Etta James on breathing machine in Calif. hospital

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Grammy-winning singer Etta James, who has been deemed terminally ill with leukemia, has been hospitalized in California and placed on a breathing machine, her long-time manager and friend said on Friday.

James, 73, best known for the blues ballad "At Last," was taken to the hospital near her home in Riverside, east of Los Angeles, earlier this week because she was struggling to breathe.

"They took her to the hospital. She was having trouble breathing, so they intubated her. She is on a breathing machine and is resting," Lupe De-Leon, the singer's manager for 30 years, told Reuters.

The singer has been in failing health for a number of years and suffers from leukemia, kidney disease and dementia but had previously been cared for at her Southern California home.

Her live-in doctor said last week that James was considered terminally ill, and that she communicates mostly with nods and simple words.

The three-time Grammy Award singer earlier battled obesity and was addicted to heroin for many years.

"It is really sad. She is like my sister," De-Leon said on Friday.

James was a key figure in the early days of R&B music with hit songs like "The Wallflower" and "Good Rockin' Daddy". But it was her 1961 recording of "At Last" that put her on the map.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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Reese Witherspoon hit by car during jog in Calif. (AP)

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Actress Reese Witherspoon was struck by a car while jogging near Los Angeles on Wednesday morning and suffered minor injuries.

Santa Monica police Sgt. Richard Lewis says the Oscar-winning actress was hit by a car driven by an 84-year-old woman.

Witherspoon was running in an unmarked crosswalk in Santa Monica when the driver struck her at about 20 mph. The 35-year-old actress was taken to a local hospital for treatment.

Lewis says the driver was cited for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.

Witherspoon's portrayal of June Carter in the 2005 film "Walk the Line" won her a best-actress Oscar.

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Bo Derek backs Calif. bill banning shark-fin trade (AP)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Actress Bo Derek won't be ordering shark-fin soup anytime soon.

She joined lawmakers at the California state Capitol on Monday promoting a bill that would ban selling, trading or possessing shark fins, which are used in a soup that is considered a delicacy in some Asian cultures.

"Sharks have been around for nearly 400 million years, and yet many stocks may be wiped out in a single human generation due to the increasing demand for shark fins," Derek told the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Derek, who is a U.S. secretary of state special envoy opposing wildlife trafficking, said shark-finning has created a global environmental crisis.

Derek and other opponents, some carrying stuffed toy sharks or wearing T-shirts in support of the legislation, said the practice is leading to a decline in several populations of sharks. Fishermen slice off the fins then throw the live sharks back into the ocean to die.

U.S. law restricts the practice domestically but cannot stop it in international waters. Supporters of AB376 say that's why lawmakers need to target use of the fins in California, which has the most demand for the fins outside Asia.

Derek told committee members that 85 percent of dried shark fin imports to the United States come through California. She said the state imports at least 30 tons of dried fins each year.

Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and several U.S. territories in the Pacific already have taken steps to eliminate the shark fin trade.

Opponents from the fishing and shark-fin marketing industry testified the bill will harm them and cost the state jobs and tax income.

"There will be a ripple effect through a number of industries," said Michael Kwong, whose family has owned Hoo Woo Co. Inc. in San Francisco for four generations.

He said shark-finning is a global issue and should be brought up in the United Nations rather than debated state-by-state.

In addition, dozens of other opponents lined up against the bill, shouting "No on 376" in unison.

The fins can sell for $600 a pound, while the soup can cost $80 a bowl. Critics say fishermen kill 73 million sharks each year for their fins.

Opponents of the bill say there's no need for California to act because there already are enough federal protections.

The bill is politically and culturally sensitive because shark fin soup has been used for thousands of years to mark special occasions among some Asian cultures.

AB376 was approved by the California Assembly in May. On Monday, the Senate committee sent the bill to its suspense file, which is reserved for bills that could cost the state money.

The committee's chairwoman, Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, said the legislation could be amended before it is sent to the full Senate to remove some exemptions that could permit some use of sharks.

"Now I have concerns that as long as any fins are allowed in California under the guise of some being legal, that it would keep our market open to many, many, many illegal fins," Kehoe said.

State Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, questioned how much good a California ban might do to deter harvests worldwide. He cited a National Marine Fisheries Service report to Congress that showed imports and exports of shark fins from the entire United States in 2010 were a fraction of 1 percent of the worldwide market.

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Calif. taxidermist preserves Gaga's meat dress (AP)

KETCHIKAN, Alaska – A California taxidermist has earned a rare place in pop history.

Sergio Vigalato (VIG'-uh-lot-oh) preserved Lady Gaga's now-famous raw-meat dress for display in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.

The project has prompted a swarm of media interest in the 66-year-old former Southeast Alaska charter boat skipper who's originally from Brazil.

Vigalato operates American Taxidermy in Burbank, Calif. That's where he was contacted by the museum about preserving the dress that Lady Gaga wore at the September 2010 MTV Video Music Awards.

Vigalato was unaware of the dress or the artist when reached two months after the show. But he agreed to the project anyway.

The ensemble, which Lady Gaga said was a statement about equality, arrived at his shop frozen and decomposing. He restored it over the next three and a half months, and the dress went on display in June.

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Betty Ford to get Calif. memorial, Mich. burial (AP)

By SHAYA TAYEFE MOHAJER and ANTHONY MCCARTNEY, Associated Press Shaya Tayefe Mohajer And Anthony Mccartney, Associated Press – 1 hr 56 mins ago

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. – Before she is laid to rest, Betty Ford will be memorialized in the Southern California desert region she and her rehab center made world famous by treating a stream of spiraling Hollywood stars.

Rancho Mirage was already a billionaires' playground, but Ford's center made it a household name as it provided help to luminaries from ranging from Elizabeth Taylor to Lindsay Lohan.

Tributes poured in Saturday from A-listers and average residents alike in the desert golf community where Ford settled with husband former President Gerald Ford after he left office more than three decades ago.

She died of natural causes at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage on Friday at age 93, family attorney and spokesman Greg Willard said.

She will be memorialized Tuesday in California's Coachella Valley, which includes Rancho Mirage, before her casket travels by motorcade and military transport for a private burial Thursday alongside her husband in Grand Rapids, Mich., at the Gerald R. Ford Museum.

In Rancho Mirage, residents were saddened by her death even as they praised her devotion to removing the stigma from addiction. The Betty Ford Center treated more than 90,000 people since its beginnings in 1982 and although it was most famous for a string of celebrity patients, it kept its rates relatively affordable and provided a model for effective addiction treatment.

She revealed her own longtime addiction to painkillers and alcohol 15 months after leaving the White House, and regularly welcomed new groups of patients to rehab with a speech that started, "Hello, my name's Betty Ford, and I'm an alcoholic and drug addict."

Carol Pruter, 67, said she was proud that Betty Ford chose to set up her rehab center in Rancho Mirage and admired Ford for making a point of reaching out to average people too, Pruter said.

"She let people know that people who aren't well-known can get addictions too. It's not something for a certain part of society, it's not something to hide," Pruter said as she stopped by a local coffee shop in Saturday's 104-degree desert heat.

Pruter's family attends St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in nearby Palm Desert, where the Fords also worshipped. The church will host a tribute service Tuesday to Mrs. Ford for friends and family, and a public visitation Tuesday evening.

Ford chose her close friend and fellow former First Lady Rosalynn Carter to eulogize her in California, along with journalist Cokie Roberts and a University of Michigan dean, Jeffrey MacKie-Mason.

Willard, who has served the family since 1975, recalled when the outspoken bosom buddies Ford and Carter went to Capitol Hill to lobby for mental health legislation.

"Several Senators and Congressmen have since observed that they have not seen a political force of nature as they did that day when they saw those women arm-in-arm in the halls of Congress," Willard said Saturday.

Other residents of the desert town reminisced about the celebrity cache that the Betty Ford Center brought to Rancho Mirage and the other desert cities in the Coachella Valley — but without the frenzy that so often accompanies the comings and goings of today's troubled stars.

"It's probably shallow to say, but I think it's really cool she was able to get celebrities here," said Pat Kellogg, who has lived in the area for 22 years.

