Archive for June 26th, 2009

Kyle Busch compares himself to the Dark Knight

Leave it to Kyle Busch to close out the week on a fun note. When asked about the role of manufacturers in NASCAR and how their support is essential to the sport, Kyle gave us this beautiful analysis (thanks to Nuts n’ Bolts):

“It’s no different than good versus evil — you’ve got to have a villain to have a hero, Batman tells you that in his movie. This sport tells you that as well too. You have to have manufacturers battling against each other. You can’t have one manufacturer that just takes over the deal then there’s really nothing that you’re battling about or battling for.

“Ultimately, we need to have Ford, we need to have Chevrolet, we need to have Chrysler - all those guys need to be in this sport. Toyota is a great manufacturer — I’ve had a lot of success with these guys and same with Chevrolet. I would say that Toyota is probably a little bit better off right now than the other manufacturers are, but if those other manufacturers pull out and don’t give the support to teams in trucks or to Nationwide or ultimately to the Cup Series then Toyota is not going to have any support either. They’re going to back all their stuff out too.

“It’s kind of a ‘monkey-see, monkey-do’ deal and we need those other manufacturers to stay up and stay strong in order to keep the money flowing from Toyota.”

He actually makes some solid points about competition in there — in a kind of roundabout, Saturday morning cartoon kind of way. Though I’d be willing to bet that Toyota isn’t quite as sanguine about keeping its competitors in the game as Kyle is.

Now, my sloppy Photoshopping aside, I’m sure that Kyle sees himself more as the Joker than as the Batman. (Ah, but is he the Jack Nicholson look-at-me-I’m-murderously-wacky Joker or the Heath Ledger chaos-for-its-own sake Joker? Hmm.)

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. stops, collaborates and listens

Now this is how you end up a week, with a photo of Dale Earnhardt Jr. hanging with Vanilla Ice. I find absolutely no comedic potential in this photo whatsoever, and I defy you to do so. Defy you, I say! This is part of a fun post over at All Left Turns documenting NASCAR drivers out in da club; make sure you check out how lost Denny Hamlin and Elliott Sadler look.

That’ll do it for now; we’ll be around all weekend and hanging for the race on Sunday. For now, go check out the latest Weekender column and feel free to chat here about Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett or whoever. See you this weekend, everybody

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Wimbledon Slice, Day 5: Media wars

In a modern building sandwiched among the stately lawns of the All England Club, an annual battle of creativity and cunning takes place.

Just yards away but a world removed from Wimbledon’s cultured image of strawberries and cream, straw hats and striped jackets, the media center is where the infamous London press corps works to a time-honored formula.

The British capital is home to the world’s most competitive media market, and Wimbledon is a ceaseless struggle between rival newspapers to outdo each other with the most, ahem, imaginative portrayal of the tournament’s daily events.

Think the hype and bluster and printed topspin that the English newspapers impart is merely a sideshow to what happens on court?

Think again.

Over time there have been countless occurrences when a media story at these championships has had a critical effect on a player’s mindset.

This year there are only two players the tabloids are interested in: Andy Murray and Roger Federer.

Given that a war of words is ideal headline fodder, the two favorites for the men’s singles can expect plenty of leading questioning every time they step into a press conference.

Murray and Federer are skilled exponents of giving deadpan answers, but in many cases, it doesn’t matter.

Early in the tournament, Murray’s calm assertion that he was disappointed not to be joined by any other British men in the second round was turned into a damning indictment of his fellow countrymen, under a screaming headline of ‘Shame On You.’

And before his next match against Ernests Gulbis of Latvia, a minor incident that occurred during a match between the pair more than 12 months ago made backpage news in several publications.

Given that Murray and Federer don’t particularly like each other anyway, expect talk of a fractious personal rivalry to become staple fare heading into the second week.

Whatever your opinion of the London tabloids and their reputation in the United States, those newspapers still boast some of the finest enterprising story-getters in the business.

Often, the mischief making is concocted by headline makers and editors back at head office.

A good friend and colleague from the newspaper I used to work for was once given the unenviable order from his sports editor to enquire about “that thing on Jelena Dokic’s lip” (it was a birthmark).

Given the short temper of Dokic’s father Damir, now in a Serbian jail for making death threats against an Australian dignitary, the reporter was fortunate that Mr. Dokic’s response to the remark was merely verbal.

The start of the sport’s sensationalist era was the 1970s, when larger-than-life characters such as John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors burst on to the scene.

Borg admitted in a BBC interview on Friday that the way in which he was hounded by press photographers while in London played a major role in him cutting short his career.

