Gates, Brokaw skip out on bill

Watertown, S.D. — The world’s richest man and one of the country’s top news anchors sat down at a cafe for cappuccino — but both walked away without paying the bill.

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates came to Watertown to talk with librarians about computers that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had donated.

NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw also was in town and interviewed Gates at the Past Times Cafe, where they each ordered a cappuccino. But when the interview was over, they left and no one paid the bill.

No one thought much more about it until the cafe’s owner, Corinne Arnold, got a call from Gates’ office asking whether he owed some money. The cafe insisted the cappuccinos, which cost $3 each, were on the house.

But Brokaw, a South Dakota native, thought otherwise and took care of the debt Wednesday with a note that included two $20 bills.

A kinder, gentler Ventura debuts

St. Paul, Minn. — A smiling, sympathetic Jesse Ventura made his first appearance on MSNBC, reporting on the story of a California mother who saved the life of a stranger.

“Tonight you are going to see the kind, gentle Jesse Ventura on ‘Hero of the Week,'” he said Thursday night during a five-minute segment on the “Lester Holt Live” show. “I can warn you in the future I won’t always be so kind and gentle.”

With a few minor stammers, Ventura reported on the story of Cindy Lightner, an American Airlines flight attendant who discovered a woman who wasn’t breathing on a Costa Mesa, Calif., playground last month and performed CPR until help arrived.

Ventura will continue doing short segments as MSNBC eases him into his own show, according to MSNBC President Erik Sorenson.

It’s a girl for ‘Pretty Baby’ star

Brooke Shields, 37, who posed pregnant for the cover of Vogue’s April issue, gave birth to a girl Thursday morning at a New York hospital.

It’s the first child for the former “Suddenly Susan” star and hubbie Chris Henchy, a former writer-producer for “Spin City.”

Jackson seeks secret deposition

Indianapolis — An attorney for Michael Jackson has asked a federal court to keep secret the location of the pop star’s deposition in a copyright lawsuit next week.

Saying the deposition could create a media frenzy, Stephen Fardy, one of Jackson’s attorneys in the case, requested in U.S. District Court in Hammond that the time and place be kept from the public.

Jackson, who also has requested to pick the location, will be deposed Wednesday in Indianapolis in a lawsuit accusing the Jackson Five and others of infringing the trade name of Ripples and Waves, another Gary, Ind., band from the 1960s, and two of their songs.