LOS ANGELES – Michael Jackson’s doctor pleaded not guilty Monday to involuntary manslaughter in the death of the pop star at a brief hearing that had all the trappings of another sensational celebrity courtroom drama.

Dr. Conrad Murray, accused of giving Jackson a fatal dose of an anesthetic to help him sleep, appeared in court in a gray suit and burgundy tie as Jackson’s father Joe, mother Katherine, and siblings LaToya, Jermaine, Tito, Jackie and Randy watched from courtroom seats behind prosecutors.

Neither Murray nor the Jacksons showed much emotion as the six-foot-five Murray entered his plea through his attorney Ed Chernoff, but as he emerged from court, Joe Jackson declared, “My son was murdered.”

“We need justice,” he added before leaving with family members in a fleet of Cadillac Escalades.

On Monday night, Joe Jackson told CNN’s Larry King that he doesn’t believe Murray is the only person responsible for his son’s death. “To me, he’s just the fall guy. There’s other people I think involved with this whole thing,” Joe Jackson said, without elaborating.

Joe Jackson also told King his son believed his life was in danger. “Michael said it himself that he would be killed,” Joe Jackson said. “He even told his kids that he would be murdered.”

Earlier, several people shouted “murderer” as Murray walked past a crowd of hundreds of reporters and Jackson fans on his way to a courthouse adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport. Others held signs urging “Justice For Michael.”

Murray, 56, a Houston cardiologist who was with Jackson when he died June 25, entered his plea just hours after he was charged.

Superior Court Judge Keith L. Schwartz set bail at $75,000, three times more than the amount people normally face after being charged with involuntary manslaughter. Murray posted it about two hours later and was released.

Chernoff said outside court that Murray plans to return to practicing medicine in Nevada and Texas while he awaits trial. The judge ordered him to return to court April 5 for a preliminary hearing.

“He’ll be back in Vegas this week, he’ll open his medical practice,” Chernoff said.

The judge warned Murray he is not to use general anesthesia on anyone while he is free on bail.

“I don’t want you sedating people,” he said.

Deputy state Attorney General Trina Bell also told the judge the state Medical Board is planning to seek the suspension of Murray’s medical license. The action would only affect his ability to practice medicine in California.

It appeared authorities were taking extra steps to ensure the arraignment did not become a media circus.

Lines were formed to gain admission to the courtroom, and the Jackson family was escorted in separately and seated before anyone else arrived.

Despite the precautions, the upcoming proceedings promise to be the focus of widespread attention, especially if the Jackson family continues to take a high-profile role.

Immediately after the hearing, Latoya Jackson issued a statement saying she believed her brother had been murdered and that others besides Murray were involved in his death.

“I will continue to fight until all of the proper individuals are brought forth and justice is served,” she said.

Jackson, 50, hired Murray in May to be his personal physician as he prepared for a strenuous series of comeback performances.

Officials said the singer died in Los Angeles after Murray administered the powerful general anesthetic propofol and two other sedatives to get the chronic insomniac to sleep.

Murray is accused of the single felony count in a five-page complaint that said he “did unlawfully, and without malice, kill Michael Joseph Jackson” by acting “without due caution and circumspection.”

The complaint contains no details on Jackson’s death, but authorities have said the singer died after Murray administered the anesthetic and other drugs.

If convicted, the doctor could face up to four years in prison.

Known as “milk of amnesia,” propofol is only supposed to be administered by an anesthesia professional in a medical setting because it depresses breathing and heart rate while lowering blood pressure.

Los Angeles investigators were methodical in building a case against Murray, wary of repeating missteps that have plagued some other high-profile celebrity cases, most notably against O.J. Simpson and actor Robert Blake, both of whom were acquitted of murder.

When prosecutors filed their criminal complaint Monday the coroner’s office released its autopsy report on Jackson. The document, previously obtained by The Associated Press, found the singer was in relatively good health and died from acute propofol intoxication.

Dr. Selma Calmes, an anesthesiologist who reviewed the autopsy report at the coroner’s request, said the level of propofol in Jackson’s body was akin to what would be given for major surgery. After such a dose, a patient normally would have a tube inserted in the airway to help with breathing and be ventilated by an anesthesiologist.

“The standard of care for administering propofol was not met,” she wrote.

Court documents state Murray told police he administered propofol just before 11 a.m. then stepped out of the room to go to the bathroom.

There is some dispute about what happened next. According to court filings, Murray told police that upon his return from the bathroom, he saw Jackson was not breathing and began trying to revive him.