A McEnroe press conference in 1981 even erupted into a full-blown fistfight, when American correspondent Charlie Steiner objected to the way McEnroe had been treated by English reporters.

Murray and Federer, and those around them, will try to ignore the whirlwind of activity around them – but there will be plenty of reminders.

Whoever handles this unique sporting circus the better could end up with his hands on the trophy.

DROP SHOT

The bottom half of the women’s draw was again weakened on Friday, as seventh seed Vera Zvonareva was forced to pull out with an ankle injury. The Russian had been scheduled to meet Virginie Razzano, but her absence opens up a path for Elena Dementieva, who must now be fancied to reach the semifinals.

CLEAN WINNER

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s ears must have been ringing as he headed out of the All England Club. Tsonga was sent packing by an incredible serving display from Ivo Karlovic, who smashed 46 aces and conceded just a single point on his own serve in the fourth set.

Karlovic, the 6-10 Croatian who faces Fernando Verdasco next, is a player no one wants to meet.

RAISING THE ROOF

Threats of thunderstorms and heavy showers and gloomy predictions from pink-shirted BBC weather experts all came to nothing and the Centre Court roof again remained resolutely wedged in its open state.

PARTY HOUSE

Injury victim Rafael Nadal is back in Mallorca recuperating while the men’s field fights it out for his Wimbledon title.

However, the Spaniard generously decided not to cancel the luxury $18,000-a-week house he had booked for championship fortnight, meaning other Spanish players like Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco, and some of Nadal’s personal friends, have been able to use the residence for partying and relaxation.

GAME OF THE DAY

It was a fairly routine session for much of the day – until Marin Cilic and Tommy Haas became locked in an absolute blockbuster on Court One. Haas raced into a two-set lead before the Croatian youngster fought back magnificently in a match laced with thrilling rallies. With darkness closing in, referee Andrew Jarrett called a halt to proceedings at 6-6 in the fifth set. The players will resume on Saturday.

UPSET ALERT

Former world No.1 Juan Carlos Ferrero is on the comeback trail after a bleak run of injuries and loss of form. He is in with a shout against Fernando Gonzalez, the No.10 seed, in a third-round match on Court One.

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Iranian cleric urges executing some protesters

Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.

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A senior cleric on Friday urged Iran’s protest leaders to be punished “without mercy” and said some should face execution — harsh calls that signal a nasty new turn in the regime’s crackdown on demonstrators two weeks after its disputed election.

Hard-liners have ordered long sentences and hangings before, and some fear those awaiting trial by a judiciary whose verdicts reflect the will of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could face the most severe punishments the Islamic system can dish out.

“Anyone who takes up arms to fight with the people, they are worthy of execution,” Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, a ranking cleric, said in a nationally broadcast sermon at Tehran University.

Khatami said those who disturbed the peace and destroyed public property were “at war with God” and should be “dealt with without mercy.”

His call for merciless retribution for those who stirred up Iran’s largest wave of dissent since the 1979 Islamic Revolution came as Mir Hossein Mousavi, the nation’s increasingly isolated opposition leader, has been under heavy pressure to give up his fight and slipped even further from view.

Mousavi said he would seek official permission for any future rallies, effectively ending his role in street protests organized by supporters who insist he — not hard-line incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — won the June 12 election. And an aide said Mousavi’s Web site, his primary means of staying in touch with supporters, was taken down by unknown hackers.

Mousavi alleges he was robbed of victory through widespread and systematic fraud. The regime rejects the claim, refusing to consider new balloting, and on Friday, the Guardian Council — Iran’s top electoral body — proclaimed the vote the “healthiest” held since the revolution.

Since the election, opposition protesters repeatedly have clashed with security forces who arrested hundreds of people, including journalists, academics and university students. At least 17 people have been killed, in addition to eight members of the pro-government Basij militia, officials have said.

President Barack Obama, joined at the White House by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, hailed the demonstrators in Iran and condemned the violence against them.

“Their bravery in the face of brutality is a testament to their enduring pursuit of justice,” Obama said. “The violence perpetrated against them is outrageous. In spite of the government’s efforts to keep the world from bearing witness to that violence, we see it and we condemn it.”

Obama scoffed at accusations of U.S. meddling in Iran by Ahmadinejad, who on Thursday called for “repentance” from the U.S. leader. Obama added that Mousavi has “captured the imagination or spirit” of those in Iran who are “interested in opening up.”

The demonstrations petered out this week under an ever-intensifying crackdown. Mousavi, meanwhile, has sent mixed signals to supporters, asking them not to break the law while pledging not to drop his challenge.

