Insider’s view of Dubya

New York Former White House counselor Karen Hughes is writing a book about working with President George W. Bush.

“10 Minutes From Normal” will be released by Penguin Putnam in 2004, the publisher announced Tuesday.

One of Bush’s most trusted advisers even predating his years as governor of Texas Hughes served as White House counselor until quitting last summer and returning to Texas to be with her family.

According to a Penguin Putnam statement, Hughes will write about her “unique relationship with the president, her views about home and family, her much-noted decision to return to Texas and issues of great concern to her, including the United States’ image abroad.”

Bad nerves, round 2

London Actor Liam Neeson said he was nervous when he received a royal honor from Queen Elizabeth II.

“I’ve not been so nervous since I met Muhammad Ali,” said the 50-year-old actor, who received his Order of the British Empire, or OBE, from the queen Tuesday at Buckingham Palace.

“I really was weak-kneed,” he said after the ceremony. “She asked me if the award was for theater or films, and I said I thought it was for both. She said, ‘That’s nice’.”

Northern Ireland-born Neeson was an amateur boxer during his school days. He met Ali, his idol, in 1981 at London’s Dorchester Hotel.

Newhart’s comedy honored

Washington Bob Newhart found himself “a long way from being an accountant” Tuesday night as he accepted the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Newhart an ordinary-looking everyman who has always regarded the lunacy around him with unflappable calm was regaled by fellow comedians Tim Conway, Richard Belzer, Steven Wright and The Smothers Brothers, among others. The Kennedy Center gala will be broadcast Nov. 13 on PBS.

Newhart, 73, who worked as an accountant in Chicago in between a hitch in the Army and his comedy career, had no regrets about choosing show business. “It’s not easy being an accountant today,” he said. “It’s taken a lot of heat off the lawyers.”

Hunger strike ends

Reykjavik, Iceland The mother of pop singer Bjork has ended a hunger strike against a plan to develop the Icelandic highlands.

Hildur Runa Hauksdottir said Tuesday that she began eating again on Sunday evening. She began her fast Oct. 7 to try to persuade Pittsburgh-based Alcoa Inc. to pull out of the plan to build an aluminum smelter and hydroelectric plant in the wilderness area.

Hauksdottir, 56, said she quit because she was satisfied that her message was having a global impact. “Americans, Europeans, people in the Far East, have all contacted me asking how they can help, how they can stop this,” she said. “I thank them for their support.”