But an ambulance was not called until 12:21 p.m. and Murray spent much of the intervening time making non-emergency cell phone calls, police say. The nature of the calls, which lasted 47 minutes, is not known.

Murray’s lawyer has said investigators got confused about what Murray had told them, and that the doctor found his patient unresponsive around noon.

A large number of witnesses have been interviewed by police, including those who were present during Jackson’s last days, those who worked with him in preparation for his series of comeback concerts, “This Is It,” and members of his personal entourage, including his security guard and personal assistant.

The comeback concerts sold out in anticipation of Jackson’s return as the “King of Pop” after years of odd behavior and a lengthy molestation trial that had overshadowed a lifetime in music. Despite years of self-imposed exile, he retained a huge, loyal following of fans overjoyed at the prospect of seeing him reclaim the glory he’d attained with albums like “Thriller” and songs like “Beat It!” and “Billie Jean.”

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Associated Press Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch and AP Television News cameraman Bruce Barton contributed to this story.

VIENNA – Iran pressed ahead Monday with plans that will increase its ability to make nuclear weapons as it formally informed the U.N. nuclear agency of its intention to enrich uranium to higher levels.

Alarmed world powers questioned the rationale behind the move and warned the country it could face more U.N. sanctions if it made good on its intentions.

Iran maintains its nuclear activities are peaceful, and an envoy insisted the move was meant only to provide fuel for Tehran’s research reactor. But world powers fearing that Iran’s enrichment program might be a cover for a weapons program were critical.

Britain said the Islamic Republic’s reason for further enrichment made no sense because it is not technically advanced enough to turn the resulting material into the fuel rods needed for the reactor.

France and the U.S. said the latest Iranian move left no choice but to push harder for a fourth set of U.N. Security Council sanctions to punish Iran’s nuclear defiance.

Even a senior parliamentarian from Russia, which traditionally opposes Western ambitions for new U.N. sanctions, suggested the time had now come for such additional punishment

Konstantin Kosachev, head of the international affairs committee of the State Duma — the lower house of parliament — told the Interfax news agency that the international community should “react to this step with serious measures, including making the regime of economic sanctions more severe.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had already announced Sunday that his country would significantly enrich at least some of the country’s stockpile of uranium to 20 percent. Still, Monday’s formal notification was significant, particularly because of Iran’s waffling in recent months on the issue.

Western powers blame Iran for rejecting an internationally endorsed plan to take Iranian low enriched uranium, further enriching it and return it in the form of fuel rods for the reactor — and in broader terms for turning down other overtures meant to diminish concerns about its nuclear agenda.

Telling The Associated Press that his country now had formally told the International Atomic Energy Agency of its intentions, Iranian envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh said that IAEA inspectors now overseeing enrichment to low levels would be able to stay on site to monitor the process.

He suggested world powers had pushed Iran into the decision, asserting that it was their fault that the plan that foresaw Russian and French involvement in supplying fuel from enriched uranium for the Tehran research reactor had failed.

“Until now, we have not received any response to our positive logical and technical proposal,” he said. “We cannot leave hospitals and patients desperately waiting for radio isotopes” being produced at the Tehran reactor and used in cancer treatment, he added.

The IAEA confirmed receiving formal notification in a restricted note to the agency’s 35-nation board made available to The Associated Press.

Iran’s atomic energy organization informed the agency that “production of less than 20 percent enriched uranium is being foreseen,” said the note.

“Less than 20 percent” means enrichment to a tiny fraction below that level — in effect 20 percent but formally just below threshold for high enriched uranium.

At the same time, the note indicated that Iran was keeping the agency in the dark about specifics, saying the IAEA “is in the process of seeking clarifications from Iran regarding the starting date of the process for the production of such material and other technical details.”

On Sunday, Iranian officials said higher enrichment would start on Tuesday.

At a news conference with French Defense Minister Herve Morin, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates praised President Barack Obama’s attempts to engage the Islamic Republic diplomatically and chided Tehran for not reciprocating.

“No U.S. president has reached out more sincerely, and frankly taken more political risk, in an effort to try to create an opening for engagement for Iran,” he said. “All these initiatives have been rejected.”

Morin said France and the U.S. agreed that there was no choice but “to work for new measures within the framework of the Security Council” — a stance echoed by Israel, Iran’s most implacable foe.

Tehran’s enrichment plans are “additional proof of the fact that Iran is ridiculing the entire world,” said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. “The right response is to impose decisive and permanent sanctions on Iran.”