Amnesty International called the prospect of quick trials and capital punishment for some detainees “a very worrying development.” It said Iran was the world’s No. 2 executioner after China last year, with at least 346 known instances of people put to death. The group also called on the regime to release dozens of detained journalists it said faced possible torture.

Khatami’s call for harsh penalties and even death for those who are found to have defied the Islamic system “is certainly an attempt to instill fear in people,” said Ann Harrison, an Iran researcher at Amnesty.

Whether the regime will actually follow through — or need to — was unclear. After Iran’s 1999 student uprising, the regime sentenced scores to death, but many of those eventually were commuted to prison terms.

Either way, detainees face a fearsome, cleric-controlled judiciary. Courts often convene behind closed doors, rights groups complain that defendants sometimes have little access to lawyers, and the world learns of their fate only if a verdict happens to be announced on state TV.

“Any chances of a trial that meets standards of due process would be very slim,” said Aaron Rhodes, spokesman for the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

“What the regime is really saying is that any Iranian citizen who has dared express views which aren’t consistent with the views of a small hard-line clique is at risk of the most severe punishment the system can deal out,” he said. “They are really at the mercy of the system at this point.”

In his sermon, Khatami asked the judiciary to “confront the leaders of the protests, leaders of the violations, and those who are supported by the United States and Israel strongly, and without mercy to provide a lesson for all.”

He reminded worshippers that Khamenei, the supreme leader, rules by God’s design and must not be defied.

The cleric also lashed out at foreign journalists, accusing them of false reporting, and singled out Britain for new criticism. Earlier this week, Iran expelled two British diplomats, prompting the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats by Britain.

“In this unrest, Britons have behaved very mischievously and it is fair to add the slogan of ‘down with England’ to the slogan of ‘down with USA,’” he said.

In Trieste, Italy, foreign ministers of the Group of Eight countries called for an end to the violence in Iran and urged the authorities to find a peaceful solution.

Also Friday, more than 150 demonstrators attacked the Iranian Embassy outside the Swedish capital of Stockholm, throwing stones, breaking windows and injuring one worker, police said. Officers evicted the few demonstrators who climbed in through broken windows and arrested one person, said police spokesman Ulf Hoglund.

Khatami alleged that the icon of the opposition, slain protester Neda Agha Soltan, was killed by demonstrators, not the Iranian security forces. Soltan, 27, was killed by a shot to the chest last week, on the sidelines of a protest.

In London, an Iranian doctor who said he tried to save Soltan as the young woman bled to death, told the BBC she apparently was shot by a member of the Basij militia. Protesters spotted an armed member of the militia on a motorcycle, and stopped and disarmed him, said Dr. Arash Hejazi.

In quelling protests, Basij militiamen have broken up even small groups of people walking together to prevent any possible gathering. Still, dozens of friends and relatives of Soltan managed to pay tribute Friday, arriving at Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in groups of two and three, uttering brief prayers and placing flowers on her grave, witnesses said.

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Brazil calls off search for Air France victims

Brazil’s Air Force and Navy on Friday called off the search for additional victims and wreckage from Air France Flight 447, which crashed over the Atlantic on June 1 carrying 228 people.

French officials have given no indication they are ending their own search efforts. To date, authorities have recovered 51 bodies as well as 600 pieces of wreckage from the Airbus A330-200 jetliner.

Brazilian Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Henry Munhoz said the military was unlikely to find additional bodies and wreckage in the search area so many days after the crash.

“It’s already been nine days without seeing any bodies,” Munhoz said in a televised news conference.

Brazilian Navy Captain Giucemar Tabosa said French navy ships will remain in the area looking for beacon signals from the plane’s voice and flight data recorders, the so-called black boxes.

The cause of the crash is unknown, and there is still no sign of the black boxes, which could give vital information about why the plane went down.

Weather and distance from the coast have complicated search efforts from the outset, and officials have said it will be difficult to find the black boxes.

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Obama scoffs at Ahmadinejad’s demand for apology

President Barack Obama’s criticism of Iran escalated Friday into an unusually personal war of words. To Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s demand he apologize for meddling, Obama shot back that the regime should “think carefully” about answers owed to protesters it has arrested, bludgeoned and killed.

“The violence perpetrated against them is outrageous,” Obama said. “We see it and we condemn it.”

The president spoke at an East Room news conference capping his third set of meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of several European leaders who spoke out more forcefully, more quickly than Obama on the unrest in Iran that followed the disputed June 12 elections.

“We will not forget,” Merkel said.

Turning to Iraq, where a deadline for U.S. combat troops to leave all cities was just four days away, Obama offered no support for allowing a spate of recent violence to push back the withdrawal. “If you look at the overall trend, despite some of these high-profile bombings, Iraq’s security situation has continued to dramatically improve,” Obama said.