Florist John Ballow for years has catered to Rancho Mirage's wealthy and famous, but there were few with whom he developed as close a relationship as the woman he reverentially calls "Mrs. Ford."

"I took this almost as bad as a member of my family dying — the world does not make Mrs. Fords anymore," said Ballow.

The city's annual Betty Ford Pro-Am Golf Tournament draws on the lush fairways to raise money for people who cannot afford addiction treatment.

The rest of the world, however, knew the rehab center's hometown primarily for its ties to Hollywood's elite, so much so that it became the punch line in discussions of celebrity overindulgence.

In 1996, Kelsey Grammer described to Jay Leno how his treatment at Betty Ford helped restore his joy of living. The comedian also quipped about the center's stature and its famous patients.

"When I was on my way to the Betty Ford Center, I turned to one of my friends and said, `You know, I've finally made it. I'm going to the Betty Ford Center,'" he said.

Grammer, however, also credited the center with saving his life as did many of the celebrities who honored Ford on Friday as news of her death spread, from Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin to "One Day at a Time" actress Mackenzie Phillips to Ali McGraw, who was treated at the center in 1986.

"She changed so many of our lives with her courage and intelligence, her honesty and humility, and her deep grace," McGraw said. "Her vision impacted my own life as few people have."

But Ford herself would have rejected the praise as she did in life, preferring instead to turn the attention back to the person who was struggling with the demons of addiction.

"People who get well often say, `You saved my life,' and `You've turned my life around,'" Ford once said. "They don't realize we merely provided the means for them to do it themselves, and that's all."

After the Tuesday service in California, Ford's casket will travel Wednesday to Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, where she grew up, and where she met her husband of 58 years.

As in California, there will be another tribute service for family and friends at Grace Episcopal Church before a public visitation is held. Lynne Cheney, the wife of former vice president Dick Cheney, and history scholar Richard Norton Smith will give eulogies at the Michigan service.

_____

McCartney reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press Writers Gillian Flaccus and Chris Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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Calif. governor, first lady to meet royal couple (AP)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Gov. Jerry Brown and first lady Anne Gust Brown plan to greet Prince William and his wife, Kate, when they arrive in Los Angeles next week — marking the second time Brown has hosted British royalty as governor.

Brown's office on Friday released his itinerary during the official visit to California by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and plans show the governor and other officials will greet the couple during their first official overseas tour when they arrive at Los Angeles International Airport on July 8.

"The governor and Anne are delighted that they've chosen California as their single stop in the United States," said the governor's spokeswoman Elizabeth Ashford. "The governor will talk about the strength of the relationship with California: tourism, trade and environmentalism, and there's some possibility they'll talk about corgis."

The Browns have a 7-year-old Pembroke Welsh corgi named Sutter, known as California's first dog. The breed is a small herding dog and has been a favorite of the prince's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. The queen has bred corgis for years.

When Brown was California's governor the first time in 1977, he hosted Prince Charles, picking him up from the Sacramento Executive Airport in his blue 1974 Plymouth sedan. During that visit, the governor's staff served cold roast beef and California cheeses picked up from a local deli.

Brown met Prince Charles again in 2005 in Oakland when he was the city's mayor, and later that year at a funeral in England.

Prince William and Kate began their North American visit in Canada this week. In California, they are scheduled to attend a reception the evening they arrive that will be hosted by the British consul general, Dame Barbara Hay.

The royal couple is scheduled the next day to attend a charity polo match in Santa Barbara, followed by a black-tie dinner to introduce British film talent to Hollywood executives.

They wrap up their three-day tour Sunday with a visit to an inner-city arts program and a job fair for American servicemen transitioning to civilian life.

The United Kingdom is the state's top overseas tourism market, according to the California Travel and Tourism Commission. Last year 671,000 UK travelers visited the state generating $670 million in economic activity.

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Calif. Coachella music festival goes to 2 weekends (AP)

LOS ANGELES – Coachella festival organizers are doubling the annual music extravaganza.

Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival organizers say next year's festival will be held in Indio, Calif., over two weekends on April 13 to 15 and April 20 to 22.

