Palin: No dropouts here

People

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said future son-in-law Levi Johnston, 18, is not a high-school dropout as many in the media are reporting. The former Republican vice-presidential candidate said Wednesday that Johnston is enrolled in high school through a correspondence program. Palin said some media outlets also are erroneously reporting that daughter Bristol, 18, is a high-school dropout. The governor said her daughter is enrolled in regular high school and has taken correspondence courses. Bristol Palin and Johnston are the parents of Sarah Palin's first grandchild, Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, who was born Saturday. Johnston has said he and Bristol plan to marry; no date has been set.

She'll stay in the car

Former "Dancing With the Stars" contestant and Rose Parade grand marshal Cloris Leachman, 82, said there's "no possibility" that she'll get out of the car on the parade route today in Pasadena, Calif., and dance in the street. But she said she's beginning to think she has multiple personalities, so maybe one of them might do something unexpected. Leachman will also do the coin toss before the Rose Bowl game between USC and Penn State.

Update

Hotel is home

The secret's out. The hotel President-elect Obama and his family will move into this weekend is the exclusive Hay-Adams hotel a few yards from the White House. The hotel sits across Lafayette Square from the White House, Obama's eventual workplace and home. With daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, beginning classes Monday at the private Sidwell Friends School, the family needed someplace to stay.

Law & disorder

Actor pulled over

Actor Matt Dillon, 44, was charged with driving at an excessive speed for allegedly going 106 mph on an interstate highway, Vermont State Police said. Dillon, of New York, was pulled over by a trooper on Interstate 91 in Newbury on Tuesday. He was driving a rented 2009 Chevrolet Impala.

Comic's kin enters plea

The half brother of comedian Dane Cook has pleaded not guilty in Woburn, Mass., to embezzling millions from the comedian and was ordered held on $3 million bail. Darryl McCauley, 43, was arraigned Wednesday at Woburn District Court on charges including forgery and larceny. Prosecutors said McCauley stole the money from Cook, 36, while being paid $12,500 a month to act as Cook's business manager. McCauley's attorney said his client is innocent.

Upbeat

Winfrey checks in

A letter from Oprah Winfrey last week seemed like the world's best Christmas present, until teacher Ron Clark noticed an extra piece of paper flutter out of the envelope. That's when the Atlanta educator saw the $365,000 check for the private school he opened in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods in 2007. Clark, who finds private donors to pay most of the $14,000 annual tuition for each student, said, "To have an unsolicited gift come like that is incredible."

Update

Airport vagrant moves

A Japanese man with scraggly hair and a scruffy beard who had been sleeping in Mexico City's Benito Juarez International Airport since Sept. 2 — for no apparent reason — is living in an apartment and has become a new man. Reforma newspaper Wednesday published photos of a clean-cut, freshly bathed and shaved Hiroshi Nohara looking through the metal gate of a Mexico City apartment. Nohara left the airport Sunday with a woman identified only as Oyuki.

Today in History

1808: A law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States went into effect.

1863: President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that slaves in rebel states were free.

1959: Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries overthrew Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista, who fled to the Dominican Republic.

1979: The United States and China held celebrations in Washington and Beijing to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Today's Birthdays

Author J.D. Salinger, 90. Actor Frank Langella, 71. Musician Country Joe McDonald, 67. Actress Dedee Pfeiffer, 45. Actor Morris Chestnut, 40. Actor Verne Troyer, 40.

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