Of bigger concern than the violence, Obama said, is the lack of movement on laws to share oil revenues and other matters that keep Iraq deeply fractured along sectarian lines. He called on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to step up his leadership.

Merkel’s visit happened to coincide with the day that a sweeping global warming bill came up for a vote in the House amid contentious partisan sniping about its effect on jobs and consumer costs. With the vote still hours away and the outcome in doubt, Obama and Merkel, who has made climate change a top priority, presented the rare sight of an American president and a visiting foreign leader together urging the U.S. Congress to act.

Obama said he had been “very blunt and frank” with Merkel that it will take significant time to turn the U.S. into a world leader on climate change but that the “critical” bill before the House was a good start.

Merkel sympathized with the difficulty of approving such legislation, which would impose the first-ever limits on greenhouse gas pollution and force a shift to cleaner energy sources. “I know what’s at stake, when you talk about reduction targets, how tricky that is,” Merkel said.

In Iran, the government proclaimed the incumbent hardline president, Ahmadinejad, the landslide winner of the June 12 voting over opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, prompting widespread protests followed by a brutal state-led crackdown.

Ahmadinejad told Obama Thursday to “show your repentance” for criticizing Tehran’s response.

“I don’t take Mr. Ahmadinejad’s statements seriously about apologies, particularly given the fact that the United States has gone out of its way not to interfere with the election process in Iran,” Obama responded sternly.

“I would suggest that Mr. Ahmadinejad think carefully about the obligations he owes to his own people,” he added. “And he might want to consider looking at the families of those who’ve been beaten or shot or detained. And, you know, that’s where I think Mr. Ahmadinejad and others need to answer their questions.”

It was Obama’s first direct criticism of any of Iran’s leaders. Even more, it was coupled with his first specific boost for Mousavi. “Mousavi has shown to have captured the imagination or the spirit of forces within Iran that were interested in opening up,” Obama said.

The remark sought to clarify what many view as Obama’s biggest misstep — saying last week in a television interview that there may not be much difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. But it appeared to swing over to an outright endorsement of Mousavi, though White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denied it was meant that way.

Obama also said for the first time that his offer to loosen the decades-old U.S. diplomatic freeze with Iran through direct talks is now in question.

“There is no doubt that any direct dialogue or diplomacy with Iran is going to be affected by the events of the last several weeks,” Obama said, without elaborating.

Gibbs said Obama was “more stating the obvious” that no talks are possible while developments are still unfolding. And Obama said that an existing system of multilateral talks with Iran over its suspected goal of building a nuclear bomb, involving nations including the U.S., Europe, China and Russia, must continue.

“The clock is ticking. Iran is developing a nuclear capacity at a fairly rapid clip,” he said.

Merkel agreed there must be no letup among nations trying to stop Iran’s nuclear development, which Tehran insists is aimed at providing only electric power, not weapons. She said “we have to bring Russia and China alongside,” referring to the two nations most historically unwilling to get tough with Iran over the nuclear standoff.

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House passes major energy-climate bill

In a triumph for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed sweeping legislation Friday that calls for the nation’s first limits on pollution linked to global warming and aims to usher in a new era of cleaner, yet more costly energy.

The vote was 219-212, capping months of negotiations and days of intense bargaining among Democrats. Republicans were overwhelmingly against the measure, arguing it would destroy jobs in the midst of a recession while burdening consumers with a new tax in the form of higher energy costs.

At the White House, Obama said the bill would create jobs, and added that with its vote, the House had put America on a path toward leading the way toward “creating a 21st century global economy.”

The House’s action fulfilled Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s vow to clear major energy legislation before July 4. It also sent the measure to a highly uncertain fate in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid said he was “hopeful that the Senate will be able to debate and pass bipartisan and comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation this fall.”

Obama lobbied recalcitrant Democrats by phone from the White House as the House debate unfolded across several hours, and Al Gore posted a statement on his Web site saying the measure represents “an essential first step towards solving the climate crisis.” The former vice president won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work drawing attention to the destructive potential of global warming.

On the House floor, Democrats hailed the legislation as historic, while Republicans said it would damage the economy without solving the nation’s energy woes.

It is “the most important energy and environmental legislation in the history of our country,” said Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts. “It sets a new course for our country, one that steers us away from foreign oil and towards a path of clean American energy.”

But Rep. John Boehner, the House Republican leader, used an extraordinary one-hour speech shortly before the final vote to warn of unintended consequences in what he said was a “defining bill.” He called it a “bureaucratic nightmare” that would cost jobs, depress real estate prices and put the government into parts of the economy where it now has no role.

