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LONDON (Reuters) - Gun-toting adventurer Lara Croft is back in the latest "Tomb Raider" game to fight for new players but she comes gadget-free, without the improbable curves and trademark braid, and with an adults-only rating.

Development company Crystal Dynamics, has stripped Croft of her previous history in the game published by Japan's Square Enix, and reinvented her as a 21-year-old novice with no experience of raiding tombs, climbing or shooting.

Instead of the confident Croft seen in previous games and in the two movies with Angelina Jolie, the first "Tomb Raider" game in three years begins with the archaeologist as a terrified woman who is unsure of her footing but is desperate to survive.

The story of the new "Tomb Raider" was written by Rhianna Pratchett, ex-gaming journalist and daughter of fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett, who relished the challenge of rebooting and reimagining one of gaming's few female protagonists.

"That's a real once-in-a-lifetime thing, especially with Lara Croft, as pretty much everyone knows who she is, whether they're into games or not. My mum knows who Lara Croft is," Pratchett told Reuters.

The rebooted Croft was devised after years of declining sales for "Tomb Raider" which is now ranked at about 28th in a list of best-selling video game franchises with sales of 35 million copies, according to "Tomb Raider" website figures.

The 11th "Tomb Raider" game is based on an island where Croft and her team are shipwrecked while looking for a lost city. They soon discover the island is inhabited by a mysterious cult who will kill outsiders to protect their secret society.

Croft herself finds herself separated from the rest of her colleagues and vulnerable.

It's not just the character of Croft that has changed but also the appearance of the female adventurer who was first unleashed internationally back in 1996.

Her exaggerated curves are toned down to almost normal proportions, her hair braid is gone, and the tight shorts are replaced by more comfortable trousers.

"She's unsure of herself. She looks for others for help until she comes to the realization that she has to save herself and has to put one foot in front of the other and get herself out of this," said Pratchett.

Noah Hughes, creative director of the "Tomb Raider" project at Crystal Dynamics, said they wanted to explain the mechanisms of Croft's character to people.

"We felt in an origin story you could actually get to know the character and bring her to life as someone you could relate to and understand and then take her on this amazing journey," he said.

As the game progresses, the characteristics of the old Croft start becoming more tangible in the gameplay as the hardening of her personality is brought about by a series of brutal events. This explains the game franchise's first Mature 17+ rating.

Hughes denied reports that the game featured an attempted rape scene but said there were scenes where she fights for survival and that is crucial to her character development.

"Before she was fighting with guns, we wanted to show her in a situation that was going to push her to that extreme. How does a person get to the point where they're willing to kill someone? And in Lara's case, it's a kill or be killed situation," he said.

"Tomb Raider" goes on release in Britain and the United States on March 5 with early reviews saying that Croft is back on top of her game.

(Reporting by Rollo Ross, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

SEFFNER, Florida (Reuters) - A wrecking crew on Sunday partly razed a Florida house where a sinkhole had swallowed up a man as he slept but the demolition team went about its job as carefully as possible to preserve the home's contents for survivors.

Rescue workers had given up the search for Jeff Bush, a 37-year-old landscaper, on Saturday. He was presumed dead after disappearing into the hole, which opened up under his bedroom Thursday night. Sinkholes are common in Florida due to the state's geology and they are virtually impossible to predict.

With a crowd of a few dozen family members and others watching, a boom crane clawed at the one-story suburban home for about two hours, demolishing about half of it. The job was due to be completed on Monday.

Jeremy Bush, Jeff's brother, who had jumped into the sinkhole in a futile attempt to save him, said the family was discussing plans for a memorial service and a possible marker at the site.

Asked how he was feeling, Bush, 36, told Reuters: "Just sad, sad that they couldn't get my brother out."

"He was a good guy. He would give you the shirt off his back," Bush said of his brother.

Five other people in the house, which is owned by the family of Jeremy Bush's fianc e, had been preparing for bed Thursday when they heard a loud crash and Bush screaming.

STABILIZING THE PIT

Once the house is torn down, efforts will begin to stabilize the sinkhole, said William Puz, a spokesman for Hillsborough County. The hole was about 30 feet wide and 60 feet deep and filled with clay and debris.

The crane's bucket first removed the garage eaves from the house and a U.S. flag there, carrying it to the sidewalk. Hillsborough County Fire Rescue workers folded the flag and handed it to family members.

The crane then probed through the master bedroom and swept family memorabilia, boxes, luggage, dresser drawers, framed photos, a woman's purse and other items out of the house and placed them near the sidewalk.

Crane operator Dan Darnell spoke to family members after work halted and "it was an incredibly emotional meeting," Puz said.

