LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — Fans wishing to attend singer Michael Jackson’s memorial service next week will have to register for free tickets — 11,000 of which will be given out, organizers said Thursday.

Details on how to register for tickets for the service at the 20,000-seat Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, Tuesday will be announced at a press briefing Friday.

From Drew Griffin
CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — The California State Attorney General’s office said Thursday that it is helping the Los Angeles police department in its investigation of singer Michael Jackson’s death.

The news comes a day after two federal law enforcement sources told CNN that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is looking into whether prescription drugs were involved in the death of the pop icon.

The attorney general’s office said it will assist police in sifting through information in a state database that monitors controlled medication.

The database, known as CURES (Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System), contains an estimated 86 million records that lists all doctors who prescribe such medication, the amount, the date and the person who receives it.

Authorities said the database was used in the investigation following the death of former model and reality TV show star Anna Nicole Smith.

Speculation about the role of drugs has been swirling since Jackson died on June 25 at his rented estate in Holmby Hills. Authorities are awaiting autopsy toxicology results.

(CNN) — The Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza, will travel to Honduras Friday as part of a diplomatic attempt to restore deposed Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya to power.

The OAS on Tuesday passed a resolution calling for Zelaya’s reinstatement by Saturday.

Zelaya was ousted in a military-led coup Sunday and transported out of the country. The same day, the Honduran Congress voted to install Roberto Micheletti as provisional president.

Insulza will notify Honduran “stakeholders” of the terms of the resolution, according to an OAS press release.

Speaking at a news conference from Panama City Thursday, Zelaya said that Insulza will not negotiate with the provisional government, which has not been recognized by the OAS and the United Nations, but simply deliver the terms of the resolution.

The Saturday deadline, Zelaya said, “is more than enough time” for Micheletti to step down. But Micheletti and his cabinet have said they will arrest Zelaya if he returns. The Honduran attorney general has said that there are arrest warrants for Zelaya for violating the country’s constitution.

By Bill Mears
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A judicial council on Thursday admonished the chief judge of the nation’s largest federal appeals court for having “sexually explicit photos and videos” on his personal Web site, but decided against any further punishment.

Judge Alex Kozinski, 58, of the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit U-S Court of Appeals previously apologized and had recommended an investigation due to the public controversy over the material.

A panel of judges assigned to investigate concluded Kozinski’s “possession of sexually explicit offensive material combined with his carelessness in failing to safeguard his sphere of privacy was judicially imprudent.” His actions, the panel wrote, “can reasonably be seen as having resulted in embarrassment to the institution of the federal judiciary.”

But Kozinski was not disciplined because he had removed himself from an ongoing obscenity trial when news broke of the visual material on alex.kozinski.com, which the judge had launched in 2002, according to the 41-page opinion issued by the judicial council.

Kozinski testified to a judicial conduct panel that much of the explicit material was “like odd things that I’ve thrown into a room without looking at them.” He claimed some of the files were e-mailed by friends, much of which he did not bother to view. He admitted storing some of the sexually explicit photos, but said, “I don’t know why I kept them.”

The judge also said he never considered his site as public, and thought he had blocked access to the subcategory file in question, which was labeled “stuff.”

There was no immediate reaction from Kozinski or his lawyer to the panel’s admonishment.

Kozinski had earlier apologized to the investigative panel for his “unfortunate carelessness.”

“I have caused embarrassment to the federal judiciary,” he said. “And thus whatever shame was cast on me personally, it reflected on my colleagues and our system of justice as well.”

(CNN) — The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is asking parents to immediately stop using a series of inflatable floats for babies in swimming pools, announcing a voluntary recall of about four million floats on Thursday.

The items — which inflate to seat babies and toddlers as they float on water — are manufactured by Massachussetts-based Aqua Leisure Industries. The company has voluntarily recalled 14 models because the legs straps in the seat of the float can tear, causing children to slip into the water and pose a drowning risk, the commission said in a statement.

There have been 31 reports of float seats tearing, though no injuries have been reported, the commission said.

The floats were sold from December 2002 through June 2009 at retailers nationwide, including Target, Toys “R” Us, Wal-Mart, Dollar General, Kmart, Walgreens, Ace Hardware and Bed, Bath & Beyond.

The commission is asking consumers to stop using the floats and said them back to the company.

Aqua Leisure officials could not be immediately reached for comment, but the company’s Web site has posted the commission’s recall advisory.

Recalled model numbers are posted on www.cpsc.gov.

–CNN’s Gerri Willis contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — Debbie Rowe “has not reached a final decision” on whether she will challenge Michael Jackson’s mother for custody of Jackson’s two oldest children, according to her lawyer.

A judge has delayed for a week — until July 13 — a hearing to decide if Katherine Jackson — Michael Jackson’s mother — will remain the temporary guardian of Jackson’s children.

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Iran’s text-messaging network was restored this week, almost three weeks after it was disconnected, the semi-official Iran Labor News Agency reported Thursday.

The service was cut a day before the country’s June 12 presidential election, the agency reported without giving a reason.

Service was restored across almost all of the country on Monday, and in the capital Tehran two days later, the agency reported.

