Classic 1970s TV series "Roots," about one African family's struggle to survive slavery over generations, is to be remade for US television next year, the companies behind it said Friday.

Emmy-award winning actor LeVar Burton, who played Kunta Kinte in the original show, will serve as executive co-producer on the new series, being made by TV companies History, A&E Network and Lifetime.

Ben E. King, the soul singer whose Gospel-influenced "Stand By Me" became one of the most broadcast songs of the 20th century, has died at 76, his spokesman said Friday.

King, who lived in New Jersey, died of natural causes on Thursday, spokesman Phil Brown told Agence France Presse.

Olympic champion turned transgender reality TV star Bruce Jenner is being sued for wrongful death damages over a car crash which killed a 69-year-old woman, legal documents filed Friday showed.

The stepchildren of the dead woman, Kim Howe, are seeking unspecified compensation over the accident in February, involving four cars on the Pacific Coast Highway in the Los Angeles metro area.

Actor Nicholas Brendon says a warrant for his arrest in Florida is a "huge misunderstanding."

Brendon, who has appeared on the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Criminal Minds," was arrested in March in Tallahassee after a disturbance at a hotel.

Actress Sofia Vergara's ex- fiancé's demands that she give him two frozen embryos they created — referring to them as "our girls" — highlights the wider legal and ethical issues surrounding frozen embryos created by in-vitro fertilization.

Businessman Nick Loeb wrote Wednesday on NYTimes.com that he has sued the "Modern Family" star for the embryos because he longs to become a parent and doesn't want the "two lives" they created to "be destroyed or sit in a freezer until the end of time."

Britney Spears has canceled two shows in Las Vegas this weekend after injuring her ankle in an embarrassing onstage fall, her publicist said Thursday.

"Britney injured her ankle during her performance Wednesday evening and her doctor has advised her not to perform Friday and Saturday evening so that she may heal," said a statement.

Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge Wednesday marked their fourth wedding anniversary while waiting for the birth of their second child.

The former Kate Middleton is expected to give birth in the coming days. Palace officials have said she is due in late April without providing further details.

Pop star Justin Bieber on Wednesday laughed off media reports that he was quizzed by police in Rome over Argentina's request for him to be arrested over the alleged assault of a photographer.

Two of the country's most respected dailies, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera, said the Canadian heart throb had been interrogated at his five-star hotel, but had not been arrested.

The intricacies of cross-strait diplomacy may not have been uppermost on her mind but Katy Perry caused a stir in both Taiwan and China with her politically tinged attire at a Taipei concert this week.

Singer-songwriter Perry moved fans to tears Tuesday, according to local media, after she appeared on stage draped in a Taiwanese flag at Taipei Arena, while donning a glittering gold dress adorned with sunflowers -- the symbol of anti-China student protests in Taiwan last year.

They don't fit the normal fan profile, but South Korea's 40-something K-pop "aunties" are every bit as obsessed with their idols as their teenage counterparts.

Posters and photos of one of K-pop's best-known boy bands, Big Bang, adorn every wall of Lee Un-Young's apartment in Seoul -- a live-in shrine to a decade-long devotion.