Before the demolition started, Jeremy Bush, a landscaper like his brother, was escorted by a deputy sheriff to the mailbox at the start of the driveway. He knelt and put flowers on the ground, bowing his head for a few minutes before getting up and retreating behind police tape.

Wanda Carter, 49, who had grown up in the house, said she could not watch as it was being torn down.

"We have each other and that's all that matters," Carter told reporters as she clutched a massive family Bible, its cover torn off and bearing marks from the crane's bucket.

The risk of sinkholes is common in Florida due to the state's porous geological bedrock, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

As rainwater filters into the ground, it dissolves the rock, causing erosion that can lead to underground caverns, which cause sinkholes when they collapse.

Two nearby houses have been evacuated because the sinkhole has weakened the ground under them, and their residents probably will never be allowed inside again, said Jessica Damico of Hillsborough County Fire Rescue.

They were allowed 20 to 30 minutes in their homes on Saturday to gather belongings.

(Writing by Ian Simpson; Editing by Daniel Trotta, Philip Barbara and Bill Trott)

NEW YORK (AP) Most people who've done time in jail can't wait to get away. But this week, New York City authorities accused one former inmate of sneaking back in.

Yonkers resident Matthew Matagrano, 36, was arraigned in Manhattan on Saturday on charges that he impersonated a Department of Correction investigator.

Officials say that for at least a week, Matagrano used phony credentials to get into multiple city lockups, including Rikers Island and the Manhattan Detention Center, where he mingled with inmates for hours.

Investigators said the case was still unfolding, but some of the allegations were detailed in a criminal complaint describing Matagrano's entry into the Manhattan jail on Thursday.

It said that when questioned, Matagrano had admitted to arriving at the jail at around 3:30 p.m. and gaining entry by showing a gold shield and saying he was an investigator from the department's intelligence unit.

According to the complaint, he stayed until 11 p.m., giving cigarettes to inmates and smoking with them in a common area. He is also charged with stealing a radio from an office while inside.

Surveillance cameras recorded video of Matagrano during the visit, the complaint said.

It wasn't clear if or when Matagrano would face similar charges for entry into other city jails. A spokesman for the Bronx district attorney, which often handles cases related to crimes committed on Rikers Island, said Saturday that he had no information on the case.

Matagrano has a rap sheet that includes a conviction for sodomy and sexual abuse. He's on the state's sex offender registry.

It's not clear why he wanted to get into jails, but he had previously been caught posing as a Board of Education worker to enter two schools and rifle through student files. In 2004, he pleaded guilty to attempted burglary in connection with that case.

His court-appointed lawyer, Andrej Bajuk, couldn't immediately be reached by phone for comment. No one responded to a message left at the public defender's office that handled his arraignment.

Department of Correction spokespeople did not immediately return phone messages Saturday.

A judge set bail at $50,000 for Matagrano. He also faces charges of burglary, possession of forged instruments, larceny and promoting prison contraband. He is due back in court Wednesday.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) Philadelphia police said Friday they're seeking witnesses after a gunman fired into a crowd of people surrounding the tour bus of rapper French Montana, killing one person and injuring another, and prompting others in the crowd to return fire.

The shooting happened late Thursday night as the bus, followed by several cars loaded with friends and family, arrived at a hotel near Penn's Landing for a post-concert party after the rapper had headlined a sold-out show at the Theatre of Living Arts.

A black sedan with tinted windows pulled up and someone fired shots into the crowd from a passenger side window, Homicide Capt. James Clark said. Two people in the crowd fired back, Clark said, and police were mulling whether to file charges against them.

The New York rapper and members of his entourage were interviewed at police headquarters and are cooperating in the investigation, but police don't know if they were targeted, Clark said.

On Friday evening, French Montana took to Twitter to express sympathy for the victims. He also tweeted that his bus was merely located "in the vicinity of the incident."

"I had a peaceful concert and was not involved," he wrote.

Investigators are searching for any surveillance footage that may provide clues.

"We believe someone saw something," Clark said. "It could have been a lot more tragic."

The man killed was identified by police as 26-year-old Jowann King, of Flushing, N.Y. Police did not release the name of the man who was injured.

French Montana, a Morocco-born rapper whose real name is Karim Kharbouch, posted a photo on Twitter showing a police officer interviewing a person after the shooting, and also posted photos of himself with Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill at the show.

Mill was on the tour bus Thursday night, Clark said.

Montana was scheduled to play Brighton Music Hall in Boston on Friday night as part of a tour to promote his upcoming debut album, "Excuse My French," which features Nicki Minaj. However, the venue's website posted a notice Friday evening saying the show was canceled.

