L.A. to hold public Jackson memorial

Broadcasters showed footage Thursday of a dancing, singing Jackson at the same venue on his last rehearsal just before he died. The video seemed to corroborate previous comments from numerous people who had been present that Jackson appeared healthy and engaged before his death, and was fit to go ahead with his planned 50-concert comeback engagement in London.

Meanwhile, his former wife, Debbie Rowe, reportedly said she would battle Jackson's family for custody of her two children.

In another new development, the Los Angeles Police Department called in the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to help in the investigation of Jackson's death, an indication that an abuse of prescription drugs may have played a role.

Phillips, president and chief of concert firm AEG, said the service will begin at 10 a.m. (1700 GMT) at the 20,000-capacity Staples Centre with live images screened on widescreen televisions for an overflow crowd expected to gather in the plaza outside the huge basketball stadium and convention center. “Details are still to be finalized when I meet with the Jackson family this afternoon,” Philips said on local TV station KNBC. “Everything is in preliminary stages except the place and time.”

The station reported that Rowe, who is the mother of Jackson's two older children, would seek custody.

“I want my children,” she was reported to have said. “I am stepping up. I have to.”

But CNN quoted a lawyer for Rowe as saying that she had made no decision on custody. A court hearing on the issue will take place on July 13, reports said.

Rowe said that she would seek a restraining order to keep Jackson's father, Joe, whom the pop star claimed had abused him as a child, away from her children. In Jackson's will, he appointed his mother Katherine, 79, as guardian of his children, with soul diva Diana Ross tapped as an alternate.

Plans to hold the memorial at Jackson's home in Neverland had to be cancelled because of the difficulties expected in dealing with thousands of fans in the remote region. Jackson's brother Jermaine told the Today Show Thursday that the family still hoped to make the fantasy-like refuge his final resting place once permits were obtained.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) joined the investigation into Jackson's death following evidence that the singer had desperately sought the powerful sedative Diprivan days before his death from cardiac arrest on June 25. The drug is used in hospitals as an anesthetic.

Jermaine said the family has been deeply hurt by speculation that an overdose of prescription drugs may have caused Jackson's death.

“For people to come forward to say things they don't have the facts (to back up) is very damaging for the family, to me, to us. Because we don't know,” he said in the interview, conducted at Neverland.

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