But opposition supporters have been warning each other against using text messages, believing the government is monitoring them, according to many messages posted on Twitter.

“Tell people not to use it for political info — they are tracking,” reads a much-quoted message from a Twitter feed using the name oxfordgirl. Oxfordgirl said Thursday cell phone service was again down in Iran.

CNN could not confirm the authenticity of any of the posts on Twitter, the popular Web service that allows users to post short messages.

The ability to send multi-media messages — pictures or video — by cell phone still has not been restored, ILNA said.

The election sparked weeks of street protests and solidarity demonstrations around the world. At least 17 people were killed in the demonstrations, officials said, with some reports suggesting the number could be much higher.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner by a margin of about 2-to-1 over his nearest rival, Mir Hossein Moussavi, who said the results were rigged.

Since the disputed election results sent tens of thousands of Iranians into the streets to protest, the world has gotten a front-row view of the unrest thanks largely to dissidents using online tools to spread the news. But as days have turned to weeks, there has been a sharp drop in the number of messages, pictures and videos that supporters outside the country have been receiving.

“The information flow unquestionably has been severely restricted,” said Drewery Dyke, a member of human rights group Amnesty International’s Iran team.

“The clampdown has been multifaceted, including the technological means of jamming or cutting phone lines, of monitoring phone lines, and, of course, the more rough-edged side of arresting journalists and bloggers.”

By Charley Keyes
CNN Senior Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The United States put some teeth in its diplomatic signals to Honduras Thursday, stopping some aid programs temporarily to the Latin American country as it grapples with its two-president crisis.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the U.S. already had “hit the pause button” on some aid programs, even before State Department lawyers make a final ruling on whether to halt assistance.

The United States continues to hope the Organization of American States quickly will hammer out a compromise between ousted President Manuel Zelaya, forced out of Honduras last weekend, and the man who took his job, provisional President Roberto Micheletti.

Zelaya earlier had said he would defy the new government and return to the Honduras capital of Tegucigalpa on Thursday. He later postponed that to Saturday, to allow the OAS negotiations to proceed.

The United States Thursday warned that Zelaya could become “an obstacle” to resolving the crisis if he returned too early, and now some observers are saying the crisis could slide into next week. This would allow OAS leaders to go to Honduras, and return for consultations at OAS headquarters in Washington after the July Fourth weekend.

“Our goal is the restoration of constitutional order in Tegucigalpa, which means the restoration of President Zelaya. There is a process led by the OAS which is in place,” Kelly said at the State Department at his afternoon briefing. “We think that this process should be allowed to play out, and we would discourage any actions that would prove to be an obstacle to this process reaching its desired outcome — which is of course the restoration of Manuel Zelaya in power.”

Asked if a premature return of Zelaya could be an obstacle, Kelly said, “It could be. What everybody needs to focus on now is the OAS mission, mandated by the OAS special assembly.”

Zelaya appeared to signal his willingness to compromise when he told the United Nations General Assembly earlier in the week that he would agree to step aside when his term ends in November. His interest in overturning a one-term limit under Honduran law had led to the present crisis and his ouster, despite efforts by the U.S. and others to avoid a showdown.

And Kelly said despite the U.S. government holiday Friday, and the closure of State Department offices in Washington, that U.S. officials would be monitoring the Honduras crisis. “Absolutely, very much so,” Kelly said.

Kelly said State Department lawyers were evaluating events in Sunday’s coup in Honduras to see if they trigger a formal halt to aid, under the Foreign Assistance Act. “The legal review is ongoing,” Kelly said. Although the Honduran military seized President Zelaya and sent him to neighboring Costa Rica there is difficulty in determining whether civilian political leaders were in charge and whether to define this as a military or political coup.

“In the meantime we have taken some actions to hit the pause button, let’s say, on assistance programs that we would be legally required to terminate,” Kelly said, if the events were determined to be a military coup.

It is unclear how much U.S. might formally be suspended or ended outright. Earlier the State Department said the U.S. gave Honduras more than $40 million in assistance last year, for a variety of purposes, including development, health assistance, anti-drug work and global peacekeeping operations.

Rehearsal Video

– Michael Jackson appeared healthy in a video clip obtained by CNN of his rehearsal two nights before he died. AEG, promoter of Jackson’s London shows, released the short video of Jackson rehearsing on a stage in the Staples Center arena on June 23. He sang “They Don’t Care About Us” — a song from Jackson’s HIStory album — as he danced along with eight male dancers.

The Memorial and Burial

– Michael Jackson’s memorial service will take place Tuesday morning in the Staples Center, the 20,000- seat arena in downtown Los Angeles where Jackson rehearsed his show the night before he died, according to a person who has been briefed by a representative of the family. No other details about the service, set to begin at 10, have been revealed.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — Michael Jackson appeared healthy in a video clip — obtained by CNN — of his rehearsal two nights before he died.

AEG, promoter of Jackson’s planned London shows, released the short video of Jackson rehearsing on a stage in the Staples Center arena on June 23, 2009.

Jackson sang “They Don’t Really Care About Us” — a song from Jackson’s HIStory album — as he danced along with eight male dancers.

See the video at
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2009/07/02/vo.aeg.jackson.rehearsal.cnn