Last month, three people were killed and five injured in a shootout and crash on the Las Vegas strip; police think that shootout may have started as an argument at the valet area of the upscale Aria resort-casino the same night Montana was playing at Aria's signature nightclub, Haze.

BlackBerry BlackBerry (BBRY) is at the start of a very long haul as the struggling smartphone maker attempts to stage a comeback for the ages. Early sales of the company s first next-generation BlackBerry 10 smartphone appeared strong, but a series of subsequent claims suggested limited supply was responsible for many of the BlackBerry Z10 stock-outs being reported in the United Kingdom and Canada. We now know Z10 sales to date are likely nothing to scoff at, however BlackBerry s Z10 is outselling the iPhone 5 and the Galaxy S III at a major Canadian retailer and BGR has confirmed an even more important indicator of BlackBerry s early success: Half of BlackBerry Z10 sales in Canada and one-third of UK sales have been made to users coming from other platforms.

[More from BGR: Nokia CEO says Windows Phone can beat Android, iOS]

CIBC analyst Todd Coupland reported last month that 50% of pre-registration for the Z10 in Canada came from users who did not already own BlackBerry devices. Interest doesn t always translate to sales though, and it was unclear if BlackBerry would be able to get these iPhone and Android users to commit to the Z10 following its release.

[More from BGR: Apple hipsters lament that the company was better before it became cool]

BGR has now learned from multiple trusted sources that BlackBerry has indeed managed to pull off the coup it so desperately needed. Several high-level BlackBerry executives have confirmed internally that half of all BlackBerry Z10 sales in Canada have been made to new customers coming from other platforms.

What s more, one-third of Z10 sales in the UK, another key market for BlackBerry, have been made to customers who did not already own BlackBerry smartphones.

BlackBerry declined to comment.

Early reviewers including us here at BGR worried that while BlackBerry 10 showed great promise and the Z10 was a terrific early effort, the new operating system didn t offer any compelling differentiation that might draw users away from the iPhone and Android smartphones. If early performance in these two key markets is any indication, however, BlackBerry s new platform may be a bigger draw than we expected.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Arnold Schwarzenegger is going back to his bodybuilding roots.

The action movie star turned politician will become group executive editor for the magazines Flex, and Muscle & Fitness, writing monthly columns in the publications and their online websites, American Media said on Friday.

The "Terminator" star, who began his Hollywood career as a bodybuilder and went on to win five Mr. Universe titles, held the same position at the magazines before he was elected California governor in 2003.

"Bodybuilding has always been part of my life, and I know Muscle & Fitness and Flex will continue to motivate others - as it did me - to lift weights and lead a healthy lifestyle (and) promote the sport of bodybuilding," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

Schwarzenegger's relationship with the two magazines goes back to 1968, when he was just 21, and he has appeared on their covers more than 60 times.

Schwarzenegger, 65, has taken a diverse path since stepping down as California governor in January 2011, returning to movies in films like "The Last Stand" and "The Expendables 2," writing an autobiography, and launching an eponymous global policy think tank at the University of Southern California's Los Angeles campus.

Muscle & Fitness and Flex are part of American Media Inc, whose other titles include the National Enquirer tabloid, and celebrity magazine OK!

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Eric Walsh)

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German book retailers have teamed up with Deutsche Telekom to produce their own eReader to challenge the dominance of Amazon.com in the growing market for digital books.

Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel and Club Bertelsmann will start selling the 'Tolino' eReader from March 7, with over 300,000 books available for download, to compete with Amazon's Kindle and Apple's tablets, the companies said in a joint statement on Friday.

As in Britain, where chains like Waterstones have come under pressure from the likes of Amazon, German book retailers have also suffered.

Thalia, the biggest German book retailer is undergoing restructuring and closing shops and saw sales fall 2 percent to 915 million euros ($1.2 billion) in its business year to end-September.

"The future of the German book industry should remain in our hands and not those of listed American groups," Carel Halff of publisher and retailer Weltbild said.

While e-books make up over 10 percent of the book market in the United States, that proportion is at just 3.2 percent for the German market.

But the market is growing fast, with sales of e-books tripling in 2012 to 102 million euros, according to market research group GfK. E-books could account for 17 percent of sales on the German book market by 2015.

Amazon had total sales of $8.7 billion in Germany in 2012, more than its sales in the UK of $6.5 billion, according to a recent stock exchange filing.

An article by specialist magazine Buchreport earlier this month estimated Amazon had book sales of 1.6-1.8 billion euros in Germany in 2012, equivalent to a 20 percent share of the German book market, which was worth around 9.6 billion euros in 2011.

A spokeswoman for Thalia, owned by perfumes and beauty retailer Douglas , said the eReader partnership had not come too late.

