Pete Seeger and pals attend NYC protest action (AP)

NEW YORK – Folk music legend Pete Seeger joined in the Occupy Wall Street protest Friday night, replacing his banjo with two canes as he marched with throngs of people in New York City's tony Upper West Side past banks and shiny department stores.

The 92-year-old Seeger, accompanied by musician-grandson Tao Rodriguez Seeger, composer David Amram, and bluesman Guy Davis, shouted out a verse as the crowd of about 1,000 people sang and chanted.

They marched peacefully over more than 30 blocks from Symphony Space, where the Seegers and other musicians performed, to Columbus Circle. Police watched from the sidelines.

At the circle, Seeger and friends walked to the chant of "We are the 99 percent" and "We are unstoppable, another world is possible." Seeger stopped to bang a metal statue of an elephant with his cane — to cheers from the crowd.

At the center of the circle, Seeger and Amram were joined by `60s folk singer Arlo Guthrie in a round of "We Shall Overcome," a protest anthem made popular by Seeger.

After more singing, Seeger asked for a mic check to tell the crowd: "The words are simple: I could be happy spending my days on the river that flows both way-ay-ays."

During the march, the younger Seeger, in troubadour fashion like his grandfather, walked among the protesters playing songs. Amra took up a flute and others enlivened the night protest with the sounds of the accordion, banjos, and guitars.

At the front of the throng, marchers held American flags and a large blue flag that said: "Revolution Generation ... Debt is Slavery." Along the way, the crowd sang protest songs made popular or written by Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and others of the protest era.

Occupy Wall Street began a month ago in lower Manhattan among a few young people, and has grown to thousands around the country and the world. An Associated Press-GfK poll says more than one-third of the country supports the Wall Street protesters, and even more — 58 percent — say they are furious about America's politics.

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Winehouse family, friends attend singer's funeral (AP)

LONDON – Wearing dark suits, black dresses and the occasional beehive hairdo, friends and family said goodbye to Amy Winehouse Tuesday with prayers, tears, laughter and song at an emotional funeral ceremony.

The singer's father, mother and brother were joined by Winehouse's close friends, band members and celebrities including producer Mark Ronson for the service at Edgwarebury Cemetery in north London. Media personality Kelly Osbourne was one of several women to wear her hair piled beehive-high in an echo of the singer's trademark style.

Fans and photographers thronged the lane outside, but the funeral was for several hundred friends and family only.

The Jewish service was led by a rabbi and included prayers in English and Hebrew and reminiscences from Winehouse's father, Mitch Winehouse. The cab driver and jazz singer, who helped foster his daughter's love of music, ended his eulogy with the words "Goodnight, my angel, sleep tight. Mummy and Daddy love you ever so much."

It ended with a rendition of Carole King's "So Far Away," one of Winehouse's favorite songs.

"Mitch was funny, he told some great stories from childhood about how headstrong she was, and clearly the family and friends recognized the stories and laughed along," said family spokesman Chris Goodman.

"He stressed so many times she was happier now than she had ever been and he spoke about her boyfriend and paid tribute to a lot of people in her life."

According to the Press Association news agency, Mitch Winehouse said during the ceremony that his daughter was trying to overcome her addictions, having told him: "Dad I've had enough, I can't stand the look on your and the family's faces anymore."

He said he planned to set up a foundation in his daughter's name to help people struggling with addiction.

"Knowing she wasn't depressed ... knowing she passed away happy, it makes us all feel better," he said.

Family friend Alfie Ezekiel, 55, said the service had been a "joyful" celebration of the singer's life.

"Mitch gave a very good eulogy and he managed to get through it very well, considering," he said.

Close family and friends — including Winehouse's recent boyfriend, Reg Traviss — moved on to Golders Green Crematorium, where the singer was cremated.

Several mourners, including Ronson — who co-produced Winehouse's breakthrough album "Back to Black" — looked emotional as they left the red brick structure, which has seen the cremations of thousands of ordinary Londoners and many celebrities, including psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, comedian Peter Sellers and drummer Keith Moon of The Who.

The family was then due to hold two days of shiva, a Jewish traditional period of mourning.

The soul diva, who had battled alcohol and drug addiction, was found dead Saturday at her London home. She was 27.

An autopsy held Monday failed to determine what caused her death. Police are awaiting the results of toxicology tests, which will take two to four weeks.

On Monday the singer's father, mother and brother visited the house where she died, thanking mourners who had left flowers and cards.

Mitch Winehouse said "Amy was about one thing and that was love."

"Her whole life was devoted to her family and her friends and to you guys as well," he told fans.

