Jackson doc gave him drug before death

Michael Jackson's personal doctor administered a powerful anesthetic to help him sleep, and authorities believe the drug killed the pop singer, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Monday.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, also provided a glimpse inside Jackson's rented mansion, describing the room Jackson slept in as outfitted with oxygen tanks and an IV drip. Another of his bedrooms was a shambles, with clothes and other items strewn about and handwritten notes stuck on the walls. One read: "children are sweet and innocent."
The official said Jackson regularly received propofol to sleep, relying on the drug like an alarm clock. A doctor would administer it when he went to sleep, then stop the intravenous drip when he wanted to wake up. On June 25, the day Jackson died, Dr. Conrad Murray gave him the drug through an IV sometime after midnight, the official said.
Though toxicology reports are pending, investigators are working under the theory propofol caused Jackson's heart to stop, the official said. Jackson is believed to have been using the drug for about two years and investigators are trying to determine how many other doctors administered it, the official said.
Murray, 51, has been identified in court papers as the subject of a manslaughter investigation and authorities last week raided his office and a storage unit in Houston. Police say Murray is cooperating and have not labeled him a suspect.
Using propofol to sleep is a practice far outside the drug's intended purpose. One doctor said administering it in a home to help a person sleep would constitute malpractice.
Murray's lawyer, Edward Chernoff, has said the doctor "didn't prescribe or administer anything that should have killed Michael Jackson." When asked Monday about the law enforcement official's statements he said: "We will not be commenting on rumors, innuendo or unnamed sources."
In a more detailed statement posted online late Monday, Chernoff added that "things tend to shake out when all the facts are made known, and I'm sure that will happen here as well."
Murray became Jackson's personal physician in May and was to accompany him to London for a series of concerts starting in July.
He was staying with Jackson in the Los Angeles mansion and, according to Chernoff, "happened to find" an unconscious Jackson in the pop star's bedroom the morning of June 25. Murray tried to revive him by compressing his chest with one hand while supporting Jackson's back with the other.
It's unclear how long it took for someone at Jackson's home to summon paramedics, though Murray's own lawyers have said it was up to a half-hour. Paramedics arrived about three minutes after they were called and tried to revive the music superstar for another 42 minutes before sliding him into the ambulance and racing with lights flashing and siren blaring to UCLA Medical Center, where Jackson was pronounced dead.
Authorities arrived at the singer's house after the death and found a chaotic scene. The top floor had been all but sealed off, with only Jackson, his children and Murray allowed upstairs, the official said. Jackson's bedroom was a mess, with items seemingly thrown about and some 20 handwritten notes stuck on the walls.
A porcelain girl doll wearing a dress was found on top of the covers of the bed where he slept, the official said.
The temperature upstairs was stiflingly hot, with gas fireplaces and the heating system on high because Jackson always complained of feeling cold, the official said.
Police found propofol and other drugs in the home. An IV line and three tanks of oxygen were in the room where Jackson slept and 15 more oxygen tanks were in a security guard's shack, the official said.
Propofol can depress breathing and lower heart rates and blood pressure. Because of the risks, propofol is only supposed to be administered in medical settings by trained personnel. Instructions on the drug's package warn that patients must be continuously monitored, and that equipment to maintain breathing, to provide artificial ventilation, and to administer oxygen if needed "must be immediately available."
Dr. Zeev Kain, who heads the anesthesiology department at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center, said he has never encountered a situation where propofol was given in a home to help someone sleep. Such a situation would constitute malpractice, he said.
Cherilyn Lee, a registered nurse who gave Jackson nutritional counseling and vitamins earlier this year, said he complained of insomnia and asked her repeatedly for Diprivan, the brand-name version of propofol. Lee said she warned him of the drug's dangers and rejected his requests.
Los Angeles police interviewed Murray twice soon after Jackson's death. Last week, detectives flew to Houston and, along with federal drug agents, searched a medical clinic he ran and a storage unit he rented. They seized a long list of items, including the contents of three computer hard drives, two e-mails from his administrative assistant at the Las Vegas practice Murray ran and various other documents.
A sealed search warrant approved by a Houston judge and later made public allowed authorities to seek "property or items constituting evidence of the offense of manslaughter that tend to show that Dr. Conrad Murray committed the said criminal offense."

Gaultier says actress inspired him to become designer

A model presents a creation by French designer Jean Paul Gaultier during 2009/2010 Autumn-Winter Haute Couture collection show in Paris.

