CNN reporter arrested

CNN reporter Richard Quest, 46, was arrested about 3:40 a.m. Friday in New York City's Central Park with a small amount of methamphetamine in his pocket, but he avoided jail time by agreeing to undergo drug counseling and therapy. Quest was arrested on a count of possession of a controlled substance. He also was charged with loitering; the park closes at 1 a.m. When police saw and detained Quest, he told them, "I've got some meth in my pocket," according to the complaint filed in court. The complaint said he had a plastic sandwich bag containing methamphetamine. Quest, who is British, is a correspondent for CNN International and is known for his reports on business travel. He hosts "CNN Business Traveler" and "Quest." CNN had no comment.

Foxy Brown freed

Rapper Foxy Brown left Rikers Island prison in New York on Friday after serving eight months of a 12-month sentence for violating parole in connection with her 2004 charge for assaulting two manicurists.

Passages

Joseph Solman, 99, a painter who with Mark Rothko and other modernists helped shape American art as early as the 1930s and, into a new century, continued to paint in his New York studio, died in his sleep Wednesday at his home in Manhattan after visiting a gallery and washing down a light dinner with scotch, said his son, Paul, the economics correspondent for "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer."

Speed Vogel, 90, whose care of an ailing friend, the novelist Joseph Heller, became the fodder for a best-selling chronicle of a friendship, "No Laughing Matter," died Monday at his home in Sag Harbor, N.Y.

Today in History

1775: The American Revolutionary War began with the battles of Lexington and Concord.

1943: Tens of thousands of Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto began a valiant but futile battle against Nazi forces.

1951: Gen. Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his Far East command by President Truman, bid farewell in an address to Congress in which he quoted a line from a ballad: "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away."

1993: The 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ended as fire destroyed the structure after federal agents began smashing their way in; dozens of people, including David Koresh, were killed.

1995: A truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. (Timothy McVeigh was convicted of federal murder charges and executed.)

Today's Birthdays

Actor Tim Curry, 62. Recording executive Suge Knight, 43. Actress Ashley Judd, 40. Latin pop singer Luis Miguel, 38. Actor James Franco, 30. Actress Kate Hudson, 29. Actor Hayden Christensen, 27. Actress Catalina Sandino Moreno, 27. Actor Courtland Mead, 21.

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