Jackson leaves hospital after treatment
Santa Maria, Calif. Pop star Michael Jackson was released Wednesday after a brief hospitalization for treatment of flu symptoms that forced a one-week delay in jury selection for his trial on child molestation charges.
The entertainer returned to his Neverland ranch, Jackson spokeswoman Raymone K. Bain told The Associated Press.
She said Jackson’s nausea and other symptoms had subsided enough for him to leave. “He’s still not feeling well, but he’s going to continue his recovery at home,” Bain said.
Jackson left Marian Medical Center shortly after a brief late afternoon press conference in which Dr. Todd Bailey said the 46-year-old entertainer still had “viral symptoms” but was in good spirits.
Jackson’s hospitalization Tuesday caused jury selection in his child molestation trial to be delayed for a week, until Feb. 22.
Jackson is accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy at his Neverland ranch and plying the boy with alcohol.
Kennedy mystique keeps prices high at auction
New York A painting of Jacqueline Kennedy with her two children sold for $216,000 on Wednesday, the second day of a three-day auction of property from the Kennedy family homes.
An animation cel from “101 Dalmatians” inscribed to John F. Kennedy Jr. and signed by Walt Disney sold for $61,200, and a Louis Vuitton hat box sold for $54,000.
About 300 bidders at Sotheby’s showroom competed against telephone and absentee bidders. Many chose to remain anonymous, including the buyer of the portrait painted by Aaron Shikler.
The auction of furniture, artwork and knickknacks was more modest in scope than a 1996 Kennedy sale at Sotheby’s that brought in $34.5 million.
Wednesday’s total was $2.2 million, bringing the two-day total to about $4 million. Prices include Sotheby’s commission.
CBS News employees refusing to quit
New York Five weeks after CBS blamed them for botching an expose into President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard, three staffers who were asked to resign are refusing to quit.
Josh Howard, executive producer of “60 Minutes Wednesday,” senior broadcast producer Mary Murphy, and senior vice president Betsy West, are fighting to save their reputations.
Howard has hired a lawyer and wants CBS honcho Leslie Moonves to retract comments he made following the release of an exhaustive investigation into how the report got on the air, the New York Observer reported Wednesday.
And Murphy and West are said to be in deep discussions with top brass at the Tiffany Network and refusing to budge until their names are cleared.
All three staffers remain on the CBS payroll.
Along with producer Mary Mapes, the trio were criticized for their “myopic zeal” to nail Bush in an independent panel’s 224-page dissection of the story.
Star anchorman Dan Rather and CBS News President Andrew Heyward escaped the ax – but not the fallout. And the controversy is believed to have hastened Rather’s decision to give up the anchor’s chair on March 9.
Mother, friend charged in fatal blaze
Pittsburgh
A mother was charged with criminal homicide Wednesday in a house fire that killed her two toddlers 15 years ago. Investigators said she and another woman had set fire to a dog, and the flames spread to her home.
Tequilla Fields, 34, was charged along with her friend, Lachan Russell, 29, and they were jailed without bail.
Investigators knew from the start that the 1990 blaze began when a dog was set on fire, and they suspected the two women, but could not connect them to the fire. More recently, cold-case detectives re-interviewed about 20 witnesses and came up with new details.
Some of those questioned had “settled down into a more responsible lifestyle and things like this affect them more now,” police Commander Maurita Bryant said. “They wanted to get things off their chest.”
Police said Fields wanted to get rid of the dog because one of her children was allergic to it. Fields tried to get the dog to run away and even dropped it off several miles away, but the animal returned, Bryant said.
In police reports, Fields and Russell accused each other of dousing the dog with kerosene or charcoal lighter fluid and setting the animal on fire while it was still tied to the home’s porch.
Fields’ grandmother threw water on the burning dog, but flames had already spread to the house, police said. The dog ran inside the home and was later found dead, along with Fields’ 2-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter.
Woman pleads no contest for taking infant
Philadelphia A woman pleaded no contest Wednesday to charges she kidnapped a baby during a 1997 house fire and raised the girl as her own for six years.
Prosecutors have said that 42-year-old Carolyn Correa, desperate for a baby of her own after suffering a miscarriage, conspired to set the blaze and steal the 10-day-old child from her crib.
Correa pleaded no contest to kidnapping, interfering with parental custody and conspiracy and could get 25 to 50 years in prison.
The baby disappeared after a fire at the Philadelphia home of her mother, Luzaida Cuevas. Fire investigators found no human remains on the torched second floor and concluded the blaze had consumed Delimar Vera in her crib. They also ruled the fire accidental.
For the next six years, Correa raised the girl just 20 miles away in Willingboro, N.J. Correa had named the girl Aaliyah.
Cuevas, who authorities said never believed her child was dead, has said she instantly recognized the dimpled, dark-haired little girl as her daughter at a 2003 birthday party.
DNA tests proved her suspicions correct, Correa was arrested, and the girl was reunited with her parents and older siblings.
The plea does not fully solve the mystery of how the baby was spirited out a second-story window. Prosecutors said only that Correa conspired with “unknown other individuals.”
No sentencing date was. Correa is undergoing psychiatric evaluation.
The girl, now 7, did not attend Wednesday’s court session.