LOS ANGELES - O.J. Simpson told The Associated Press he did the controversial "If I Did It" book for only one reason - personal profit, acknowledging that any financial gain was "blood money."
"This was an opportunity for my kids to get their financial legacy," Simpson said in interviews after the book deal was abandoned by its publisher. "My kids understand. I made it clear that it's blood money, but it's no different than any of the other writers who did books on this case."
The book, said to describe how he theoretically would have committed the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, had been scheduled for release Nov. 30 following the airing of a two-part Simpson interview on Fox on Monday and Wednesday.
News Corp., owner of Fox Broadcasting and publisher HarperCollins, canceled the project after a public outcry and objections by advertisers and booksellers.
Simpson declined to say how much of an advance he received for the book, but said it was less than the $3.5 million that has been reported. He said the money has already been spent, including some he used to meet his tax obligations.
Simpson, who spoke by phone from his Florida home in two interviews this week, said he was convinced the book would have been a best-seller.
"My kids would have been coming into a lot of money," he said, adding he desperately needs the cash because his retirement funds are dwindling.
He also said he deserved the harsh criticism for his role in the project, although he complained that News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch appears to be getting off easy.
"I'm taking heat and I deserve it," Simpson said. "But Murdoch should not be taking the high road either."
Publisher Judith Regan has portrayed the book as representing "O.J.'s confession," and it reportedly contains a chapter where he explains how he could have committed the killings.
But the former football star says he didn't commit the murders. He said the book was ghostwritten.
"When I saw what he wrote, I said, 'Maybe you did it because they're saying the chapter contains things only the killer would know.' I don't know these things," Simpson said.
Simpson said Wednesday he never spoke to Regan until taping the TV interview.
"In the course of the interview I said, 'This is blood money and I hope nobody reads it,"' Simpson said.
He added, "Everybody who has written a book about this has taken blood money; you can't have selective morality."
Simpson said he was disappointed by Regan's "confession" statement, although he noted, "I thought, 'This lady probably thinks I did it and I didn't."'
Simpson insisted he did not try to peddle the book to anyone, saying "a guy" he would not identify brought the proposal to one of his family members.
Simpson said he told a representative of the publisher that he would not allow the book's publication if it contained any graphic descriptions of "cutting or stabbing."
Asked how he felt about the effect the book would have on the victims' families, Simpson expressed bitterness toward Goldman's father, Fred Goldman, who has denounced Simpson as a liar and murderer.
Simpson was acquitted of murder in 1995 but was later found liable for the killings in a wrongful-death suit filed by the Goldman family. Simpson has failed to pay the $33.5 million judgment against him in that case, and his pensions and his Florida home cannot be seized.
He said Fred Goldman has helped drain his finances with "frivolous lawsuits," including one he brought recently attempting to deprive Simpson of the commercial rights to his name. Although Simpson prevailed in court he said he spent $17,000 in legal fees.
Simpson, 59, said his NFL pension pays only $1,700 a month and the private pension he amassed during the days when he was a popular TV pitchman and sports commentator is being halved next month because he's had to dip into the principal.
Although he knew the project would bring an avalanche of negative publicity, Simpson said he was willing to face it "if that's what it took."
"You guys are going to dog me no matter what," he told a reporter.
Despite his financial troubles, Simpson indicated he wasn't entirely unhappy the project was abandoned.
"I feel like a man who's had the weight of the world taken off me," he said.
Idaho Zamboni drivers fired after trip to fast-food drive-thru
BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Two employees of the city's ice skating rink have been fired for making a midnight fast-food run in a pair of Zambonis.
An anonymous tipster reported seeing the two big ice-resurfacing machines chug through a Burger King drive-through and return to the rink around 12:30 a.m. on Nov. 10. The squat, rubber-tired vehicles, which have a top speed of about 5 mph, drove 1.5 miles in all.
The Zamboni operators, both temporary city employees whose names and ages were not released by Parks and Recreation Department, had to negotiate at least one intersection with a traffic light on their late-night creep from Idaho Ice World.
"They were fired immediately," said Parks Department Director Jim Hall. "We're pretty sure it was just the one time. When we interviewed them, they didn't seem to be too concerned about it. I don't think they understood the seriousness of it."
Hall said neither the $75,000 Zambonis nor their $10,000 blades appeared damaged, but the city could charge the employees with operating an unlicensed motor vehicle on a public street.
Chemical plant explosion, fire damage about 90 homes near Boston; only minor injuries
DANVERS, Mass. (AP) - Explosions at a chemical plant ripped through a commercial and residential neighborhood early Wednesday, shaking homes from foundations, blowing out windows and tearing off roofs but causing few injuries.
Nearly 90 homes were damaged - many destroyed - yet only 10 people of the more than 300 people believed home at the time were hurt, and those injuries were minor, officials said.
