newsmakers

newsmakers

Rapper Rick Ross hospitalized again

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama

Rapper Rick Ross was reportedly hospitalized in Alabama after suffering two medical scares in six hours that required planes to be diverted.

The first scare came Friday afternoon as Ross was on a Delta Air Lines flight from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Memphis, Tenn., where Ross was scheduled to appear at a University of Memphis basketball event that night. The plane returned to Florida after Ross suffered an unspecified medical problem. He was treated at a Fort Lauderdale hospital, and he even tweeted afterward: “Memphis here I come.”

But after Ross hopped a Memphis-bound private jet, it made an unscheduled landing in Birmingham, Ala., because the 34-year-old singer experienced another medical problem, Memphis basketball coach Josh Pastner told a crowd at the Friday night event where Ross was to appear.

“On his way to Memphis,” Pastner said, “he had to make another emergency landing, in Birmingham. He got really sick again, and they had to rush him to the emergency room.”

Lawyer knew tactic would be abandoned

LOS ANGELES

Dr. Conrad Murray’s attorney says he knew months before the physician’s trial that a theory that Michael Jackson drank a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol would have to be abandoned.

Defense attorney J. Michael Flanagan made the statement Friday without the jury present.

Murray, who was not in court for the hearing, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the June 2009 death of the superstar from an overdose of propofol.

The idea of Jackson orally giving himself the fatal dose was long touted by defense attorneys as a centerpiece of their case. Documents had been filed and arguments heard about studies on the issue.

The attorneys have even referred to a fruit-juice jar found on Jackson’s bedside table, suggesting he had taken the drug with juice. Flanagan initially dropped the bombshell Wednesday that the defense was abandoning the strategy.

“We are not going to assert at any point in this trial that Michael Jackson at any time orally ingested propofol,” said Flanagan, who revealed he had commissioned a study that concluded propofol would not be absorbed into the body when ingested.

Associated Press