CALIFORNIA
Sheen fired from sitcom
LOS ANGELES | The makers of top-rated TV comedy “Two and a Half Men” said Monday they had ended actor Charlie Sheen’s contract with the show.
“After careful consideration, Warner Bros. Television has terminated Charlie Sheen’s services on ’Two and a Half Men’ effective immediately,” Warner Bros. Television said.
Mr. Sheen is the highest-paid actor on U.S. television, and “Two and a Half Men” is the most popular comedy for network CBS, which broadcasts the series.
But the remainder of the season was canceled in February after Mr. Sheen made a series of insulting remarks about producer and co-creator Chuck Lorre in radio and Internet interviews.
Mr. Sheen has since given several rambling interviews despite insisting he is drug-free after a period of at-home rehab in January.
A spokesman for Warner Bros. Television said Monday that no decision had been made about the future of “Two and a Half Men.” Mr. Sheen had a contract with the TV show that runs through to the end of the 2012 TV season.
FLORIDA
Foreclosure firm closes amid probe
PLANTATION | A law firm that once led Florida in foreclosures is shutting down amid an investigation into “robo-signing” and other questionable practices.
A Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday indicated that David Stern’s Plantation-based practice will end operations March 31. The firm once had more than 1,200 employees and handled tens of thousands of foreclosures each year.
Mr. Stern’s firm is one of several under investigation by Florida’s attorney general. The probe focuses on whether false or improper affidavits were filed in foreclosures and whether employees were robo-signers who signed documents without reading them.
A broader national probe is examining how foreclosures were handled during the economic downturn.
ILLINOIS
500,000 teens tell of eating disorder
CHICAGO | More than half a million U.S. teens have had an eating disorder but few have sought treatment for the problem, government research shows.
The study is billed as the largest and most comprehensive analysis of eating disorders. It involved nationally representative data on more than 10,000 Americans ages 13 to 18.
Binge-eating disorder was the most common, affecting more than 1.5 percent of youths studied. Just under 1 percent had experienced bulimia, and 0.3 percent had had anorexia. Overall, 3 percent had a lifetime prevalence of one of the disorders. Another 3 percent of youths questioned had troubling symptoms but not full-fledged eating disorders.
The study was released online Monday in Archives of General Psychiatry.
MICHIGAN
Ex-mayor denies any talk of stripper
DETROIT | Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said he can state “unequivocally” that discussions about the death of a stripper never came up among high-ranking officials in his administration.
Kilpatrick’s comment came at the end of more than two hours of testimony in federal court in Detroit. Tamara Greene’s family is suing him, claiming he obstructed the police investigation into her unsolved fatal shooting in 2003 because she danced for him at a party months earlier.
Kilpatrick denied the allegation and said there was no party. He was testifying Monday about what may have happened to his e-mail in 2002 and 2003.
Kilpatrick said Greene’s death was never a subject of any e-mail.
Kilpatrick is in prison for violating probation in a state criminal case. He’s also awaiting trial on federal tax and fraud charges.
NEVADA
Classmate arrested in popular girl’s death
WEST WENDOVER | A high school senior was arrested Monday as a suspect in the killing of a 16-year-old classmate whose body was found in a shallow desert grave near the Utah-Nevada line.
West Wendover police said they arrested Kody Patten, 18, about 2 a.m. and booked him into the Elko County Jail for suspicion of open murder. He was being held without bail in the death of Micaela “Mickey” Constanzo, a popular student-athlete at West Wendover High School who disappeared after track practice Thursday afternoon.
School officials confirmed the two knew each other but released no other details.
“You are talking about a school of 300 kids so they all kind of know each other,” Vice Principal Craig Kyllonen told the Associated Press on Monday. He said he could not confirm earlier reports that the two had once dated, but he knew the suspect currently has a different girlfriend.
• From wire dispatches and staff reports
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