Gov. Mitt Romney said the devastation he saw there was shocking.
"The miracle is you have the equivalent of a 2,000-pound bomb going off in a residential neighborhood at night when everybody is home, and no one's dead and no one is seriously injured," Romney said.
Several fires were still burning hours after the explosion. Fire Chief James P. Tutko said it could take days to determine the cause of the blast.
"It looks like a war zone," Tutko said after surveying the area by helicopter. "It's just - it's devastating."
The explosion hit the CAI Inc. plant just before 3 a.m. about 20 miles north of Boston. About 20 homes in the surrounding neighborhood probably can't be saved, Tutko said.
Utilities were out across the neighborhood surrounding CAI, and town officials canceled school for the day. Some residents who tried to drive out found their cars were stuck because their garage doors had been blown off the rails.
Residents closest to the blast, including those in a nursing home a facility for the deaf, were evacuated to shelters set up at area schools.
Fred Grenier, 25, was asleep in a second-floor bedroom about 200 yards from the plant when it exploded.
"The windows came caving in. The (air conditioner) fell right on me," Grenier said.
"Everyone was out in the street making sure everybody's all right," he said. "There were windows gone, doors gone, vinyl siding off the houses."
Nancy Chick said the shock bowed her windows inward and pulled her curtains halfway out before the windows returned to their normal position in the frames. Afterward, the curtains hung from their rod and flapped outside her window, even though it was closed.
"I never saw anything like it," said Chick, 66. "All the pressure must have blown it in and then sucked it out."
State Police Maj. Kevin Kelly said he felt the explosion at his home 21 miles away. Some people mistook it for an earthquake, while one caller to WBZ-AM said he looked out his window and saw "the picture of London during the blitz - that silhouette."
CAI Inc., a privately owned company, makes solvents and inks and has five to nine employees in Danvers. A person who answered the phone at CAI's Georgetown headquarters Wednesday declined to comment.
Mike Nalipinski, on-scene coordinator for Environmental Protection Agency, said preliminary tests showed a low level of toluene, a solvent, but no significant dangers.
Runoff from water used by fire fighters left a purple sheen on the nearby river, and water tests were being conducted, but Nalipinski said it was not a drinking water supply and the chemical evaporates quickly.
There is an Eastern Propane facility close to the CAI plant, but company spokesman Jeff Taylor said its tanks were secure, though the property suffered some minor damage.
Police: Tahoe woman's killer hid in hotel closet
STATELINE, Nev. (AP) - The estranged boyfriend of a Lake Tahoe hotel maid hid in a closet and bludgeoned her with a hammer, police said in court documents.
The body of Jazmin Gonzalez-Morgado, 22, was found Sunday in an 8th floor room at the Horizon Casino Resort.
Her estranged boyfriend, Ramiro Valasquez-Galicia, 35, is charged with her murder. Another man, 23-year-old Evan Garcia, is under arrest for accessory to murder.
Authorities said the woman had a restraining order against Galicia.
According to a police affidavit filed in Tahoe Township Justice Court, Galicia said he wanted to tape the woman's mouth shut so he could talk to her. But once she entered the room, the situation got out of hand and he killed her.
Police said Garcia told investigators he left the room at 5 a.m. Sunday and wasn't with Galicia when the killing occurred. When he returned to the room, he saw the body and told hotel staff Gonzalez needed medical attention, records stated.
Court documents say detectives found a bloody hammer, scissors, two rolls of duct tape, a utility razor and a wig at the scene.
Meanwhile, the family that cared for, lived and worked with Gonzalez-Morgado said she was trying to leave her abusive relationship with Galicia.
The couple had been together for seven years, and Gonzalez-Morgano was saving money to bring her son from Mexico, friends said.
Christina Santibanez said they introduced Gonzalez-Morgado to their church, and she thrived in developing her faith when she moved into their home about a month ago with their three children.
Gonzalez-Morgado had reached out to the family in December when "she got fed up" with the alleged beatings, daughter Wendy Santibanez said.
Gay Rhode Island couple files for divorce; judge says it's state's first of its kind
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - A lesbian couple married in Massachusetts has filed for divorce in Rhode Island, setting up a legal conundrum for judges in a state where the laws are silent on the legality of same-sex marriage.
Margaret Chambers and Cassandra Ormiston of Providence were married after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court legalized gay marriage starting in 2004.
They filed for divorce in Rhode Island on Oct. 23, citing irreconcilable differences, Chambers' attorney, Louis Pulner, said Wednesday. Ormiston declined to comment.
Rhode Island Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah Jeremiah Jr. has yet to decide whether his court has jurisdiction and said he believes it is the first filing for a same-sex divorce in the state. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Dec. 5.
Massachusetts became the only state to allow same-sex couples to marry after the state Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to ban it.