The legislation would require the U.S. to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and by about 80 percent by mid-century. That was slightly more aggressive than Obama originally wanted, 14 percent by 2020 and the same 80 percent by mid-century.

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are rising at about 1 percent a year and are predicted to continue increasing without mandatory limits.

Under the bill, the government would limit heat-trapping pollution from factories, refineries and power plants and issue allowances for polluters. Most of the allowances would be given away, but about 15 percent would be auctioned by bid and the proceeds used to defray higher energy costs for lower-income individuals and families.

“Some would like to do more. Some would like to do less,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said in advance of the final vote. “But we have reached a compromise … and it is a compromise that can pass this House, pass that Senate, be signed by the president and become law and make progress.”

That seemed unlikely, judging from Reid’s cautiously worded statement. “The bill is not perfect,” it said, but rather “a good product” for the Senate to begin working on.

And there was plenty to work on in a House-passed measure that pointed toward higher electricity bills for the middle class, particularly in the Midwest and South, as well as steps to ease the way for construction of new nuclear reactors, the first to be built since the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979.

The bill’s controversy was on display in the House, where only eight Republicans joined 211 Democrats in favor, while 44 Democrats joined 168 Republicans in opposition. And within an hour of the vote, both party campaign committees had begun attacking lawmakers for their votes.

One of the biggest compromises involved the near total elimination of an administration plan to sell pollution permits and raise more than $600 billion over a decade — money to finance continuation of a middle class tax cut. About 85 percent of the permits are to be given away rather than sold, a concession to energy companies and their allies in the House — and even that is uncertain to survive in the Senate.

The final bill also contained concessions to satisfy farm-state lawmakers, ethanol producers, hydroelectric advocates, the nuclear industry and others, some of them so late that they were not made public until 3 a.m. on Friday.

Supporters and opponents agreed the bill’s result would be higher energy costs but disagreed vigorously on the impact on consumers. Democrats pointed to two reports — one from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the other from the Environmental Protection Agency — that suggested average increases would be limited after tax credits and rebates were taken into account. The CBO estimated the bill would cost an average household $175 a year, the EPA $80 to $110 a year.

Republicans questioned the validity of the CBO study and noted that even that analysis showed actual energy production costs increasing $770 per household. Industry groups have cited other studies showing much higher costs to the economy and to individuals.

The White House and congressional Democrats argued the bill would create millions of “green jobs” as the nation shifts to greater reliance on renewable energy sources such as wind and solar and development of more fuel-efficient vehicles — and away from use of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal.

It will “make our nation the world leader on clean energy jobs and technology,” declared Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who negotiated deals with dozens of lawmakers in recent weeks to broaden the bill’s support.

Pelosi, D-Calif., took an intense personal interest in the measure, sitting through hours of meetings with members of the rank and file and nurturing fragile compromises.

At its heart, the bill was a trade-off, less than the White House initially sought though it was more than Republicans said was acceptable. Some of the dealmaking had a distinct political feel. Rep. Alan Grayson, a first-term Democrat, won a pledge of support that $50 million from the proceeds of pollution permit sales in the bill would go to a proposed new hurricane research facility in his district in Orlando, Fla.

In the run-up to the vote, Democrats left little to chance.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., confirmed by the Senate on Thursday to an administration post, put off her resignation from Congress until after the final vote on the climate change bill. And Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., who has been undergoing treatment at an undisclosed facility, returned to the Capitol to support the legislation. He has said he struggles with depression, alcoholism and addiction, but has not specified the cause for his most recent absence.

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Jackson was energetic, upbeat ahead of London tour

The King of Pop seemed driven and upbeat in the weeks, even hours, before his death as he rehearsed rigorously for a series of 50 concerts in London that were to begin a late-career comeback.

Friends and colleagues said Friday that Jackson appeared in recent months to be rejuvenated by the prospect of performing again.

After years of seclusion following a child sex scandal, the pop icon was heavily involved in all aspects of the concert rehearsals. He had hired a personal trainer and was practicing with backup dancers and choreographers several hours a day, they said.

“He was working hard, setting the example, overseeing the choreography, kicking butt and taking names,” said Johnny Caswell, president of CenterStaging Musical Productions Inc., a Burbank sound stage where Jackson rehearsed until late May. “He was ready to blow everybody out of the water. This was going to be the biggest extravaganza, entertainment spectacle ever.”

Jackson was involved in all areas of planning, including watching auditions and choosing the backup dancers who would appear with him, said Maryss Courchinoux, a 29-year-old dancer from Paris who sought a place on stage with Jackson.