"This is exactly the right moment," she told Reuters. "It's about offering the customer a good alternative to Amazon and Apple now, in order to secure a position in the market for the future."

The Tolino has a touch screen, a battery life of up to 7 weeks and can store around 2,000 books. Thalia said it will be selling the device at 99 euros. The cheapest Kindle on amazon.de is 79 euros.

The companies are open to other book retailers joining the partnership, they said.

($1 = 0.7649 euros)

(Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

LONDON (AP) British customs agents made a creepy discovery when an airline passenger was found with 94 kilograms (207 pounds) of caterpillars in his luggage.

The man claimed they were intended as food for personal consumption.

The U.K. Border Force said Friday that inspectors at London's Gatwick Airport found the dried caterpillars shrink-wrapped in cellophane and packed into hessian bags carried by a passenger travelling from Burkina Faso via Istanbul.

The caterpillars were seized by authorities after the Feb. 23 find because they breached restrictions on importing animal products. The 22-year-old passenger was let off with a warning.

Border Force spokeswoman Ingrid Smith said "the vigilance of our officers has stopped these dried insects from entering the U.K., and possibly posing a risk to our food chain."

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - American country singer Craig Morgan calls himself a survivalist, and he is in for a frigid challenge at an upcoming sled dog expedition in the Scandinavian arctic.

Morgan, a Tennessee native who is best known for hits "That's What I Love About Sunday" and "Redneck Yacht Club," said he could not pass up an invitation to test his survival skills in the annual Fjaellraeven Polar sled dog expedition.

"I've jumped out of airplanes, been on scuba trips, and I was just in the Bahamas in a cage with sharks," Morgan, 48, told Reuters. "Still, this is pretty extreme in my book."

The harrowing 205-mile dog-led adventure from the frozen mountains of Norway to Sweden takes place April 9-13 and promises to teach ordinary people how to last through sub-zero temperatures and lashing Arctic winds.

Morgan, who will learn how to handle sled dogs along with 20 other participants, will also bring along the camera crew from his reality show "Craig Morgan: All Access Outdoors" on the Outdoors Channel to chronicle the expedition.

"I had not heard about this event before I was asked to participate," said Morgan, who will bring along his son, Kyle.

"Once they asked me I said, 'Absolutely,'" he added. "I'm a survivalist; anytime I get the opportunity to test my survival skills I jump at it."

On his TV show, Morgan tests his survival instincts in situations such as skydiving and aerial bow fishing.

Morgan, a U.S. Army veteran whose only prior sub-zero experiences include stays in Korea and blustery Iowa, said he looks forward to learning how to work with the sled dogs.

"I love dogs, have dogs of my own, but these dogs are completely different," he said.

"They sleep outside in the snow ... the language that you give the commands is different. I'll have to get into their world and work the way they are used to."

Morgan is also the host of the Outdoor Channel's "Field & Stream Total Outdoorsman Challenge." He has released six studio albums over his 13-year career, most recently "This Ole Boy" in 2012.

(Reporting by Vernell Hackett; Editing by Eric Kelsey and Jackie Frank)

LOS ANGELES (AP) The company behind the "Girls Gone Wild" video empire has filed for bankruptcy in a move it says is an effort to restructure its legal affairs after several disputed court judgments.

GGW Brands LLC and several subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday in Los Angeles, listing more than $16 million in disputed claims.

The largest claim is $10.3 million that Wynn Resorts Limited is seeking from the company for judgments entered against "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis over a gambling debt and statements he has made about the casino and its founder, Steve Wynn.

The figure does not include a $19 million judgment Wynn won against Francis in a slander trial last year. The case, which centered on Francis' claims that Wynn threatened to kill him over the gambling debt, is being appealed.

Francis no longer GGW Brands, which has made a fortune selling videos and magazines of young women flashing their breasts. Subsidiary companies GGW Magazine and GGW Events have also filed for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy proceedings generally halt efforts to collect judgments in other courts.

"Girls Gone Wild remains strong as a company and strong financially," the company said in a statement, likening itself to other businesses such as American Airlines and General Motors that have filed for bankruptcy to restructure. "The only reason Girls Gone Wild has elected to file for this reorganization is to re-structure its frivolous and burdensome legal affairs."

The second largest claim listed in the proceedings is a nearly $5.8 million judgment a St. Louis woman won against Francis last year in a Missouri court. Tamara Favazza sued after she learned she had been featured on a "Girls Gone Wild" DVD over an incident when she was a 20-year-old college student and someone lifted her tank top at a bar and flashed a camera.

Francis and his company, Mantra Films, are seeking to have the judgment overturned in federal court.

The bankruptcy filing also lists unspecified legal fees in the Wynn and Favazza cases.