NEW YORK (AP) – ABC cameraman Doug Vogt, injured with anchorman Bob Woodruff in an Iraqi roadside bombing on Jan. 29, has checked out of Bethesda Medical Center, ABC News said Thursday.

Vogt and his wife, Vivian, are on their way home to France, where he will undergo further treatment.

In a statement, ABC News President David Westin described the couple as being “in good spirits and looking forward to getting back to their children.”

The more seriously hurt Woodruff, recovering from head wounds and other injuries at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., is being slowly brought out of sedation, Westin said.

“Despite the fact that he continues to be mildly sedated, Bob has been out of bed in a chair and his physical strength continues to impress his entire team,” Westin said. “We’ve come some distance, but we still have a long way to go.”

Westin added that “in another sign of Bob’s moving along his path to recovery,” his doctors have said that in the next few weeks he might move to facilities near his home in the New York area.

Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer are currently subbing for Woodruff, co-anchor of ABC’s “World News Tonight” with Elizabeth Vargas.

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On the Net:

http://abc.go.com/

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NEW YORK (AP) – Robert Redford says his Sundance Film Festival, which last month wrapped its 25th season, is “almost to a breaking point.”

“It’s gotten to the point now – almost to a breaking point – where there’s a fever that has taken over the festival that creates an enormous amount of chaos and excitement and tension,” the 68-year-old actor said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “It’s gotten a little bit harder on me.”

Though the festival has become a larger spectacle over the years, Redford has long refrained from criticism about the changed nature of Sundance.

He created the independent film festival in 1981 to bring attention to small-budget films and new talent. Redford named the festival, held annually in the snowy mountains of Utah, after his breakthrough role in 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

“The festival that we do is the same one as we did the first year,” he said. “We program it exactly the same every year, which is for new voices and more experimental films.”

The difference now, Redford said, is everything surrounding it.

“Once the merchants come, then the celebrities come. Once they come, the paparazzi come. Once they come, fashion comes. So suddenly you’ve got a party … where Paris Hilton’s there and all the attention goes there and she’s got nothing to do with anything.”

“You’ve basically got two festivals going,” he said. “You’ve got the festival we programmed, which stays the same, and then the other one.”

The big-screen life of the festival, Redford said, continues to thrive. He felt “very good” about this year’s crop of films, which included the Hispanic teen drama “Quinceanera” and “Iraq in Fragments,” a documentary about the lives of Iraqis under U.S. occupation.

“Quinceanera” won both the festival’s jury prize and audience award; “Iraq in Fragments” won three prizes including documentary film editing, directing and cinematography awards.

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On the Net:

http://festival.sundance.org/2006/

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NEW DELHI (AP) – Chicken tikka masala and Bollywood leading lady Aishwarya Rai top Will Smith’s list of favorites in India.

Smith, a best-actor Oscar nominee for 2001’s “Ali,” was in India this week to launch Sony Entertainment’s English-language movie channel, Pix, and to be a guest on “Indian Idol,” the country’s version of “American Idol.”

It was the 37-year-old actor-rapper’s first trip to the South Asian nation. His first impressions?

“Just recently I got to know the number of films Bollywood makes a year – a whopping 800. And each with its share of song, music, dance and drama,” he was quoted as saying in the Hindustan Times. “I am simply enticed to be part of it.”

Smith said he’d like to explore a possible collaboration between Hollywood and Bollywood, as India’s film industry is known.

But, of course, he’s got preferences, including authentic chicken tikka masala, a grilled poultry dish flavored with Indian spices, and Rai, who starred in “Bride & Prejudice.”

“She has a powerful energy,” Smith told reporters in Bombay, the home of India’s Hindi-language film industry, on Thursday. “I’d love to work with her.”

He also said he was a fan of India’s most popular actor, Amitabh Bachchan. Smith said the first Indian film he saw was “Sarkar” or “Boss,” in which Bachchan plays an underworld kingpin.

“I was blown away by the Big B and I want to be known as Big W,” he said with a laugh.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) – As leader of the band that helped give birth to psychedelic music, Jerry Garcia’s name was often associated with fans of leafy herbal substances.

Now the Grateful Dead guitarist has five such herbal blends named after him and, even better, these are legal.

The first batch of J. Garcia Artisan Teas are expected to make their debut at premium tea shops and gourmet food stores next week, said Marideth Post, spokeswoman for The Republic of Tea. The blends, licensed by the estate of Garcia, who died in 1995, are already available through the company’s Web site.

Post said a portion of the profits are being given to DrawBridge, a charity that provides art supplies for children in homeless shelters.

“I think Jerry would be very pleased by this,” said Dennis McNally, Garcia’s longtime friend and Grateful Dead biographer.

Garcia was also a well-respected abstract artist who created hundreds of works in watercolor, pencil, ink and other forms. One of his illustrations adorns each tin of tea.

The teas are named with a bit of whimsy. Morning Brew, for example, takes its name from “Morning Dew,” a song the Grateful Dead often performed. Shady Grown, a blend of Brazilian and South African teas, is derived from “Shady Grove,” a bluegrass album that Garcia recorded.

Then there is Magic Herb, a tea that pays tribute to a band that during its early years were known to perform while under the influence of magic herbs.

“We had a little bit of fun with Magic Herb Tea,” Post said with a laugh.

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On the Net:

http://www.jerrygarcia.com

http://www.drawbridge.org

http://www.republicoftea.com