Jackson gets jury call

Four months after his acquittal on child molestation charges, Michael Jackson has received a new summons - this time to serve as a juror. The computer-generated summons appeared to be causing some embarrassment at the Santa Barbara County courthouse in California, where officials were quick to say yesterday that they expected the 46-year-old singer to be excused.

Jackson is not planning to argue that he is too well known, or too weird, to do his civic duty.

Instead, his lawyers plan to say he is now a full-time resident of Bahrain. He he has spent much of the past few months as a guest of Bahrain's crown prince, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Khalifa, and little or no time at his Neverland ranch, in southern California.

The prince accompanied Jackson on his recent trip to London, where he visited Madame Tussaud's and saw Billy Elliot: The Musical and spent time working on a charity record for the victims of devastating Hurricane Katrina.

An announcement one week after the hurricane suggested the record would feature an all-star cast including Mariah Carey, Jay-Z, R. Kelly, Lauren Hill, James Brown, Wyclef Jean and Lenny Kravitz. But it is unclear whether the artists were ever consulted over taking part.

- INDEPENDENT