Courchinoux said she had been selected as a backup dancer for the London concerts and had been fitted for a costume. She had been invited to Thursday’s rehearsal in Los Angeles to meet Jackson and watch the practice to help prepare for her role, she said.

On the same day, Jackson was pronounced dead after collapsing at his home in Holmby Hills, a swanky neighborhood near Bel Air.

Courchinoux recounted how Jackson was in the audience as she auditioned in April, when she performed a set routine and then was asked to do freestyle dances — a hip-hop style called “pop-ins.”

From the stage, she could make out Jackson’s profile and his glasses where he sat in the empty auditorium. Friends later told her that Jackson jumped up and applauded after her group performed.

“I knew it was him, and I knew I was in his presence,” she said. “In a way, I feel blessed that we got to dance in his presence, and I was looking forward to meeting him yesterday,” she said, choking back tears.

“It was my dream since I was six years old. I guess there was a different plan.”

Rehearsals for the tour began in late March, Caswell said.

Jackson and his choreographers, band and dancers took over about four of the 11 studios at Centerstaging. Jackson would wander in and out of the studios, keeping tabs on the work and would often sit on a large black leather couch and listen to the band practice.

He frequently offered band members suggestions and took an interest in the mixing levels for the concert’s soundtrack, according to those who worked with him at the sound stage. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they had signed confidentiality agreements.

Caswell and other workers at the studio said Jackson would arrive in an SUV, with another vehicle following, about four or five times a week. One of the SUVs ferried Jackson, but the second was to fake out the paparazzi and European fans who flocked outside the studio’s doors. Jackson, an infamous recluse, would always crack a window and allow fans to pass CDs in for him to autograph.

“There would be tons of fans — European fans — they weren’t sharing the information with anyone else that he was coming here with anyone else. They didn’t want to spoil the exclusivity,” Caswell said.

Max Miller, a dispatch manager at the studios, said he saw the singer work on a transition routine between two songs.

Miller’s team aimed a spotlight at the stage area as Jackson, wearing a black suit, practiced the moves with no music and just a metronome clicking.

“He was totally dancing like top-notch. He seemed totally good,” Miller said. “He seemed totally cool and really focused.”

As focused as energized as he was in Burbank, Jackson seemed even more excited about his comeback as the concert date approached.

He recently moved his rehearsals to The Forum, the Los Angeles Lakers’ former arena in Inglewood, and ultimately to the Staples Center, where he was rehearsing daily, sometimes for hours.

Ken Ehrlich, executive producer of Grammy Awards, said he met Jackson there on Wednesday for a business meeting and spoke to him for about 20 minutes before Jackson invited him to watch him rehearse.

Ehrlich, who has known Jackson for years, said he was amazed by the singer’s vitality and focus as he practiced moves with backup dancers and a handful of choreographers.

The choreographers walked him through moves and gave him stage directions. They also introduced him to some new props and appeared to be working with Jackson to incorporate them into the show.

“Michael was digesting it all. He was learning, but even with that, there were times during the songs where his singing was full out,” Ehrlich said. “I would watch him move across the floor like the Michael of old. I was convinced (the comeback) was going to be the Michael of old.”

Ehrlich said he left after watching Jackson work through five or six numbers, but got chills from watching him — a memory that seems especially precious now. The star showed no signs that he would die less than 24 hours later, he said.

“There was this one moment, he was moving across the stage and he was doing these trademark Michael moves, and I know I got this big grin on my face, and I started thinking to myself, ‘You know, it’s been years since I’ve seen that,’” he said.

“There was that Michael that was just like no one else and no one else could touch,” he said. “The shame is that new generation won’t see that — but we all came close to being able to see it again.”

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Exact details of Jackson death still unclear

The final act of Michael Jackson’s life came into clearer focus Friday, a picture of a fallen superstar working out with TV’s “Incredible Hulk” and under the care of his own private cardiologist as he tried to get his 50-year-old body in shape for a grueling bid to reclaim his glory.

While the exact circumstances of his death remained unclear, early clues suggested he may simply have pushed his heart too far.

Police said they had towed the doctor’s BMW from Jackson’s home because it may include medication or other evidence, and a source familiar with the situation told The Associated Press that a heart attack appeared to have caused the cardiac arrest that led to the pop icon’s sudden death.

As grief for the King of Pop poured out from the icons of music to heartbroken fans, and the world came to grips with losing one of the most luminous celebrities of all time, an autopsy showed no sign of trauma or foul play to Jackson, who died Thursday at UCLA Medical Center after paramedics not could not revive him.

