Death

As the World Health Organization raised its infectious disease alert level Wednesday and health officials confirmed the first death linked to swine flu inside U.S. borders, scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza -- at least in its current form -- isn't shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics.

Within minutes of the first reports of Michael Jackson's cardiac arrest, the TV trucks and platoons of reporters had moved into place outside Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Cellphones flashing and glances darting, fretful news-hounds lacked only one thing that afternoon eight days ago: a single news source capable of filling the desperate information vacuum. Then Brian Oxman arrived. He delivered quote after emotive quote. He worked his cellphone. He held reporters' hands.

In an elder abuse case described by one investigator as the most outrageous he has ever seen, three former top managers at a Kern County nursing home have been arrested in the deaths of three residents who allegedly were given needless doses of psychotropic medications. The state attorney general's office contended in a criminal complaint that more than 20 residents at a skilled nursing center run by the Kern Valley Healthcare District were drugged "for staff convenience."

This summer at Dearly Departed Tours, business has never been better -- and that was before Michael Jackson's sudden death. In the days since, the company that drives tour buses to spots where celebrities have met their end has added a stop at the rented Holmby Hills mansion where the pop star collapsed. People are so fascinated with Hollywood's history of death and crime that Dearly Departed has added 100 tours a month compared with a year ago, said owner Scott Michaels.

He is a onetime contestant on "The Sexiest Bachelor in America" who according to his website traveled the world ministering as a Christian mime. She was a model and entertainer who had bit parts in Hollywood blockbusters and featured roles in adult films. Now, Brian Lee Randone is accused of torturing and killing Felicia Tang Lee inside the home they shared in Monrovia. Shortly after noon on Friday, Sept. 11, Randone, 45, called 911 to report that his girlfriend of several months was not breathing.

Women who have their healthy ovaries removed when they have a hysterectomy face a higher risk of death -- including death from coronary heart disease and lung cancer -- than women who keep their ovaries, according to new research. The finding from a study published in the May issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology challenges conventional wisdom that removing ovaries along with the uterus offers the best chance for long-time survival.

The posthumous affairs of Michael Jackson boiled down to two things Tuesday: His memorial service will draw a huge crowd and the settling of his estate will be complicated. Beyond that was a storm of rumor, supposition and educated guess interrupted by snatches of information more intriguing than complete. An entertainment attorney who had worked for Jackson produced a 7-year-old will that named him and a music executive as executors.

Michael Jackson's death is unlikely to result in murder charges against any of the performer's doctors, according to a senior law enforcement official familiar with the evidence being assembled by a multiagency investigation. "There's nothing I have been told that would suggest a murder charge. It's just so remote and so unsupported by the facts as they've been gathered," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the probe is continuing.

As the paparazzi trailed his movements, a top Los Angeles County coroner's investigator probing the death of Michael Jackson went to the pop star's longtime dermatologist's office Tuesday to collect additional medical records. Coroner Assistant Chief Ed Winter visited Dr. Arnold Klein's Beverly Hills office after the physician failed to turn over records he had promised to provide to authorities earlier this month, said Craig Harvey, operations chief for the coroner's office.

On Aug. 16, 1977, the day Elvis Presley died, folklorist William R. Ferris remembers that in Memphis "it was like the ground began to shake." Within hours, hundreds of pilgrims had descended on Graceland, and the process by which a beloved public personage is transformed into a mythic figure was underway. But which Elvis would be mythologized, and whose legacy would be preserved? The youthful rock rebel or the Las Vegas glitter god?