People in the News

holy sites in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM — The Material Girl has opened a visit to the Holy Land with a spiritual touch.

Madonna headed to Jerusalem’s Old City late Sunday where she toured an ancient tunnel near the Western Wall — the holiest site where Jews can pray.

The 51-year-old pop star arrived in a black Mercedes van and was escorted into the tunnel by police. She made no comment to reporters and was whisked away about a half hour later.

Madonna isn’t Jewish, but she’s a follower of Jewish mysticism and has even taken the Hebrew name Esther.

She arrived early Sunday for a pair of concerts this week. It will be her first performance in Israel since 1993, though she came on private pilgrimages in 2004 and 2007.

Madonna is also set to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday.

Bush daughter Jenna Hager becomes ‘Today’ reporter

NEW YORK — NBC’s "Today” show has hired someone with White House experience as a new correspondent — former first daughter Jenna Hager.

The daughter of former President George W. Bush will contribute stories about once a month on issues like education to television’s top-rated morning news show, said Jim Bell, its executive producer.

Hager, a 27-year-old teacher in Baltimore, said she has always wanted to be a teacher and a writer, and has already authored two books. But she was intrigued by the idea of getting into television when Bell contacted her.

"It wasn’t something I’d always dreamed to do,” she said. "But I think one of the most important things in life is to be open-minded and to be open-minded for change.”

She’ll essentially work two part-time jobs as a correspondent and in her school, where she will be a reading coordinator this year.

Bell said he got the idea after seeing Hager in two "Today” appearances. She was on the program two years ago to promote her book about an HIV-infected single mother, "Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope,” and it went so well that a short interview was stretched to nearly a half hour. She and her mother, Laura Bush, also co-hosted an hour of "Today” around the time their picture book came out.

She "just sort of popped to us as a natural presence, comfortable” on the air, Bell said. Hager will work out of NBC’s Washington bureau.

"I think she can handle it,” he said. "I think she knows something about pressure and being under some scrutiny. When she came here for a handful of appearances, she knocked it out of the park.”

He expects her first story, most likely concerning education, to be on sometime next month.

A first television job on "Today” is, in her father’s world, sort of like a run for president as a first attempt at elective office. Hager said that people on the show "have always made me, whenever I’ve been there, feel very comfortable.”

Bell said Hager won’t be covering politics. He said he didn’t consider the job as a down payment for a future interview with her father, who has been living quietly in Texas since leaving office earlier this year. Attacks on NBC News by conservatives for the liberal bent of MSNBC also had nothing to do with it, he said.

"I hope to focus on what I’m passionate about because I think I’d do them best job on them — education, urban education, women and children’s issues and literacy,” said Hager.

Dr. Drew blames pain

medicine in death of DJ AM

NEW YORK — Addiction specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky said Saturday that pain medications likely led disc jockey DJ AM, a former drug addict who died suddenly Friday, away from his sober path.

"It very slowly and subtly reawakens addiction,” Pinsky said of pain medication in an interview Saturday. "I’m not saying it was inappropriately prescribed, I’m saying he didn’t know the risks.”

DJ AM, whose real name was Adam Goldstein, was found dead in his apartment Friday evening. A crack pipe and prescription pills were found in the Manhattan apartment, said a law enforcement official, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

Goldstein was 36 years old.

Pinsky is the host of VH1’s "Celebrity Rehab,” where he helps troubled stars get off of drugs and alcohol.

Pinsky said he believed pain medication Goldstein took for injuries sustained in the plane crash that required two skin graft surgeries reawakened his addiction to drugs. Goldstein had long preached sobriety and openly discussed his earlier addictions to drugs including crack cocaine and Ecstasy.

A medical examiner’s office spokeswoman said Saturday that toxicology tests, expected to take weeks, are needed to determine what killed Goldstein. An autopsy Saturday was inconclusive, said the spokeswoman, Ellen Borakove.

Pinsky also expressed his grief over the loss of Goldstein. He said he considered himself a friend of the late star, and though they had not spoken for "a while,” the two relayed messages to each other through friends and were "very close.”

Goldstein was to debut his own show centering on rehab in October on MTV called "Gone Too Far,” featuring Goldstein staging interventions with young people battling their own addictions. MTV said it has not decided on the show’s future.

In an interview with The Associated Press last month to promote the show, Goldstein said that it was terrifying watching people go through harrowing addictions and it made him recall his own battles.

"I am a recovering drug addict. When I see it and I’m in their room and the paraphernalia and the whole lifestyle and everything, I still, 11 years later, have that little thing in my head that starts thinking, ’Oh, where’s that? I wonder what that is?”’

But Pinsky laughed at the notion that being close to addicts may have caused Goldstein to relapse.

"That’s not in any way the kind of thing that leads to someone relapsing,” he said.

Pinsky called Goldstein a model for people going through recovery and said the disc jockey was selfless when it came to helping others overcome their addictions.

"He sponsors other people, and in his words, will go to the mat supporting people on their recovery,” Pinsky said.

"He was a very supportive recovery person.”

Pinsky recalled how when Crazytown’s Seth "Shifty” Binzer, a former patient on "Celebrity Rehab,” was going through his recovery process, Pinsky urged him to reach out to DJ AM, who was a former member of the defunct band, to help learn how to stay sober.

"He was someone I referred people to to learn about recovery,” said Pinsky.

Which is why he finds the circumstances of his death so shocking: "It was so much of a surprise I have a hard time believing it.”

Also Saturday, Travis Barker, who was seriously injured in the South Carolina plane crash last year with Goldstein that killed four other people, expressed his sadness about his former collaborator on Twitter. The two had performed as the duo TRVSDJ-AM.

"Don’t know how i am gonna play 2night but i am for AM,” wrote the Blink-182 member, who is on tour with the group. "My brother is gone. i love u and miss u, i’ll never forget all the good times we had.”

Mandy Moore, who dated DJ AM and rushed to his side last year after he was injured in a plane crash, said in a Saturday statement that she was "absolutely heartbroken” over his sudden death.

Moore and Goldstein had a serious relationship and remained friends after it ended. She was with him last year as he recovered from burns sustained in the plane crash that killed four people.

"I am absolutely heartbroken. For those of us lucky enough to have known him, Adam radiated a contagious exuberance for life and also personified the very definition of a true friend,” Moore said. "To say that he will be missed beyond words is an understatement. My heart goes out to his loved ones.”

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Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.