The Congressional Medal of Honor Society said it chose the women to receive its Citizen Honors Medal, the highest award it gives to a civilian, after receiving dozens of nominations for their actions during the shooting.

The educators' families received the awards on their behalf at the ceremony at Newtown High School. Janet Robinson, who was superintendent of Newtown schools at the time of the shooting, told the audience that the women were not trained for anything like what happened on Dec. 14 but they acted to protect the children.

"There are no people more worthy of this award," Robinson said, according to The News-Times of Danbury.

Two of the educators honored, principal Dawn Hochsprung and school psychologist Mary Sherlach, are believed to have lunged, unarmed, at the gunman to try to stop him. Another, teacher Victoria Soto, reportedly hid children in a closet. Lauren Rousseau read to her students as a gunman invaded the school, doing her best to keep them calm. Rachel D'Avino and Anne Marie Murphy were said to have wrapped their arms around the children as chaos ensued.

The women exemplified courage, sacrifice and selflessness in trying to protect students from gunman Adam Lanza, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society said in announcing the honor.

The organization also planned to honor every other member of the school's staff with a Certificate of Commendation.

"Many teachers and staff members disregarded their own safety that day to hide and protect the children in their care," said Harold Fritz, the society's president.

The society honored four other people with the award this year. They received their medals during an annual ceremony on March 25 at Arlington National Cemetery.

In February, President Barack Obama bestowed the nation's second-highest civilian honor, the Presidential Citizens Medal, on the families of the fallen educators.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Given Kate Spade Saturday's bold designs, bright colors and creative flair, it was probably only fitting that the new lifestyle brand opened its first flagship store in fashion-obsessed Tokyo.

After all, the sister label of Kate Spade New York began developing the brand with Japanese consumers in mind more than three years ago, envisaging functional designs that would strike a chord with on-the-go urbanites and expand the original brand's DNA into a more casual realm.

Kate Spade Saturday opened its first store in Tokyo's trendy Harajuku district earlier this month and another in Osaka last week, and plans to have a total of five Japan stores open by June. Following the Japan launch, it also debuted in the United States via an online store and is eyeing a push into other international markets later this year.

"Because this brand's concept originated in Japan and we really wanted to make the brand global, we felt Tokyo was the perfect city to launch the brand," Ayako Yanagisawa, president of Kate Spade Japan, told Reuters in an interview at the company's offices in Harajuku.

"I think Tokyo is a very interesting city for the fashion industry to try out a new brand. The market is mature enough to receive, and digest, and understand new creativity. There is also a wide age range of people who like fashion in this city," she said.

"It can be a real showcase for the Asian market."

Tokyo has served as an overseas launch point in recent years for several brands, including designers Rebecca Minkoff and Tracy Reese. Both the Rebecca Minkoff and Tracy Reese brands showed at the Tokyo Runway fashion show Wednesday held in conjunction with Japan Fashion Week.

TRENDSETTERS

Kate Spade New York, owned by Fifth & Pacific Companies Inc, is known for the splashy colors and bold prints of its designer handbags, clothing and accessories. It competes with brands like Coach and Michael Kors in the attainable luxury category.

Kate Spade Saturday skews slightly younger, more casual, and less expensive than the New York label.

Yanagisawa said both the Japanese and U.S. sides of the company were involved in the development of the Saturday brand from the onset, and the design of several products reflects Japanese consumers' love for functionality and detail.

Its Half-Circle Bag, which goes for 19,845 yen ($210) online, can be worn over the shoulder or around the waist, and the strap can even be worn as a belt. Its Square Tote, at 17,325 yen ($180), has two side pockets that can be used to hold folding umbrellas - a must-have for Japanese urban life - or just as easily a bottle of wine to take to a party.

Japan is Kate Spade's biggest market outside the United States and the company aims to increase the number of its Japanese stores - including New York, Saturday and its Jack Spade men's brand - to between 85 and 105 in 2016, from 54 in 2012.