PARIS (AFP) - – Jean-Paul Gaultier paid a personal homage to French actress Micheline Presle who inspired him to become a fashion designer at his haute couture show for next winter on Wednesday, the last day of the collections.
He said he remembered seeing her when he was a child in the film "Falbalas" which "describes the world of fashion incredibly well," and that steered him towards making fashion his vocation.
Presle's daughter, the director Tonie Marshall, was clearly moved as she watched the show, which also celebrated the golden age of Hollywood.
Gaultier put his smouldering screen goddesses, with their blonde hair and vermilion lips and prominent bosoms, in red-carpet sheaths with sweeping trains. They sported long black gauntlets like Rita Hayworth in "Gilda" and fox fur, casually wound round their heads into a bandeau or draped over their shoulders as a stole, showing its shot silk chiffon lining.
There were constant witty reminders of the cinema, in his "film reel" print for a skirt, which was also a motif on his signature corsets in clear plexiglass. Sequins made from cut up film reel were spattered over a mini dress.
For the finale, the faces of stars like Bette Davis, Grace Kelly and Marlene Dietrich were projected one by one onto the veil of the traditional bride, momentarily erasing her feature.
Lebanon's Elie Saab opted for an all-white winter with his collection, right across the spectrum from glaring and dazzling to more muted mother-of-pearl and ivory, but nonetheless enforcing a strict colour bar.
It was hard by the end of the show not to feel as though one had been watching a succession of brides, as virtually everything was lavish and fancy enough for a girl's big day. And the smart cream cocktail suits would be just right for the mothers of the happy couple.
Shoulders were important, whether sculpted like origami folds, or built-up with big applique flowers, twinkling with crystal fringes or cocooned in maribou feather boleros.
For evening gowns were often single-shouldered, with draped cowl necklines or fichus tied behind over bare backs.
Floor-sweeping silk chiffon trains were sprinkled with sequins, rhinestones and more applique flowers.
Quirky French designer Franck Sorbier, who can't afford to mount a big runway show, is ingenious about finding alternatives. Last season it was a charming film, this time he showed 10 designs on live models of both sexes as "tableaux vivants."
One model sat on the floor with her long bordeaux velvet coat spread about her in a circle, allowing close scrutiny of the intricate over-embroidery in chenille and ribbons in a riot of colours, hot pink, red, saffron and lichen green.
Her "beau" sported a riding coat with tie-dye faded rosewood velvet panels and black seams bristling with tiny black safety pins.
A male model lounged on a chaise longue in a "glam rock" patchwork coat with a feather boa, inspired by France's veteran rocker Johnny Hallyday, while another slumped in a sumptuous patchwork dressing gown made up of vintage Italian silk ties cut up into hundreds of pieces with frayed edges in a design dubbed "the hangover."
Martin Margiela's approach is similar as he relies on scavenging materials for recycling, which are deconstructed and laboriously put together into a new form.
Precious and throw-away are treated with equal reverence, from vintage fur coats to the plastic caps of Bic biros threaded onto ribbons for a jacket and the bicycle reflector lights smashed and reassembled into mosaics for the bodice of a dress.
Old furs are given a new lease of life by shaving them into zebra stripes. Vintage polka dot frocks, whether in silk or cotton, polyester or viscose, are cut into lozenges and turned into new frocks, keeping original collars and buttons.
Two dozen fans mounted on top of each other form a witty bolero top, but his coats from caterpillar door curtains, with the rail still attached, and vests covered in false eyelashes would take courage to wear.

Police raid Jackson doctor for manslaughter link

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - – Federal agents and detectives swooped on the offices of Michael Jackson's doctor, as lawyers for the physician revealed police are treating the star's death as possible manslaughter.
A spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) confirmed that a search with the Los Angeles police took place at the offices of the Armstrong medical clinic in Houston, Texas,
where doctor Conrad Murray practices.
Murray has emerged as the central figure in the mystery surrounding Jackson's death in Los Angeles on June 25 and was the last person to have seen the tragic pop star alive at his mansion.
The official coroner's report into the 50-year-old singer's demise has deferred the cause of death amid speculation that powerful prescription drugs he was believed to be taking may have been to blame.
Suspicion has also focused on a dangerous sedative -- propofol, which is known by the trade name Diprivan -- used to induce unconsciousness in hospital patients ahead of major surgery, which reports say was also found at Jackson's home.
Television reports showed several law enforcement agents entering Murray's Houston offices in a dramatic new twist to the four-week-old investigation.
Murray's lawyer Ed Chernoff confirmed in a statement that the search warrant served by investigators had been seeking evidence of manslaughter.
"We can confirm that a search warrant was executed today on Dr. Murray's offices in Houston, Texas," Chernoff said.
"The search warrant authorized law enforcement to search for and seize items, including documents, they believed constituted evidence of the offense of manslaughter."
The wording of the warrant provided the clearest indication yet that authorities are viewing Jackson's death as a criminal matter.
Los Angeles police had previously refused to rule out homicide in the case but had shied away from making any formal announcement that the pop icon's death could result in criminal charges.
In a statement issued by Murray's lawyers late Tuesday, Chernoff said the doctor was anxious to assist authorities in their investigation and that a third meeting with police was to be scheduled after two earlier interviews.
"The coroner wants to clear up the cause of death, we share that goal," Chernoff said. "We don't have access to the most important information in this case... the toxicology report. We're still in the dark like everybody else."
Murray is currently in Las Vegas, his legal team said, and Chernoff insisted that "based on Dr. Murray's minute-by-minute and item-by-item description of Michael Jackson's last days, he should not be a target of criminal charges.
"Dr. Murray was the last doctor standing when Michael Jackson died and it seems all the fury is directed toward him," Chernoff said.
"Dr. Murray is frustrated by negative and often erroneous media reports, he has to walk around 24-7 with a bodyguard. He can't operate his practice."
In the immediate aftermath of Jackson's death, friends of the singer's family said the clan was unhappy with "unanswered questions" surrounding Murray.
"They (the family) are suspicious of this doctor and they have real reason to be because any other doctor would say 'Here's what happened in the last hour of his life and I was there. I gave him some medicine,'" family friend and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson said.
"(Murray) owes it to the family and to the public to say, 'These were the last hours of Michael's life and here's what happened.' That's a reasonable expectation."
Later Wednesday, an official from the Los Angeles Coroner's office visited the Los Angeles office of Jackson's former nurse Cherilyn Lee to obtain some of the singer's medical records.
Lee said in interviews after Jackson's death that the singer had repeatedly pleaded with her to obtain Diprivan for him but she had refused.