LEGAL BRIEFS Tommy Lee is being sued over the death of a 4-year-old boy who drowned at his Malibu home during a kids' pool party last June. The parents of Daniel Karven-Veres filed suit last Friday, claiming that there was no lifeguard or adult supervisor at hand, nor was there anyone trained in life-saving techniques. They are seeking unspecified damages from the rocker....
Paula Poundstone earned an ''A+'' from the judge rating her court-mandated recovery from alcoholism, a condition of her probation on child-endangerment charges. Since she pleaded no contest and was sentenced last fall, she has successfully completed a rehab program and will now be allowed to perform at comedy clubs without a court-appointed monitor and travel for five days instead of three. (She still must have a monitor present when she visits her kids.) Outside the Los Angeles courthouse on Wednesday, Poundstone said of her new stand-up routine, ''A drunk felon is such a good storyteller.''
PASSING NOTES John Thaw, who played TV's Inspector Morse for 15 years, died Thursday in London from throat cancer. The 60-year-old was a heavy smoker who once said he'd rather smoke and be pleasant company than quit and be ''nervy, edgy, and snappy.'' That description would have fit his cranky Morse, whom he played in 33 TV movies, appearing first on Britain's ITV in 1985 and on PBS' ''Mystery!'' three years later....
Virginia Hamilton, the first African-American author to win the Newbery award, the most coveted award in children's book publishing, died Tuesday of breast cancer in Dayton, Ohio. Hamilton, 65, won the award for ''M.C. Higgins, the Great,'' in 1975. Many of her books focused on the black oral tradition and told true stories recollected by survivors of slavery. Her other well-known works included ''The People Could Fly'' (1985) and ''Many Thousand Gone: African Americans From Slavery to Freedom'' (1993).
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