"The Japanese retail market still has room to grow," Yanagisawa said, noting that so-called fashion buildings, often built adjacent to or above train stations, were a big draw for women in their 20s and 30s even as traditional department store sales drop off.

Japan's young trendsetters are starting to take notice.

"Everyone has a Kate Spade iPhone case," said Kyoko Oyamada, a 21-year-old university student in Tokyo sporting a black leather Kate Spade handbag. "I thought they were cute so I went to check out the bags myself and found one I wanted."

($1 = 95.0550 Japanese yen)

(Reporting by Chris Gallagher, editing by Elaine Lies)

(Logo: )

Recall Summary

Name of product: Bell Full Throttle Bike HelmetsHazard: The buckle on the helmet's safety strap can release in an accident and allow the helmet to fall off the rider, posing a risk of head injury.Remedy: RefundConsumer Contact: Bell Sports Inc. toll-free at (866) 892-6059 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. CT Monday through Friday, or visit the firm's website atand click on "Recall Notice" for more information.

Recall Details

Units: About 2,500Description: This recall involves Bell Full Throttle, full coverage bicycle motocross (BMX) helmets with a chin bar. The all-black helmets have UPC code 035011 937052 and part number 1009159 printed on a label on the side of the helmet shell. The Bell logo is affixed to the front and lower side of the helmet.Incidents/Injuries: None reported. Remedy: Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled helmets and contact Bell Sports for instructions on receiving a full refund. Sold exclusively by: Toys R Us stores nationwide and online at ToysRUs.com between July 2012 and January 2013 for about $60. Importer: Bell Sports Inc., of Scotts Valley, Calif.Manufacturer: MHR Manufactured in: China

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is still interested in receiving incident or injury reports that are either directly related to this product recall or involve a different hazard with the same product. Please tell us about your experience with the product on .

CPSC is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of the thousands of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries, and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $900 billion annually. CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard. CPSC's work to ensure the safety of consumer productssuch as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters, and household chemicalscontributed to a decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years.

Under federal law, it is illegal to attempt to sell or resell this or any other recalled product.

To report a dangerous product or a product-related injury, go online to: , call CPSC's Hotline at (800) 638-2772 or teletypewriter at (301) 595-7054 for the hearing and speech impaired. Consumers can obtain this news release and product safety information at . To join a free e-mail subscription list, please go to .

CPSC Consumer Information HotlineContact us at this toll-free number if you have questions about a recall:800-638-2772 (TTY 301-595-7054)Times: 8 a.m. 5:30 p.m. ET; Messages can be left anytimeCall to get product safety and other agency information and to .

Media ContactPlease use the phone numbers below for all media requests.Phone: (301) 504-7908Spanish: (301) 504-7800

SOURCE U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

Infuriated by loud drumming outside the Gielgud Theatre, where Mirren is portraying the queen in the play "The Audience", she burst out in full costume during the interval on Saturday night to tell them to shut up, with a few swear words thrown in for good measure.

"I'm afraid there were a few 'thespian' words used. They got a very stern royal ticking off but I have to say they were very sweet and they stopped immediately," Mirren told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Mirren, 67, who last month added the best actress gong at Britain's top theatre honours to the Academy Award she won for the 2006 film "The Queen", said the drumming had got so loud it was disturbing cast and theatre-goers alike.

Audience members said they had tried unsuccessfully to silence the drummers, but the sight of one of Britain's most prestigious actors dressed as the monarch did the trick.

Footage captured on mobile phone and aired on Sky News showed an angry Mirren, attired in tiara and pearls, accosting the drummers, waving her arms and gesticulating angrily before the music was brought to a sudden stop.

"I literally walked straight off stage, straight up the stairs and straight out the stage door and banged my way through the crowd who were watching and said 'stop, you've got to stop right now' only I might have used stronger language than that," she told the newspaper.