Until recently, though, it was up in the air whether out-of-state couples could marry in Massachusetts. In September, a Massachusetts judge decided that nothing in Rhode Island law specifically banned gay marriage and said Rhode Island couples could legally marry there.
"Now the ultimate question is whether the state will recognize or determine whether it has jurisdiction to handle an out-of-state divorce when we don't have any case law that accepts or rejects same-sex marriage," Pulner said.
Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch said it is up to the courts and legislature to decide whether the state recognizes same-sex unions.
Massachusetts remains the only state to allow gay marriage. New Jersey's high court ruled in October that that state, too, must offer gay couples the same rights as married couples, but it left it to lawmakers to decide by April whether to call the unions "marriages."
Two other states have civil unions that extend marriage-like rights to same-sex couples - Vermont in accordance with a court order and Connecticut through a vote of its legislature.
In Connecticut, attorneys for eight gay couples filed an appeal Wednesday with the Supreme Court in a case arguing that the 2005 decision there to legalize same-sex civil unions rather than marriage violates the couples' basic constitutional rights. The lawsuit, dismissed by a lower court in March, says civil unions are inferior in status to marriage.
Associated Press Writer Stephanie Reitz in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.
Police: Skeletal remains found in NYC woman's bedroom belong to husband, dead for 3 years
NEW YORK (AP) - A man hoping to reconcile with his parents after years of estrangement made a grisly find: His mother may have been living with his father's corpse for three years, police said.
When Paul Iversen went to the Brooklyn apartment Tuesday, his 73-year-old mother, Joanne, told him his father, Frank, had died, police said. She showed her son the skeletal remains of an adult man stored under bed covers in her bedroom, according to police.
The medical examiner was to conduct tests to confirm the identity of the remains, police Sgt. Mike Wysokowski said. No charges had been filed.
Neighbors said Joanne Iversen had told them her husband was away.
"I said, 'I haven't seen your husband,' and she said, 'He's in Philadelphia.' She told others 'Long Island,"' said an upstairs neighbor, Vincent Clements.
Several neighbors said they had noticed a foul smell emanating from the Iversens' first-floor apartment but couldn't fathom the source.
"We complained a lot, but I never would have guessed there was a body inside," neighbor Carole Clements said.
Illinois official warns consumers to beware of online Oprah ticket offers
CHICAGO (AP) - Online thieves are using the lure of tickets to "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to rip off the identities of consumers, officials said.
The thieves have been sending unsolicited e-mails asking people to send them personal information, verify financial information or wire money to a third party for tickets to the show, state Attorney General Lisa Madigan said.
The show, taped in Chicago, doesn't sell tickets. It takes reservations to attend tapings for free.
Madigan's office couldn't say how widespread the messages had reached.
"With the large number of Oprah's fans worldwide, we are concerned that their excitement at the opportunity to attend a taping of her TV show may result in fans responding to this unauthorized offer," Madigan warned Tuesday in a news release.
The e-mails were reported to the state by lawyers with Oprah's Harpo Productions Inc., Madigan spokeswoman Cara Smith said Wednesday.
"The goal with this alert is to not have any victims, because once consumers respond to this or send money, it's very, very difficult to make them whole," Smith said.
Prince Albert's teen daughter on Fiji humanitarian mission
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Jazmin Grace Grimaldi has emerged as a little princess six months after Monaco's Prince Albert II acknowledged he's the father of the 14-year-old Southern California girl.
Aboard a 140-foot ship, the teenager is spending Thanksgiving on an eight island South Pacific humanitarian journey to bring remote island children education, community development and medical help.
"It's been great to be in Fiji this Thanksgiving because this whole trip is about giving," the Palm Desert youngster said on her www.jazminfund.com Web site.
Indeed, it's become a fairy tale, a "Princess Diaries" story of sorts.
Last June, there was a flurry of media attention when Prince Albert confirmed through his lawyer that Jazmin was the result of his 1991 tryst with Tamara Rotolo, a Coachella Valley woman who had been vacationing in the Mediterranean.
The teenager quickly became a hometown sensation with the Palm Springs Desert Sun bannering the headline "Jazmin's Royal Debut" over her Page 1 photograph.
But media interest quickly waned after Jazmin's 8th-grade graduation from St. Margaret's Episcopal School in Palm Desert. The teenager was soon bound for Monaco to get acquainted with her father.
An obscure little girl for 14 years, Jazmin is apparently accepting royalty with grace after the sudden June confirmation of her noble lineage. Her charity work was launched, the Web site was born and the fall trip to the Fiji Islands was planned.
Pete Lewalua, skipper of the sailing schooner Tui Tai, confirmed by cellular telephone Tuesday that Jazmin was aboard on an eight-island visit to select projects for her charitable fund.
This week she visited a rural village school, a school for the disabled and she donated 30,000 prenatal vitamins to the Savusavu Hospital on the island of Vanua Levu.
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