People in the News: Mix of drugs killed Smith's son

A pathologist has determined how Anna Nicole Smith's 20-year-old son died: a lethal combination of methadone and the antidepressants Zoloft and Lexapro.

Daniel Smith died Sept. 10, 2006, while visiting his mother in the Bahamas, where she had given birth just three days before to daughter Dannielynn. Anna Nicole Smith died at the age of 39 in February as a result of an accidental drug overdose.

People magazine reports Dr. Govinda Raju, who performed the official autopsy on Daniel Smith, said this particular drug cocktail can kill within five hours. The drugs are used to treat pain and depression.

An inquest on Daniel Smith's death is under way in the Bahamas.

Guitarist Eddie Van Halen got a little taste of what folks in Chehalis and Centralia have been going through. The Associated Press reports Van Halen returned to Los Angeles Monday after playing a concert in Edmonton, Alberta, Sunday night to find his yard ruined and his pool buried in mud.

"It could have been a lot worse," said Janie Liszewski, Van Halen's publicist and live-in girlfriend. The mini-disaster wasn't natural. A broken water main in Studio City sent thousands of gallons of water flowing down Van Halen's street. His house was the only one affected. The fire department said sandbags placed around the house prevented any water from getting inside.
Former Detroit police officers and the press secretary for former Mayor Dennis Archer will not have their day in court with Dr. Dre, now that a judge has dismissed invasion-of-privacy charges against the rapper and producer, reports the AP.

Dre was accused of improperly videotaping a backstage conversation at a show in 2000 and then releasing it as part of a DVD. The judge ruled the city workers should not have had any expectation of privacy.
-- P-I reporter Athima Chansanchai
Seattle PI