"They were very sweet and stopped the minute they knew I wasn't just a batty old woman haranguing them on the streets of Soho on a Saturday night.

"I felt rotten, but on the other hand they were destroying our performance so something had to be done."

Liam Emerson, the musical director of the Batala London drummers who had been hired to advertise a gay festival later in May, said they had not intended to disturb anyone.

"Her language was very blue, which looking back on it is probably quite funny really," he told Sky News. "But once I realised it was Helen Mirren and we were right next to a theatre we kind of stopped and politely apologised."

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Mike Collett-White)

The Tigers did not announce terms of the deal but according to media reports, Verlander will remain under contract to Detroit through the 2019 season and could become MLB's first $200 million pitcher.

Verlander has two years remaining on his current five-year $79.5 million deal and combined with a new five-year $140 million extension that includes a club option for 2020 for another $22 million, he would become baseball's richest hurler.

He reportedly would make $28 million each season from 2015-2019.

The deal, which comes two days before the Major League season opens on Sunday, easily surpasses the seven-year, $175 million extension Felix Hernandez signed in February with the Seattle Mariners.

"Justin is one of the premier pitchers in baseball and we are thrilled to keep him in a Tigers uniform for many years to come," said Detroit president, chief executive and general manager Dave Dombrowski on the Tigers' website. "Justin has been a Tiger for his entire career and he is on pace to be one of the greatest pitchers in this illustrious franchise's history."

A five-time All-Star, Verlander has established himself as one of baseball's most dominant pitchers, claiming American League most valuable player and Cy Young Award honors in 2011.

Last season the 30-year-old right-hander went 17-8 with a 2.64 earned run average and 239 strikeouts in 33 starts in helping the Tigers to a World Series appearance against the San Francisco Giants.

His career record of 124-65 includes two no-hitters.

(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto, editing by Gene Cherry)

"Thebans," based on the tragedies of Sophocles, is a first opera from composer Julian Anderson, with libretto by Irish playwright Frank McGuinness. It opens in May 2014.

Gilliam, who directed "The Damnation of Faust" at the ENO in 2011, will lead a production of Hector Berlioz's "Benvenuto Cellini" in June 2014.

Both will be conducted by ENO Musical Director Edward Garner.

The season includes 10 new productions, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte," directed by Katie Mitchell, a Calixto Bieito-directed production of Ludwig van Beethoven's "Fidelio" and Mozart's "The Magic Flute" directed by Simon McBurney a co-production with the Netherlands Opera.

The company also plans revivals of recent successes including David Alden's production of Benjamin Britten's "Peter Grimes" and Phelim McDermott's staging of Philip Glass's Gandhi opera "Satyagraha."

Unlike its London neighbor the Royal Opera, the ENO performs all its works in English. It also has tried to overcome opera's often stuffy image, offering audiences 3-D cinema broadcasts, casual performances aimed at younger music-lovers and an opera about the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

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Online: www.eno.org

No one saw a parachute Thursday, and if Kurt Ruppert, 29, of Lake City, Fla., survived the jump and was caught in a tree or lost in the forest, he likely died of hypothermia, a King County sheriff's sergeant said.

"We just don't think he survived at this point," Sgt. Cindi West said Monday.

Dozens of searchers were out four days "calling and calling," West said. "If he survived he wasn't conscious enough to yell to us."

It snowed Thursday night and temperatures have been in the 30s and 40s around Mount Si, a steep and heavily forested 4,200-foot peak about 30 miles east of Seattle.

Searchers covered 9 square miles before the ground search was suspended Sunday. Fog on Monday prevented a helicopter search.

Ruppert was taking turns with two friends who were waiting at the grassy landing zone when he jumped out of a helicopter at 6,500 feet and disappeared.

The webbed wing suit allows a skydiver to glide at up to 100 miles per hour, so Ruppert could have covered a lot of ground, West said.