The separate events are expected to feature the "same lineup, same art, same place, different people."

This year's three-day event included headlining acts such as Kanye West, the Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire.

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Streisand OK with Calif. selling donated estate (AP)

MALIBU, Calif. – Barbra Streisand says she understands that California might have to sell her donated 22.5-acre Malibu ranch to help balance the state budget but she hopes the buyer will preserve its "special habitat."

Ramirez Canyon Park, which the singer donated in 1993, is on the list of state-owned properties that Gov. Jerry Brown wants to put up for sale despite fierce opposition.

The property contains meadows, gardens, a creek and three homes that Streisand customized with a wealth of architectural detail ranging from Art Deco metal panels to Douglas fir framing on a Craftsman-style house. It was valued at $15 million when Streisand gave it to the state and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency that Brown established in 1980 during his first stint as governor.

But the property "does not serve any essential state function," Brown's spokeswoman, Elizabeth Ashford, told the Los Angeles Times. "The state should not be the landlord for a place that hosts mountain retreats."

"I understand Governor Brown's tough decision given the severe budget shortfalls that California is facing," Streisand said in a recent statement. "I only hope that there is little disruption to the residents of Ramirez Canyon through this potential transition and that whatever entity does purchase the land and the homes on it will preserve its special habitat."

But a state Assembly budget subcommittee last week rejected the idea of selling the property, and the proposal faces an uncertain future in the state Legislature.

The conservancy opened its headquarters on the property and moved to set up what it promised would be an academic think-tank called the Barbra Streisand Center for Conservancy Studies. But when interest in conferences lagged, the conservancy began renting out the estate for weddings and garden tours to pay for maintaining its five houses and grounds.

Neighboring homeowners, some of them living in secluded, multimillion-dollar mansions, complained about noise and expressed fears that traffic could block the rustic roads during fires. Streisand demanded that her name be pulled from the property.

Homeowners sued and a settlement was reached.

Currently, the ranch is only open to the public by special appointment.

The conservancy has defended its use of the property and opposed the sale. It has argued that under California Coastal Commission rules adopted last year, the ranchland must remain as open space and thus is worthless to developers.

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'Dougie' rapper M-Bone slain in Calif. drive-by (AP)

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – M-Bone of the rap group Cali Swag District, which scored a hit last year with the song "Teach Me How to Dougie," was killed in a weekend drive-by shooting as he sat in a car outside a liquor store, police said Monday.

The 22-year-old Inglewood man, whose real name is Mante Ray Talbert, was sitting in the driver's seat of his car shortly after 10:30 p.m. Sunday.

"Another car pulled alongside, gunshots were fired, and the victim was struck twice in the head," Lt. James Madia said. A man sitting in the passenger seat of Talbert's car was not injured, Lt. Gabriel Garcia said.

Talbert was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Lt. Steve Overly said the motive for the attack was under investigation. Several theories have been put forward on social media sites and detectives were following up on some of those to see if they were credible, he said.

Talbert was "the victim of a random act of violence," Cali Swag District's publicist Greg Miller said in a statement.

"He was a hardworking, passionate artist and dancer that will be deeply missed," Miller said.

Witnesses gave varying descriptions of the fleeing car, Madia said.

Bandmate C-Smoove tweeted Monday that his life changed drastically in the blink of an eye, and added "rip mbone."

"He was the life of the group," C-Smoove told KABC-TV as he wiped away tears with his shirt. "He made us laugh, he was the energy."

Dozens of friends, fans and family members gathered outside the liquor store Monday evening and held a vigil for Talbert.

Cali Swag District's hit "Teach Me How to Dougie" is based on the "Dougie" dance, which first appeared in Texas and is noted for its leaning stances, shoulder and arm movements.

The dance was not only performed in dance clubs and the streets but by celebrities as well, from Wolf Blitzer to Washington Wizards star John Wall; even first lady Michelle Obama recently performed the dance as part of her "Let's Move" initiative.

"Teach Me How to Dougie" spent several months in the top 10 of Billboard's hot rap songs. The group also performed the dance on several television shows.

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