Although material for the fissile core of a nuclear warhead must be enriched to a level of 90 percent or more, just getting its stockpile to the 20 percent mark would be a major step for Iran’s nuclear program. While enriching to 20 percent would take about one year, using up to 2,000 centrifuges at Tehran’s underground Natanz facility, any next step — moving from 20 to 90 percent — would take only half a year and between 500-1,000 centrifuges.

Achieving the 20-percent level “would be going most of the rest of the way to weapon-grade uranium,” said David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security tracks suspected proliferators.

Soltanieh declined to say how much of Iran’s stockpile — now estimated at 1.8 tons — would be enriched. Nor did he say when the process would begin. Albright said enriching to higher levels could begin within a day — or only in several months, depending on how far technical preparations had progressed.

Apparent technical problems could also slow the process, he said.

Iran’s enrichment program “should be like a Christmas tree in full light,” he said. “In fact, the lights are flickering.”

While Iran would be able to enrich up to 20 percent, a senior U.S official told the AP that the research reactor would run out of fuel before enough material was produced. He asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the issue.

Britain’s Foreign Office said the “enriched uranium could not be used for the Tehran Research Reactor as Iran does not have the technology to manufacture it into fuel rods.”

Legal constraints could tie Iran’s hands as well. A senior official from one of the IAEA’s 35 board member nations senior official said he believed Tehran was obligated to notify the agency 60 days in advance of starting to enrich to higher levels.

The official asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the issue.

The Iranian move came just days after Ahmadinejad appeared to move close to endorsing the original deal, which foresaw Tehran exporting the bulk of its low-enriched uranium to Russia for further enrichment and then conversion for fuel rods for the research reactor.

That plan was welcomed internationally because it would have delayed Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapons by shipping out about 70 percent of its low-enriched uranium stockpile, thereby leaving it with not enough to make a bomb. Tehran denies nuclear weapons ambitions, insisting it needs to enrich to create fuel for an envisioned nuclear reactor network.

The proposal was endorsed by the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — the six powers that originally elicited a tentative approval from Iran in landmark talks last fall. Since then, however, mixed messages from Tehran have infuriated the U.S. and its European allies, who claim Iran is only stalling for time as it attempts to build a nuclear weapon.

Iran has defied five U.N. Security Council resolutions — and three sets of U.N. sanctions — aimed at pressuring it to freeze enrichment, and has instead steadily expanded its program.

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Associated Press writers Danica Kirka and David Stringer in London, Anne Flaherty in Paris, Matthew Lee in Washington, James Heintz in Moscow and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

He took office as the most popular incoming president in a generation. A movement had become a mandate of nearly 70 million votes. People hoped the new president would bring change to Washington, the hallmark claim of his historic candidacy.

Now, the mood through much of the nation seems restive, even sour. It is almost jarring to look at the photographs from Grant Park, to study those upturned beaming faces, many streaked with tears. Was that a movement? Or just a moment?

In a series of conversations before and after the State of the Union address, fervent Obama voters and former campaign staffers said they still are committed to the president and support his policies. But many are experiencing what generations of the politically passionate have learned over the years: Campaigning is fun; watching the person you’ve elected engage in the long slog of governing, less so. Some are working for his ideas. Some have struggled to find a way to engage. And for others, their passion was deep but brief. When Obama took office, they went back to their lives.

Nate Daab and Daniel Unser were in Grant Park on election night. They had graduated from high school during the primaries and gone off to art school in Chicago, where they met. Sometime in those first heady weeks at Columbia College, somebody got an Obama cardboard cutout at a movie rental store, and in that way, Obama came to live with them for a while. “We kept him there for three or four months,” says Unser. “Everybody who came around wanted pictures taken with him.”

The morning of Election Day, having voted for president for the first time, the two set out for Grant Park, Obama cutout in tow. They waited in line for eight hours, did interviews with TV crews from Spain, England, Australia, screamed with tens of thousands of others when the Obama family took the stage. It took them almost five hours to get home, and all along the way, strangers hugged and high-fived and cheered into the night.

“Pretty cool. Awesome energy,” says Daab, 20. “There will never be anything like it.”

Their euphoria spiked again during the inauguration. And then it was gone.

“It’s kind of like Christmas Day,” Unser, 19, says now. “You build it and you build it and it kinds of explodes and then you open what you got, and then it’s done. It’s over.”

A drastic falloff

Marie-Ange Murekatete was in Grant Park, too, with her boyfriend and two girlfriends, all students at Loyola College, nestled on the ground like puppies. “We all wanted to be part of something bigger than ourselves,” she says.