Friends in Florida say Ruppert had been skydiving seven or eight years and was experienced in a wing suit.

There's a record of Ruppert's cellphone signal until he went up in the air and jumped or shut it off, West said. That information led to an extensive search of a quarter-square mile area, which found no sign of him.

Outlying areas where Ruppert might have landed are heavily wooded or mountain cliffs.

Ruppert carried a blue parachute in a black pack. He was dressed in a tan and green wing suit, which would make him hard to spot in the woods.

Friends of Ruppert's were with ground searchers over the weekend, but did not want to talk with reporters, West said.

"People that are out there are having a little memorial today on the mountain," said a friend in Florida, Skydive Palatka owner Art Shaffer.

"There's a lot of sad people here," he said Monday.

Prominent liberation theologian Leonardo Boff said Pope Francis has what it takes to fix a church "in ruins" and shares his movement's commitment to building a church for the world's poor.

"With this pope, a Jesuit and a pope from the Third World, we can breathe happiness," Boff said Saturday at a Buenos Aires book fair. "Pope Francis has both the vigor and tenderness that we need to create a new spiritual world."

The 74-year-old Brazilian theologian was pressured to remain silent by previous popes who tried to draw a hard line between socially active priests and leftist politics. As Argentina's leading cardinal before he became pope, Francis reinforced this line, suggesting in 2010 that reading the Gospel with a Marxist interpretation only gets priests in trouble.

But Boff says the label of a closed-minded conservative simply doesn't fit Francis.

"Pope Francis comes with the perspective that many of us in Latin America share. In our churches we do not just discuss theological theories, like in European churches.Our churches work together to support universal causes, causes like human rights, from the perspective of the poor, the destiny of humanity that is suffering, services for people living on the margins."

The liberation theology movement, which seeks to free lives as well as souls, emerged in the 1960s and quickly spread, especially in Latin America. Priests and church laypeople became deeply involved in human rights and social struggles. Some were caught up in clashes between repressive governments and rebels, sometimes at the cost of their lives.

The movement's martyrs include El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero, whose increasing criticism of his country's military-run government provoked his assassination as he was saying Mass in 1980. He was killed by thugs connected to the military hierarchy a day after he preached that "no soldier is obliged to obey an order that is contrary to the will of God." His killing presaged a civil war that killed nearly 90,000 over the next 12 years.

The case for beatification of Romero languished under popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI due to their opposition to liberation theology, but he was put back on track to becoming a saint days after Francis became pope.

Scores of other liberation theologians were killed in the 1970s and 1980s. Six Jesuit teachers were slaughtered at their university in El Salvador in 1989. Other priests and lay workers were tortured and vanished in the prisons of Chile and Argentina. Some were shot to death while demanding land rights for the poor in Brazil. A handful went further and picked up arms, or died accompanying rebel columns as chaplains, such as American Jesuit James Carney, who died in Honduras in 1983.

While even John Paul embraced the "preferential option for the poor" at the heart of the movement, most church leaders were unhappy to see intellectuals mixing doses of Marxism and class struggle into their analysis of the Gospel. It was a powerfully attractive mixture for idealistic Latin Americans who were raised in Catholic doctrine, educated by the region's army of Marxist-influenced teachers, and outraged by the hunger, inequality and bloody repression all around them.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, hundreds of Argentine priests were affiliated with a movement that proclaimed Christian teaching "inescapably obliges us to join in the revolutionary process for urgent radical change of existing structures and to reject formally the capitalistic system we see around us ... We shall go forward in search of a Latin American brand of socialism that will hasten the coming of the new man."

John Paul and his chief theologian, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, drove some of the most ardent and experimental liberation theologians out of the priesthood, castigated some of those who remained, and ensured that the bishops and cardinals they promoted took a wary view of leftist social activism.

