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'Punk'd' returns

LOS ANGELES - Curse you, Ashton Kutcher, for your lying, cheating, punk-ing ways!

On Thursday - which just so happened to be April Fools Day - MTV announced that Kutcher and his celebrity prank show Punk'd will return to the network April 25 with a new season. In December, Kutcher swore the program was finished.

"This is not an April Fools joke," MTV spokeswoman Vanessa Reyes said.

But what about a few months ago, when Kutcher promised the world he was all punk'd out? Was he just tricking everybody?

"Yes, he was," Reyes said.

When Kutcher announced an end to the series after two seasons in December, the Associated Press pointed out the possibility that the announcement was a trick aimed at duping new celebrity prank victims into complacency.

At the time, a page on MTV's Web site announced the end of season two with this message: "But don't worry, the new season starts in March."

Turns out it actually starts in April, but in this tangle of lies, who's counting?

PARIS - Calling Mel Gibson "a tortured soul," France's main Jewish group accused his film about Jesus' final hours of having anti-Semitic overtones.

An umbrella group for Jewish organizations, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, known by the acronym CRIF, said Thursday that The Passion of the Christ was a backward portrayal of Christian teachings. The movie debuted Wednesday in France.

"The film's violence is extreme and sick," the group said in a statement. "Unfortunately, (CRIF) finds elements of anti-Semitism in the film, which was clearly conceived by a tortured soul."

Some Jewish and Christian leaders have expressed concern that the movie could revive the notion that Jews collectively were responsible for Christ's death.

France has faced anti-Semitic violence for more than two years, with many attacks targeting Jewish schools, synagogues and community centers.

CRIF noted it had not asked for the movie to be banned, out of respect for freedom of expression.

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