Britney Spears' father retains control of star: court

Agence France-Presse

LOS ANGELES - Britney Spears' father will remain in charge of the pop star's affairs until February 14, a Los Angeles judge ruled Monday after a day of legal wrangling for control of the singer's assets.

Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Reva Goetz said Jamie Spears and an attorney would keep powers of conservatorship over Spears, who was admitted to a psychiatric ward last week amid renewed fears for her mental health.

A lawyer for Spears on Monday asked Goetz to revoke an order issued on Friday granting her father control of her assets and business dealing, asking the court to instead replace Jamie Spears with Northern Trust Bank.

However the request was turned down after Goetz said she needed more information on Spears capacity to understand the proceedings and to hire her own lawyer. A further hearing has been scheduled for February 14.

In a separate development, Goetz ordered Spears manager and confidante Sam Lutfi not to have any email or telephone contact with the singer.

Lutfi has been engaged in a battle with her parents, who reportedly believe he is putting their daughter's health and assets at risk.

In another hearing on Monday, a judge postponed a court date over Spears' attempts to regain visitation rights to her two sons, two-year-old Sean Preston and one-year-old Jayden James.

Last week's hospital drama is the latest in a series of setbacks for Spears, who was rushed to hospital for the second time in less than a month.

In the earlier incident, the singer was wheeled out of her home following a stand-off which began when she refused to release her two children to ex-husband Kevin Federline's bodyguard.

A judge limited Spears' access to her children in October after she failed to submit to random drug testing as demanded at an earlier hearing where the court ruled she was a "habitual and continuous drug user."

Spears has been rarely out of the tabloid headlines since her split from Federline in late 2006.

She was repeatedly photographed out partying while wearing no underwear, bizarrely shaved her head at a public salon, and attacked a paparazzi's car with an umbrella before finally entering rehab.

Soure: abs-cbnnews.com

Mary-Kate Olsen hospitalized for kidney infection

Reuters
LOS ANGELES - Mary-Kate Olsen, one-half of the celebrity twins who gained fame on the 1990s television show "Full House," has been hospitalized in New York City for a kidney infection, her representative said on Tuesday.
"She is resting comfortably and will be released in the next day or so," her spokeswoman Nicole Caruso said in an e-mail to Reuters. Further details were not disclosed.
Olsen, 21, and her twin sister Ashley became well-known on TV, but earned a huge following among young girls in a series of DVDs and videos with titles such as "The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley: The Case of Shark Encounter" and "You're invited to Mary-Kate & Ashley's Fashion Party."
As young adults, they acted in TV movies and launched fashion lines, and their lives became fodder for the tabloid press. Mary-Kate recently was seen on TV comedy "Weeds," and a movie in which she appeared, "The Wackness," is due in theaters next year.
Source: abs-cbnnews.com