The AP source who said Jackson apparently suffered a heart attack was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity. Jackson’s brother Jermaine had said the pop singer apparently went into cardiac arrest — which often, but not always, happens because of a heart attack.

Authorities said they spoke with the doctor briefly Thursday and Friday and expected to meet with him again soon. Police stressed that the doctor, identified by the Los Angeles Times as cardiologist Conrad Murray, was not a criminal suspect.

“We do not consider him to be uncooperative at this time,” Beck said. “We think that he will assist us in coming to the truth of the facts in this case.”

Craig Harvey, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner, said there were no signs of foul play in the autopsy and further tests would be needed to determine cause of death. He said Jackson was taking some unspecified prescription medication but gave few other details.

Meanwhile, a 911 call released by fire officials shed light on the desperate effort at the mansion to save Jackson’s life before paramedics arrived Thursday afternoon. Jackson died later at UCLA Medical Center.

In the recording, an unidentified caller pleads with authorities to send help, offering no clues about why Jackson was stricken. He tells a dispatcher that Jackson’s doctor is performing CPR.

“He’s pumping his chest,” the caller says, “but he’s not responding to anything.”

Asked by the dispatcher whether anyone saw what happened, the caller answers: “No, just the doctor, sir. The doctor has been the only one there.”

The president of the company promoting Jackson’s shows said Murray was Jackson’s personal physician for three years. Jackson insisted Murray accompany him to London, said Randy Phillips, president of AEG Live.

Phillips quoted Jackson as saying: “Look, this whole business revolves around me. I’m a machine, and we have to keep the machine well-oiled.” Phillips said Jackson submitted to at least five hours of physicals that insurers had insisted on.

On Friday, the autopsy was completed in a matter of hours, but an official cause of death could take up to six weeks while medical examiners await toxicology tests. No funeral plans had been made public.

Jackson had remained out of the public spotlight during intense rehearsals for the London concerts, but those with access said he was upbeat and seemingly energized by his planned comeback. Ken Ehrlich, executive producer of the Grammys, said he watched Jackson dance energetically as recently as Wednesday.

“There was this one moment, he was moving across the stage and he was doing these trademark Michael moves, and I know I got this big grin on my face, and I started thinking to myself, ‘You know, it’s been years since I’ve seen that,’” he said.

Lou Ferrigno, the star of “The Incredible Hulk,” said he had been working out with Jackson for the past several months.

Still, Jackson’s health had been known to be precarious in recent years, and one family friend said Friday that he had warned the entertainer’s family about his use of painkillers.

“I said one day we’re going to have this experience. And when Anna Nicole Smith passed away, I said we cannot have this kind of thing with Michael Jackson,” Brian Oxman, a former Jackson attorney and family friend, told NBC’s “Today” show. “The result was I warned everyone, and lo and behold, here we are. I don’t know what caused his death. But I feared this day, and here we are.”

Oxman claimed Jackson had prescription drugs at his disposal to help with pain suffered when he broke his leg after he fell off a stage and for broken vertebrae in his back.

The worldwide wave of mourning for Jackson continued unabated for the man who revolutionized pop music and moonwalked his way into entertainment legend.

“My heart, my mind are broken,” said Elizabeth Taylor, who was one of Jackson’s closest friends and married one of her husbands at a lavish wedding at the pop star’s Neverland Ranch in 1991. She said she had heard the news as she was preparing to travel to London for Jackson’s comeback show, and added, “I can’t imagine life without him.”

Hundreds made a pilgrimage to the Jackson family’s compound in Los Angeles, leaving flowers and messages of love. They did the same at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and at the home in Los Angeles’ Holmby Hills where Jackson was stricken. Some camped out overnight.

In New York, people stopped at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, where Jackson had performed as a child with his brothers in one of rock’s first bubblegum supergroups, the Jackson 5.

Scores of celebrities who knew or worked with Jackson — or were simply awed by him — issued statements of mourning. Some came through publicists and others through emotional postings on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, where countless everyday fans were sharing memories as well.

“I truly hope he is memorialized as the ‘83 moonwalking, MTV owning, mesmerizing, unstoppable, invincible Michael Jackson,” said John Mayer. Miley Cyrus called him “my inspiration.”

And Diana Ross, the former lead singer of the Supremes who introduced the Jackson 5 at their debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1969, said she could not stop crying. “I am unable to imagine this,” she said. “My heart is hurting.”

His two ex-wives both said they were devastated. One of them, Lisa Marie Presley, posted a long, emotional statement on her MySpace page in which she said her ex-husband had confided to her 14 years ago that he feared dying young and under tragic circumstances, just as her father, Elvis Presley, had.