Yet much of the movement remained, practiced by thousands of grassroots "base communities" working out of local parishes across the hemisphere, nurtured by nuns, priests and a few bishops who put freedom from hunger, poverty and social injustice at the heart of the Church's spiritual mission.

Hundreds of advocates at a conference in Brazil last year declared themselves ready for a comeback.

"At times embers are hidden beneath the ashes," said the meeting's final declaration, which expressed hopes of stirring ablaze "a fire that lights other fires in the church and in society."

Boff and other advocates are thrilled that this new pope spent so much time ministering in the slums, and are inspired by his writings, which see no heresy in social action.

"The option for the poor comes from the first centuries of Christianity. It is the Gospel itself," said then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio during a 2010 deposition in a human rights trial. He said that if he were to repeat "any of the sermons from the first fathers of the church, from the 2nd or 3rd century, about how the poor must be treated, they would say that mine would be Maoist or Trotskyite."

Msgr. Gregorio Rosa Chavez, the auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, said Romero and Francis have the same vision of the church. "When he says 'a church that is poor and for the poor,' that is what Monsignor Romero said so many times," he said.

Rosa Chavez said neither was among the most radical of churchmen.

"There are many theologies of liberation," he said. "The pope represents one of these currents, the most pastoral current, the current that combines action with teaching." He described Francis' version as "theologians on foot, who walk with the people and combine reflection with action," and contrasted them with "theologians of the desk, who are from university classrooms."

John Paul II himself embraced the term "liberation theology," but was also credited with inspiring resistance to the communist regime in his native Poland, and was allergic to socialist pieties.

For 30 years, the Vatican has been seeding Latin America, Africa and Asia with cardinals "who have tended to be, adverse, to put it kindly, to liberation theology," said Stacey Floyd-Thomas, a professor of ethics and society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School.

In Brazil, Sao Paulo Archbishop Odilo Scherer, widely considered a possible pope, told the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper last year that liberation theology "lost its reason of being because of its Marxist ideological underpinnings . which are incompatible with Christian theology."

"It had its merits by helping bring back into focus matters like social justice, international justice and the liberation of oppressed peoples. But these were always constant themes in the teachings of the Church," Scherer said.

In 1984, Ratzinger put Boff in Galileo's chair for a Vatican inquisition over his writings, eventually stripping him of his church functions and ordering him to spend a year in "obedient silence." Nearly a decade later, in 1993, the Vatican pressured him again, and he quit the Franciscan order.

Now Boff says Francis has brought a "new spring" to the global church.

"Josef Ratzinger. He was against the cause of the poor, liberation theology," Boff said. "But this is from last century. Now we are under a new pope."

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Associated Press Writers Michael Warren in Buenos Aires, Jenny Barchfield in Rio de Janeiro, Marcos Aleman in San Salvador and John Rice in Mexico City contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A star-studded crowd gathered to celebrate the 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees on Thursday, as Oprah Winfrey and Usher gathered to pay homage to the likes of Donna Summer, Quincy Jones, Randy Newman and Rush.

Disco queen Summer, producer Jones and comedy-rock singer Newman were inducted along with Canadian progressive rock band Rush, blues guitarist Albert King, hip hop pioneers Public Enemy, rockers Heart and veteran producer Lou Adler.

Television personality and media mogul Winfrey, who said she was discovered by veteran R&B producer Jones when he cast her in "The Color Purple" in 1985, praised his decades-long career, during which he launched stars such as the late Michael Jackson.

"He defines the word legend, he is remarkable and everybody knows it," Winfrey said.

"I continue to be amazed at what goes on in his head ... he's of this time and so far ahead of this time," she added as she present Jones, 80, with his induction trophy.

"Queen of Disco" Summer, who died last May aged 68, was inducted by singer Kelly Rowland, who praised Summer's career for paving the way for female artists

"Her words remind us of exactly who we are," she said.

Summer's husband and daughters were on hand to accept her trophy and singer Jennifer Hudson got the crowd on their feet singing Summer's hits "Bad Girls" and "Last Dance".

