Neverland Ranch

Desiree Crossley, her two daughters and a friend left Lancaster in their PT Cruiser at 1 a.m. Wednesday to be among the first in line for what they thought would be a public memorial for Michael Jackson at his Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara County. About 5 a.m., they began pitching their tent on the side of Figueroa Mountain Road, taking turns hammering in stakes and trying to keep warm. They packed a portable toilet, heater and plenty of food and water to last them. But at 2:30 p.m.

Pop star Michael Jackson sidestepped a foreclosure auction of his Neverland Ranch after an investment company bought the loan on the troubled Los Olivos property, a spokeswoman said Sunday. The loan purchase by Colony Capital LLC was the latest deal to keep the 2,500-acre ranch from being sold off. In March, Jackson, 49, reached an agreement with his creditors, Fortress Investment Group, to postpone an auction until this week.

Michael Jackson has given up title to his Neverland ranch, transferring the deed to a company he partly controls. The singer filed a grant deed on the ranch Monday that makes the new owner an entity called the Sycamore Valley Ranch Co. LLC, Tom Pearson of the Santa Barbara County clerk-recorder's office said Wednesday. Sycamore Valley Ranch Co.

The state barred workers from Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley on Thursday and fined the pop star $69,000 because the ranch's workers' compensation insurance policy had lapsed. The "stop order" was issued after an employee reported Tuesday that a co-worker who had been injured did not have the state-required health coverage, officials said. Regulators determined that coverage for 69 employees at the ranch in Santa Barbara County lapsed Jan. 10.

State officials have given pop star Michael Jackson one more day to come up with back wages for more than 30 employees at his Neverland ranch. Jackson owes the employees about $306,000, plus about $100,000 in fines to the state. Last week he was given through Tuesday to pay the workers, who have gone without wages for about 10 weeks, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Industrial Relations said.

Averting a potential lawsuit, Michael Jackson has agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in back wages owed to dozens of employees at his Neverland ranch, state officials said Wednesday. Jackson had been given a 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline -- later extended to Wednesday -- to pay up or face a lawsuit by the state. The labor department also said Jackson's representatives had indicated that they were in the process of obtaining workers' compensation insurance for 69 employees of the ranch.

Pop star Michael Jackson has handed out pink slips to much of his Neverland ranch staff but has not completely shuttered his Santa Barbara County estate, a spokeswoman said. Jackson, who now lives outside the country, met a state deadline this week to pay more than $300,000 in back wages to dozens of staff members. But then Thursday most of the employees were notified that they were being laid off. "It is public knowledge that Mr.

A wildfire burned about 40 acres of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch on Friday and came within a quarter-mile of the main residence, officials said. No structures had caught fire at the 2,500-acre estate, said Santa Barbara County Fire Department spokesman Jeff Ross. About 100 firefighters were battling the blaze along with water-dropping helicopters, he said. Jackson, 47, has been living in the Middle Eastern nation of Bahrain since being acquitted of child molestation charges in June 2005.

Michael Jackson was never a fixture on the county fair circuit, but his Neverland rides now are on a never-ending tour. The attractions he set up in his estate's private amusement park have been auctioned off and are being trucked from carnival to carnival, pitched as a chance to take a spin on a piece of history. At the far end of the midway at the Tulare County Fair in the Central Valley this month, signs announced: "Michael ride here! This is one of Michael Jackson's rides from Neverland Ranch!"

Bahrain Prince Abdulla ibn Hamed ibn Isa Khalifa sued Michael Jackson in London on Monday, claiming the pop star reneged on a deal to use Bahrain as a recording venue and kept a $7-million advance. The prince, second son of the king of Bahrain, and Jackson shared an interest in music and discussed the joint production of two albums, a Jackson autobiography and a stage musical, Bankim Thanki, Prince Abdulla's lawyer, told the High Court in London. Jackson moved to Bahrain as a guest of the royal family after he was acquitted of charges of child molestation in 2005.