“I promptly tried to deter him from the idea, at which point he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded almost matter of fact as if to let me know, he knew what he knew and that was kind of that,” Presley said.

Presley’s father, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll to Jackson’s King of Pop, died in 1977 at age 42 of a drug-related death.

At rehearsals for Sunday’s Black Entertainment Awards show, stars like Beyonce, Wyclef Jean and Ne-Yo were frantically revamping their performances in an effort to turn the evening into a Michael Jackson tribute.

“There’s a direct line from Ne-Yo to Michael Jackson,” said executive producer Stephen Hill. “There’s a direct line from Beyonce to Michael Jackson. There’s a direct line from Jay-Z to Michael Jackson. I think they’ll want to pay tribute in their own way.”

When he was on trial on child molestation charges in 2005, Jackson appeared gaunt and had recurring back problems that he attributed to stress. His trial was interrupted several times by hospital visits, and Jackson once even appeared late to court dressed in his pajamas after an emergency room visit.

After his acquittal, Jackson’s prosecutor argued against returning some items that had been seized from Neverland, the Santa Barbara County estate Jackson had converted into a children’s playland. Among the items were syringes, the powerful painkiller Demerol and other prescription drugs.

Demerol carries a long list of warnings to users. The government warns that mixing it with certain other drugs can lead to reactions including slowed or stopped breathing, shock and cardiac arrest.

Within hours of Jackson’s death on Thursday, fans were inundating Web sites that sell his music, and physical stores reported they had been cleaned out of Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 CDs. All 10 of the albums on Amazon.com’s bestseller list Friday were Jackson’s; the 25th anniversary edition of “Thriller,” the bestselling album of all time, was at the top.

Meanwhile, fans were snapping up every Jackson recording they could get their hands on.

Bill Carr, Amazon.com Inc.’s vice president for music and video, said the Web site sold out within minutes all CDs by Michael Jackson and by the Jackson 5. Jackson’s albums accounted for all 10 of Amazon’s “Bestsellers in Music” list Friday, with the 25th anniversary edition of the celebrated “Thriller” album taking the top spot.

Barnes and Noble Inc.’s Web site and retail stores also sold out most Jackson CDs, DVDs and books, and its 10 best-selling CDs were Jackson titles as well.

“They love him,” said Bill Carr, Amazon’s vice president for music and video. “He’s a legend, and they’re anxious to make sure they have his music in their collections.”

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What Will Happen To Michael Jackson’s Children?

The death of Michael Jackson at the age of 50 has raised many questions about his health, finances, and legacy. But at the top of many people’s list of questions is the fate of his three children: How are they coping, and who will get custody of them?
Debbie Rowe, a nurse who Jackson married in 1996 and divorced in 1999, is the mother of Prince Michael, 12, and Paris, 11; Prince Michael II (also known as Blanket), 7, was reportedly born to a surrogate mother, whose name has never been released.
A former Jackson attorney and family friend, Brian Oxman, told Radaronline Thursday that Katherine Jackson, Michael’s mother, is the likeliest candidate to initially look after the children:
“Probably Mrs. Jackson will take care of them, she loves them dearly,” Oxman said…. [The children] are currently still in L.A. and with a nanny.”
Oxman later told “The Early Show”:
“I suspect that the death of Michael Jackson is only the beginning of the legal battles over not only his property, but also his children.”
Debbie Rowe could also make a play for Prince Michael and Paris. It is unknown if Jackson designated a guardian for the children in a will, but Rowe could claim that her care is in the best interest of her children, and head to court. E! reports:
If Rowe decides to make a bid for at least the two children she carried, she has quite a case, too….

Although many reports indicate Rowe legally waived her parental rights over the two kids after her divorce from Jackson, that decision actually was reversed by a judge. Eventually Jackson and Rowe reached a specific agreement of their own: Rowe retained parental rights and got a fat check while Jackson retained custody.
The children, who have lived at Neverland Ranch and in Ireland and Bahrain, were most often seen in public with their faces covered by veils or masks. In 2002, Jackson was highly criticized when he dangled Blanket, then an infant, over the balcony of a Berlin hotel to show him to screaming fans below.

The three children, like Michael and his siblings, will be growing up amid a blizzard of media attention. While the Jackson family is often in the spotlight for their tumultuous relationships, this may provide an opportunity for the family to heal past wounds.

Mark Lester, godfather to Jackson’s children, told the “Today” show:
“The Jackson family is a very large family, and, you know, in times of need families get together and put aside all the differences.”

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