experienced . BBM used to be one of the companys main selling points for its BlackBerry smartphones, and is perhaps one of the few remaining draws for the handsets.

BBMfor iPhones running iOS 6 or higher and Android smartphones sometime this summer.

This article was

"90210" star Shenae Grimes - clad in a black wedding gown -- tied the knot with fiance Josh Beech,on Friday.

"I now pronounce us Mr. and Mrs. Beech! Ahhh!" she Tweeted, along with a wedding photo of the newlyweds sharing a kiss.

The 23-year-old actress' unique dress is from Vera Wang's Fall 2012 collection and features a V-neck halter neckline with Chantilly lace applique and multi-layered tulle, according to .

The beautiful bride paired the gown with a largely red floral bouquet, with her hair swept back in a low, loose bun for the big day.

Josh, 26 (a musician/model), also late Friday night to share his happiness over marrying Shenae, Tweeting, "Happiest day of my life love you @shenaegrimes aka mrs beech x x."

The couple got engaged in December 2012, and Shenae shared the news in a blog posted on her website at the time.

"Thanks for all the congratulations everyone, I'm a very happy lady indeed and all the warm wishes are well appreciated!" she wrote, in a post titled "I'm Engaged!" "We plan to keep our special day very private and we hope everyone can respect that. Thanks for the love, right back atcha!"

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

Old-school robberies by masked criminals are being eclipsed by stealth multimillion dollar cybercrime operations which are catching companies and investigators by surprise.

"We are seeing an unprecedented number of cyberscams that include phishing for financial data, viruses, credit card fraud and others," Marcin Skowronek, an investigator at Europol's European Cybercrime Center in The Hague said on Saturday.

"In Europe, we are generally quite well protected against some types of fraud because of the chip and pin technology we use, but there are still shops and machines around the world who still take cards without chips. And the most popular destinations for this type of fraud are the United States and the Dominican Republic."

U.S. Investigators said Thursday a gang hit cash machines in 27 countries in two attacks the first netting $5 million in December and then $40 million in February in a 10-hour spree that involved about 36,000 transactions.

Hackers got into bank databases, eliminated withdrawal limits on prepaid debit cards and created access codes. Others loaded that data onto any plastic card even a hotel keycard with a magnetic stripe

A similar scam yielded some 50 arrests this year in Europe during a joint police operation between Romanian police and Europol, Skowronek said.

The operation took more than a year, involved some 400 police officers across Europe and required work comparing bank losses to illegal transactions and then cross-referencing suspects, said Skowronek, who said many national police forces were beefing up their undercover work in the cyberworld to catch criminals.

Investigators found illegal workshops for producing devices and software to manipulate point-of-sale terminals. Illegal electronic equipment, financial data, cloned cards and cash were seized in raids in Britain and Romania.

The group stole credit and debit card numbers and PIN codes by implanting card reading devices and malicious software on point-of-sale terminals. The criminals then used counterfeit payment cards with stolen data for further illegal transactions in countries that included Argentina, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the United States.

Some 36,000 debit card and credit card holders in some 16 countries were affected, Skowronek said. The amount stolen was unclear.

Bank fraud, ATM scams and phishing are common in Romania, one of the most corrupt countries in the European Union, according to Transparency International which monitors and measures graft.

Under the late communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was ousted and executed in 1989, Romanians specialized in mathematics and computer coding and criminal gangs have tapped into those skills. The tradition has continued and Romanian school students are more advanced in mathematics than many of their European counterparts.

Nadine Spanu, a spokeswoman for Romania's anti-crime prosecutors, said Saturday she had no statement to offer on the $45 million heist or a possible Romania connection.

Skimming works when criminals place devices on ATMs that copy consumers' card details and leave them vulnerable to fraud.There have been similar cases in the United States and Britain.

The EU is the world's largest market for payment card transactions and it is estimated that organized crime groups derive more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.9 billion) a year from payment card fraud in the EU.

Mike Urban, director of financial crime solutions at Fiserv, a Brookfield-Wisconsin-based company that provides financial technology to banks, credit unions and corporations across the world, says banks have not caught up with the threat of electronic crime.

"Compare this to a physical bank security. If someone walks in today, they're probably not going to get very much money, the dye pack is going to explode, they will be caught on video, they're probably not going to get away with it, and they're probably going to spend a long time in jail," said Urban. "Online, in the cyberworld, we're not there yet."

One security loophole thieves have learned to exploit is the lack of real-time transactions in ATM-speak.

Known as the "Gone in 60 Seconds" scam, thieves deposit money and then make coordinated cash-advance withdrawals in various places but all in less than 60 seconds so the machines essentially regard all of the withdrawals as one transaction.

In October, some 14 people were charged following an FBI-led investigation into the theft of more than $1 million from Citibank using the 60-second scam. The simultaneous transactions at casinos in California and Nevada tricked the system into thinking that they were one transaction. Even on some joint accounts where both partners have cards for the same account, users can often bypass withdrawal limits if the transactions are done at the same time.

"This type of attack might be preventable if ATM networks were able to monitor transactions in real time for unusually large numbers of transactions involving individual cards or cards from the same issuing institution. Unfortunately, that type of infrastructure doesn't exist today, but perhaps it's time to consider creating and implementing it now, especially after this latest attack," said Tom Cross, director of security research at the Lancope, a company specializing in flow analysis for security and network performance based in Alpharetta, Georgia.

Police Maj. Gen. Pisit Paoin, chief of Thailand's Technology Crime Suppression Division, said in a telephone interview Saturday that Thai police have arrested more than 20 suspects involved in the $45 million cyber heist including those from Bulgaria, Bangladesh and eastern Europe.

He said that in the latest arrest in early April, a group of Bangladeshi and Malaysian suspects were using about 50 cards to withdraw cash from machines in Bangkok for a month and took out about 10 million baht ($336,000).

___

Thanyarat Doksone from Bangkok, Alison Mutler from Bucharest and Martha Mendoza from San Francisco contributed to this report.