AP News in Brief
The Associated PressSpokesman says public memorial is planned for Michael Jackson, but it won't be at Neverland
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A public memorial for Michael Jackson is in the works but won't be held at the late pop star's Neverland Ranch, a Jackson family spokesman said Wednesday .
No further details were provided in the statement issued Wednesday by family spokesman Ken Sunshine. An announcement on the plans was expected soon.
Meanwhile, Michael Jackson's 7-year-old will was filed in a Los Angeles court, giving his entire estate to a family trust while making his mother the guardian of his children and cutting out his former wife Debbie Rowe.
Court documents estimated the current value of his estate at more than $500 million.
It names his mother, Katherine Jackson, 79, as a beneficiary of the trust and the guardian of Jackson's children, who are also named as beneficiaries of the trust.
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Obama hugs cancer patient, pitches health care overhaul, but questions remain
ANNANDALE, Va. (AP) — President Barack Obama wanted to put a human face on his plans to overhaul health care, and a Virginia supporter did just that Wednesday.
Fighting back tears, Debby Smith, 53, told Obama of her kidney cancer and her inability to obtain health insurance or hold a job. The president hugged her — she's a volunteer for his political operation — and called her "exhibit A" in an unsustainable system that is too expensive and complex for millions of Americans.
"We are going to try to find ways to help you immediately," he told Smith as hundreds looked on at a community college forum — and countless others watched on television. But the nation's long-term needs require a greater emphasis on preventive care and "cost-effective care," he said.
Smith, of Appalachia, Va., is a volunteer for Organizing for America, Obama's political operation within the Democratic National Committee. She obtained her ticket through the White House.
The health care changes that Obama called for Wednesday would reshape the nation's medical landscape. He says he wants to cover nearly 50 million uninsured Americans, to persuade doctors to stress quality over quantity of care, to squeeze billions of dollars from spending.
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Teen miraculously survives Yemeni jet crash by clinging to wreckage for 13 hours
MORONI, Comoros (AP) — The lone survivor of a Yemeni jetliner crash, who clung to wreckage for 13 hours before being rescued, lay in a hospital bed with a broken collarbone Wednesday, asking for little — except for a chance to see her mother.
But relatives said 14-year-old Bahia Bakari was too traumatized to be told her mother was feared dead, along with 151 others on board the Yemenia airways flight.
"I have told her that her mother is in the next room," the girl's uncle, Joseph Yousouf, told The Associated Press outside a hospital in this former French colony, where the jetliner was attempting to land in fierce winds before dawn Tuesday when it slammed into the Indian Ocean.
He said the girl was coherent and asking for food.
"They were coming to Comoros for vacation," Yousouf said of Bahia, who lived with her parents and three younger siblings outside Paris. "She was going to be staying with her grandmother."
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Puerto Rican group campaigned against Bork, fought discrimination while Sotomayor served
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Puerto Rican civil rights organization advised by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor campaigned against seating conservative Robert Bork on the high court in the late 1980s, according to new documents that shed light on the group that's become a key focus of Republicans questioning Sotomayor's fitness to be a justice.
The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund officially opposed Bork, whose nomination by President Ronald Reagan was rejected by the Senate in 1987, "because of the threat he poses to the civil rights of the Latino community," its president reported in one of several documents from the group that the Senate Judiciary Committee released Wednesday.
The 350-plus pages of material offer little evidence about Sotomayor's role in the cases and causes the organization, now known as LatinoJustice PRLDEF, took up while she served on its board from 1980 until 1992.
But Republicans quickly seized on them as full of "red flags" on Sotomayor, whose hearings are scheduled to begin July 13. A top aide to Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Judiciary panel, accused Sotomayor's allies of purposely withholding the documents in a bid to rush through Sotomayor's confirmation.
"This has all the hallmarks of a deliberate delay and an attempt to frustrate a thorough review of this important information," Stephen Boyd, Sessions' spokesman, said in a statement. "If these dilatory tactics continue, it will be increasingly more difficult for the hearing to go forward on July 13."
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Hospital that treated Michael Jackson has expert in 'raising the dead' after cardiac arrest
When Michael Jackson went into cardiac arrest, rescuers took him to a place known for bringing the dead back to life. A world-renowned surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center has pioneered a way to revive people that most doctors would have long written off, including a woman whose heart had stopped for 2 1/2 hours.
Tested on a few dozen cardiac arrest patients, 80 percent survived. Usually, more than 80 percent perish.
"They took people who were basically dead, not all that different than Michael Jackson, and saved most of them," said Dr. Lance Becker, an emergency medicine specialist at the University of Pennsylvania and an American Heart Association spokesman.
Could Jackson, too, have been saved?
It's impossible to know. Doctors at the hospital worked on him for an hour. The UCLA expert, cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Gerald Buckberg, said he was not personally involved in Jackson's treatment, and that too little is known about what preceded it.