She had landed in Chicago several weeks before the election, thrilled to be out of Dayton, Ohio, where she cast an absentee ballot for Obama without believing he would win. “Everyone was crying and falling on the floor,” she says. “It was so unified. I didn’t think the falloff would be so drastic.”

She always has known change can take time. She fled Rwanda with her mother and two brothers when she was 6 and came to America at 10. Her father had been killed, “a random act of violence because of the war,” she says.

4:40pm UK, Monday February 08, 2010

Rob Cole,
Sky News Online

Reports from Japan suggest the embattled car giant Toyota will reveal on Tuesday plans to recall defective Prius cars in Japan and the US.

Toyota says a software glitch is behind a problem with the model’s brakes

Japan’s Kyodo news agency said Toyota would inform the countries’ respective governments of the move on Tuesday.

Japanese media reported at the weekend that the car maker was preparing plans for a recall of 270,000 vehicles affected by a braking problem.

The cars were produced from May last year through to January, it was reported.

A Toyota spokeswoman said no decision on a recall had been taken.

Drivers in Japan and the US have reported braking problems with the new generation Prius.

The company says a software glitch is behind the issue and says it has fixed vehicles that went on sale since last month.

Japanese media has also reported that Toyota will warn owners of the Lexus HS250h and Sai hybrid sedan that their cars may require repairs.

Toyota is already recalling 4.5 million vehicles over defective accelerator pedals.

The company has admitted knowing of 26 incidents involving defective pedals in Europe.

The third generation model of the hybrid vehicle - which uses an electric motor as well as a petrol engine - is the world’s biggest selling gas-electric hybrid car.

Tom Bonnett, Sky News Online

The “golden goodbye” payments for three MPs facing criminal charges over their expenses will be suspended while legal proceedings are on-going, the Commons Speaker has said.

The three facing charges: Jim Devine, David Chaytor and Elliot Morley

Elliot Morley, Jim Devine and David Chaytor would have been entitled to resettlement grants on stepping down from the Commons at the General Election.

But Mr Bercow wrote to the Clerk of the House, Malcolm Jack, and told him to “suspend any payments which would otherwise be due and attributable” until proceedings have finished.

All three Labour MPs, who earlier had the party whip suspended, deny allegations of false accounting.

They have pledged to defend themselves “robustly”.

MPs are entitled to payoffs of up to £65,000 when they leave Parliament at an election, depending on their age and length of service.

Under new rules expected to be passed over the next few days, members who refuse to hand over money demanded by Sir Thomas Legg’s audit of expenses from 2004-08 will face having the money docked from any pay, allowances or grants due.

However, Mr Morley, Mr Devine and Mr Chaytor were not examined as part of the process because a police investigation was already under way - potentially making efforts to claw back cash more difficult.

3:40pm UK, Monday February 08, 2010

Vicki Hawthorne,
Ireland correspondent

Two republican paramilitary groups responsible for more than 100 murders in Northern Ireland have announced the decommissioning of their weapons.

After 36 years of armed struggle the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) and the Official IRA confirmed that they have put their guns beyond use.

In a major step forward in the peace process former INLA representative Martin McMonagle said: “On the 11th October 2009 the INLA announced that our military war was over, concluding that the time was right to reaffirm the primacy of politics and clearly stating that it is our belief that armed struggle is not a viable option at this time.”

The INLA was responsible for the murder of Conservative MP Airey Neave in 1979.

Neave, one of the only Britons to escape from the notorious Colditz PoW jail during World War II, was shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland at the time.

The INLA says it wants to ‘reaffirm the primacy of politics’

The INLA also carried out the Droppin Well bombing in Ballykelly.

Eleven soldiers and six civilians were killed in the bombing of the Londonderry pub in 1982.

Four witnesses from trade unions and community groups witnessed the decommissioning of rifles, handguns and explosives over the last six months.

The amnesty deadline set by the British and Irish Governments for paramilitary groups to destroy their guns runs out on Tuesday.

The body set up to monitor the decommissioning of terrorist weapons also verified the move.

Conservative MP Airey Neave was murdered by the INLA in 1979

The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning headed by General John de Chastelain will cease to exist on Tuesday.

The loyalist group the Ulster Defence Association announced that it had decommissioned its weapons cache last month, while the IRA completed the handing over of its guns in 2005.

Four months ago the INLA used a graveside oration outside Dublin to confirm its “armed struggle is over” and it vowed to end its 35-year campaign of violence in Northern Ireland.

Ireland Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said the terror group’s decommissioning was another step towards guaranteeing peace.

He said: “These events are further positive developments as we look to finally close the last chapter of the conflict and ensure a peaceful future for all the people of Northern Ireland.”