Winehouse released only two albums in her short career — winning five Grammy awards for "Back to Black" — and often made headlines because of drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, destructive relationships and abortive performances.

Since her death, her records have re-entered album charts around the world, and tributes have poured in from fans and fellow musicians.

George Michael called her "the most soulful vocalist this country has ever seen," and soul singer Adele said she "paved the way for artists like me and made people excited about British music again."

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Mesfin Fekadu in London contributed to this report.

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Murdochs bow to pressure to attend UK parliament (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – Rupert Murdoch on Thursday caved in to pressure from Britain's parliament to answer questions over alleged crimes at one of his newspapers, setting up a showdown with lawmakers keen to break the media mogul's grip on politics.

British police arrested a ninth suspect, named by media as a former deputy editor of Murdoch's News of the World, adding weight to a government call for the media regulator to decide whether his business is fit to run British television stations.

Murdoch, 80, has already been forced to close the News of the World and back down on his biggest acquisition plan yet, the buyout of British pay TV operator BSkyB, due to an outcry over allegations reporters accessed private phone messages.

He and his son James, heir apparent to his News Corp empire, initially said they would not face questions from parliament's media committee over phone hacking and then reversed their decision after Prime Minister David Cameron said they should attend.

Rebekah Brooks, who runs Murdoch's British newspaper arm, News International, had agreed to face a grilling from the committee. Brooks was a friend of Cameron, who echoed calls for her to go.

Brooks, who edited the News of the World at the time of one of the most serious alleged incidents, said the police inquiry might restrict what she could say.

Speculation was growing at News International's east London headquarters that the company might be reconsidering their position on Brooks after resisting pressure for her to quit, a source familiar with the situation said.

Murdoch, a U.S. citizen, said he would give evidence to a public inquiry announced by Cameron after questions were raised over the role of some police officers in the scandal and over the relations between British politicians and media owners.

The session is certain to be hostile. During a heated debate on the hacking scandal on Wednesday, Dennis Skinner, a veteran left-wing Labour member of parliament described Murdoch as "this cancer on the body politic." Murdoch and other senior executives have denied any knowledge of the alleged practices.

GLOBAL FALLOUT

The allegations of phone hacking, which reached a peak as Murdoch's British bid came up for approval this month, are now reverberating around the world.

Some U.S. lawmakers called for an investigation to see if the billionaire's News Corp had broken American laws while in Australia, where Murdoch was born, the prime minister said her government may review media laws.

Murdoch, who owns 39 percent of British pay TV operator BSkyB, withdrew his $12 billion bid to take over the rest of it on Wednesday after British politicians united in a call for him to pull out of the deal.

Britain's Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg noted media regulator Ofcom was already looking into whether News Corp should be allowed to maintain its existing stake in BSkyB.

"Clearly there are big questions about the fitness and properness of News International and that is exactly why Ofcom are now looking at it," Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrat coalition partners, told BBC Radio 4.

"The thing that I think isn't quite clear to me at least is exactly how fit and proper tests are applied," he added.

The catalysts for public disgust over the hacking allegations were reports a News Corp newspaper had hacked into the voicemails of murder victims.

"To see some of the things that have been done to intrude on people's privacy, particularly in moments of grief and stress in the family lives, I've truly been disgusted to see it," Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard told Australia's National Press Club.

"I anticipate that we will have a discussion amongst parliamentarians about this, about the best review and way of dealing with all of this," she said.

"DARK ARTS" OF JOURNALISM

U.S.-based News Corp has been rocked by a series of scandals alleging journalists and hired investigators working for its flagship News of the World tabloid hacked into the voicemails of thousands of people, from victims of notorious crimes to families of soldiers killed in the war in Afghanistan.

The allegations, which include bribing police officers for information, galvanized British lawmakers across party lines to oppose a man long used to being courted by the political elite.

Police arrested former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis on Thursday, the ninth person held since the inquiry was revived earlier this year.

In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said it had hired Wallis as a consultant from October 2009 until September 2010, an embarrassment for a force facing questions about its links to tabloid reporters.

The crisis has also tarnished Cameron, who faces questions about why he appointed a former News of the World editor as his communications chief.

Clegg distanced himself from the decision on Thursday.

"We did discuss it. Of course we discussed it. But at the end of the day I make my appointments to my own office and David Cameron makes his own appointments."

Politicians in the United States are taking notice, too.

Three prominent U.S. lawmakers called on federal officials to investigate whether News Corp broke any American laws, meaning Murdoch could be battling investigations on both sides of the Atlantic.

(Additional reporting by Stefano Ambrogi, Michael Holden, Matt Falloon in London, Paul Thomasch in New York and Rob Taylor in Canberra; Writing by Keith Weir; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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