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Obesity rates still rising in 23 states, and Medicare should brace for influx of fat boomers
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mississippi's still king of cellulite, but an ominous tide is rolling toward the Medicare doctors in neighboring Alabama: obese baby boomers.
It's time for the nation's annual obesity rankings and, outside of fairly lean Colorado, there's little good news. In 31 states, more than one in four adults are obese, says a new report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
And obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year, and no state experienced a significant decline.
"The obesity epidemic clearly goes beyond being an individual problem," said Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust, a nonprofit public health group.
It's a national crisis that "calls for a national strategy to combat obesity," added Robert Wood Johnson vice president Dr. James Marks. "The crest of the wave of obesity is still to crash."
While the nation has long been bracing for a surge in Medicare as the boomers start turning 65, the new report makes clear that fat, not just age, will fuel much of those bills. In every state, the rate of obesity is higher among 55- to 64-year-olds — the oldest boomers — than among today's 65-and-beyond.
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Stocks rise after data shows more stable manufacturing activity, rise in pending home sales
NEW YORK (AP) — Investors kicked off the stock market's third quarter with a moderate gain after getting some reassuring data on manufacturing and housing.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose by 0.7 percent Wednesday, rebounding from the previous day's selloff that was triggered by a drop in consumer confidence. Other indexes made moderate advances as well.
The buying was tempered by caution ahead of Thursday's June jobs report.
"That's going to be the big one," said Chris Johnson, president of Johnson Research Group. "People are keeping their eye on the unemployment figure."
The Labor Department is expected to report another uptick in the unemployment rate to 9.6 percent, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Growing unemployment has been keeping investors nervous about consumer spending — a major driver of growth.
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Karl Malden, Oscar-winning actor in 'A Streetcar Named Desire,' dies at 97
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Karl Malden, the Academy Award-winning actor whose intelligent characterizations on stage and screen made him a star despite his plain looks, died Wednesday, his family said. He was 97.
Malden died of natural causes surrounded by his family at his Brentwood home, they told the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. He served as the academy's president from 1989-92.
"Karl lived a rich, full life," Academy president Sid Ganis said. "He has the greatest and most loving family; a career that has spanned the spectrum of the arts from theater to film and television, to some very famous commercial work."
While he tackled a variety of characters over the years, he was often seen in working-class garb or military uniform. His authenticity in grittier roles came naturally: He was the son of a Czech mother and a Serbian father, and worked for a time in the steel mills of Gary, Ind., after dropping out of college.
Malden said he got his celebrated bulbous nose when he broke it a couple of times playing basketball or football, joking that he was "the only actor in Hollywood whose nose qualifies him for handicapped parking." He liked to say he had "an open-hearth face."
Malden won a supporting actor Oscar in 1951 for his role as Blanche DuBois' naive suitor Mitch in "A Streetcar Named Desire" — a role he also played on Broadway.
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Cross-country US Airways flight diverted to Albuquerque after passenger undresses in his seat
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A cross-country US Airways flight was diverted to Albuquerque after a male passenger removed his clothing mid-flight.
Dan Jiron, a spokesman for the Albuquerque airport, said 50-year-old Keith Wright of New York disrobed Tuesday while sitting in his seat in the back of the aircraft. He said Wright was unresponsive when a flight attendant asked him repeatedly to get dressed and refused to be covered with a blanket.
Jiron said law enforcement employees who were passengers on the plane helped subdue and handcuff Wright before the flight landed. The FBI said Wright is in federal custody on a charge of interfering with flight crew members and attendants.
A US Airways spokeswoman said the plane from Charlotte continued on to Los Angeles after Wright's arrest.
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Gallardo strikes out 12, but Pelfrey helps Mets break losing streak with 1-0 win over Brewers
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Mike Pelfrey bailed the New York Mets out of a season-worst losing streak, overcoming a career-high 12 strikeouts by young Milwaukee Brewers ace Yovani Gallardo in a 1-0 victory Wednesday.
Pelfrey (6-3) gave up six hits and two walks in 7 2-3 innings, and Ryan Church came through with an RBI single in the sixth as the Mets stopped a five-game losing streak and avoided a series sweep by the Brewers.
Gallardo (8-5) gave up five hits in seven innings. The Brewers completed a 5-4 homestand and will travel to Chicago for a four-game series against the Cubs beginning Thursday.
Pelfrey allowed a single and a walk with two outs in the eighth, but Sean Green got J.J Hardy to ground into a forceout at third. Francisco Rodriguez pitched the ninth, allowing a leadoff single to Ryan Braun before retiring the side for his 21st save.
New York (38-39), which backed Pelfrey with a pair of double plays, was coming off a 9-18 record in June, its worst month in nearly six years. The Mets are without injured stars Carlos Beltran (knee), Jose Reyes (calf, hamstring) and Carlos Delgado (hip).