Extortion

Authorities have detained a lawmaker and a paramedic in an alleged plot to extort money from actor John Travolta after the death of his son, police said. One of the suspects, ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne, was detained Friday. Earlier, several tabloids quoted him describing efforts to revive the celebrity's son, Jett, who died of a seizure this month at their family vacation home on Grand Bahama. Sen. Pleasant Bridgewater, an attorney from Grand Bahama, has been held for questioning since Thursday, Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police Marvin Dames told the Associated Press.

After six years of legal sniping, actor Steven Seagal and his former business partner, Julius R. Nasso, buried the hatchet Sunday, ending a bitter court battle that had spawned allegations of contract breach and Mafia extortion. As a result of the confidential, out-of-court settlement, Nasso is expected to drop his $60-million lawsuit against Seagal, which alleged that the actor reneged on an agreement to produce four films with him.

Hillary Rodham Clinton dropped the name of Barack Obama's Chicago patron into the South Carolina debate Monday night, putting front and center a tangled relationship that has the potential to undermine Obama's image as a candidate whose ethical standards are distinctly higher than those of his main opponent.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama announced Tuesday that he would give to charity an additional $72,650 in 2004 political donations associated with his onetime patron, Antoin Rezko, who faces corruption charges in Chicago. The money represents donations from Rezko family members, employees and "others who may have contributed through his efforts" to Obama's 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate, Obama's campaign said in a statement.

Starting even before Barack Obama graduated from law school, his career as a lawyer and politician was nurtured by a Chicago businessman named Tony Rezko. Now Obama avoids discussing Rezko, and his former backer isn't in a position to speak publicly. The once-dapper businessman appeared in federal court the other day, unshaven, wearing an orange jumpsuit and leg irons.

Outside the gaily painted gates of the Elena Garro Federal Kindergarten, the grown-ups are afraid. If daily drug-related killings haven't sown enough alarm in this gritty border city, parents now confront written messages left near several schools warning of unspecified harm unless teachers hand over their annual year-end bonuses.

A suburban Atlanta man has been charged with trying to extort $1.5 million from Oprah Winfrey by threatening to release tape recordings he claimed would hurt her reputation. Keifer Bonvillain, 36, was arrested Dec. 15, a day after a Winfrey representative, working with the FBI, wired him $3,000, according to court records. A criminal complaint lodged in Chicago's federal court last month identified Winfrey only as Individual A, "a public figure and the owner of a Chicago-based company."

A former contributor to the New York Post's Page Six gossip column who was accused of trying to shake down Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle in exchange for good press will not be charged in the case. The case involving Jared Paul Stern is being closed, said an individual familiar with the federal investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision was not yet public. Stern's lawyer confirmed that his client would not be indicted.

After a season in the limelight as a suspected extortionist, a former gossip columnist said Wednesday that he was relieved he wouldn't face federal charges of demanding payments in return for favorable coverage, and vowed to sue Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle and the New York Daily News for spreading the stories that ruined his career.

Two police officers in Rio de Janeiro were charged with extorting money and an iPod from vacationing Los Angeles police officers who were there for the Pan American Games. Rio tourism Police Chief Fernando Veloso said the two Los Angeles officers were forced to get into a patrol car Wednesday and were taken to an apartment they had rented and forced to hand over about $1,850, along with the iPod. The L.A. officers, who were not named, identified the suspects in photographs. The U.S.