Newman, 69, kicked off the night with "I Love LA", joined on stage by musicians Tom Petty, Jackson Browne and John Fogerty and later performed his songs "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" and "I'm Dead" with former Eagles member Don Henley.

Henley, who inducted Newman, criticized the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for its delay in including Newman, calling it "one of those inductions long overdue, in fact, shamefully overdue."

Newman was less critical, saying he was "glad" to be inducted while he was still alive.

"I always wanted to be respected by musicians ... it means a great deal to me that the people I respect are giving me respect," Newman said.

TRIBUTE TO THE BLUES

Grammy-winning singer-songwriter John Mayer paid homage to late pioneering American blues guitarist Albert King, who died in 1992 aged 69.

"The blues is in every undercurrent of the music that I play ... Albert is forever embedded in that music," Mayer said.

Seattle rockers Heart, fronted by sister duo Nancy and Ann Wilson, were inducted by Chris Cornell and performed their hits "Barracuda" and "Butterfly".

"Equality is coming right along. For us, music is the real church, it's a life calling, it's bigger than men and women put together, music makes us all equal and human," Nancy said.

Canadian progressive rockers Rush had the largest number of fans in the Nokia theater, receiving rousing standing ovations as they were inducted by Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins.

The night's longest speech went to Public Enemy's eccentric rapper Flavor Flav, who giggled and rambled as he talked about the influence of his group's music.

Public Enemy - comprising rappers Flavor Flav, Chuck D, Professor Griff and DJ Lord - were influential in bringing a political and social conscience to hip hop in the 1980s.

"We all come from the damn blues. Let's not get it twisted. We studied the forms of music in DJ culture ... we've always known and paid respect to where music comes from," Chuck D said.

The hip hop collective also sampled music from Summer, Jones and Rush as they performed their tracks "Bring The Noise", "911 is a Joke" and the seminal "Fight The Power".

To be eligible for induction in 2013, a candidate must have released their debut album or single at least 25 years earlier. The ceremony will be televised on HBO on May 18.

The eight inductees were chosen by some 500 voters of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, which includes past inductees and for the first time, allowed fans to vote.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Elaine Lies and Pravin Char)

(Reuters) - Chip equipment maker KLA-Tencor Corp reported lower quarterly results and said its outlook for the rest of the year has weakened due to manufacturers' concerns about the global economy.

KLA-Tencor's stock fell nearly 5 percent in extended trade after Chief Executive Rick Wallace said on a conference call he was seeing a pause in demand from contract manufacturers and gave a current quarter revenue estimate that was below expectations.

Wallace said he expects chip companies to spend close to 10 percent less on capital expenditures this year compared to 2012. He had previously expected a dip of between 5 percent and 10 percent.

KLA-Tencor said it expects bookings in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ends in June, of between $625 million and $775 million. That was less than the $825 million expected by B. Riley & Co analyst Ben Pang.

A slowing PC industry and worries about the economy have hurt demand for chip manufacturing gear, although booming sales of smartphones and tablets have been a bright spot.

KLA-Tencor's products help measure the effectiveness of complicated manufacturing processes and reduce defects essential for chipmakers implementing challenging new technologies.

Net income for the company's third quarter fell to $166.4 million, or 98 cents per share, from $205.3 million, or $1.21 per share in the same quarter a year earlier, the company said in a statement on Thursday.

KLA-Tencor had adjusted earnings per share of $1.01, beating expectations of 86 cents.

Revenue declined to $729 million from $840.5 million a year earlier, but beat estimates. Analysts on average were expecting third-quarter revenue of $727 million.

The company said it expects fourth-quarter revenue between $670 million and $730 million. Analysts were expecting revenue of $763 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Shares of KLA-Tencor fell 4.95 percent in extended trade after closing up 0.74 percent at $55.90.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Carol Bishopric)