Cause of socialite’s death investigated

Los Angeles — Casey Johnson, an heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, lived the life of a Hollywood socialite — partying with Paris Hilton, posing for paparazzi, becoming engaged to bisexual reality TV star Tila Tequila and like her idol Marilyn Monroe, dying young.

An autopsy Tuesday found no evidence of trauma on the body of the 30-year-old Johnson and a determination of the cause of death was deferred pending toxicological tests and microscopic studies that could take eight weeks or more.

Johnson was diagnosed with diabetes as a child, but it was unclear if that had a role in her death.

Johnson’s body was found Monday in the home where she lived behind big wooden gates bearing the name “Grumblenot” in a quiet neighborhood. There were no signs of foul play, police Officer Gregory Baek said.

Barker’s namesake ship helps stop whaling

Los Angeles — Five million dollars for an anti-whaling ship? Bob Barker says the price is right.

Barker donated that amount to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which named its new 1,200-ton anti-whaling ship The Bob Barker.

The ship had its first confrontation with whalers on Tuesday when it joined two other Sea Shepherd vessels aiming to stop a Japanese whaling mission near Antarctica.

“Whaling was shut down today,” Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson said via satellite phone from aboard a nearby ship. “There’s no whaling now and hopefully no whaling after this.”

The Bob Barker is a high-speed former whaling ship that can cut through ice, Watson said, adding that the vessel “makes it a lot easier for us to shut down these whaling operations.”

Stone to guest star on ‘Law & Order: SVU’

New York — Sharon Stone will soon be fighting crime in a guest role on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”

The Oscar-nominated actress will appear on the NBC cop drama in a four-episode story arc later this season, says Pam Golum, a spokeswoman for producer Dick Wolf.

Stone, best known for her films “Basic Instinct” and “Casino,” will play a cop turned prosecutor.

In the past, she has guest-starred on the series “Huff” and “The Practice,” for which she won an Emmy.

Her casting was first reported Tuesday by Entertainment Weekly’s Web site.

Sanford memoir to be released next month

Charleston, S.C. — South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford’s memoir about dealing with her husband’s infidelity will be published next month instead of in May as originally planned.

The 240-page “Staying True” goes on sale Feb. 5, according to the Web site for Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House Inc.

Jenny Sanford filed for divorce from Gov. Mark Sanford last month and a final hearing on the petition is scheduled for late February. But Random House spokeswoman Theresa Zoro said moving up the publication date had nothing to do with the divorce.

“The book was done and we wanted to get it out there,” she said.

The governor, once a rising star in the Republican Party and a possible 2012 presidential contender, disappeared for five days last summer and returned to publicly confess an affair with an Argentine woman. His staff told reporters he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, but he was actually in Argentina.

The publisher’s Web site says the memoir will reveal Jenny Sanford’s private ordeal over her husband’s public betrayal.

Smithsonian museums saw jump in visits

Washington — Visitor counts at the Smithsonian Institution’s museums have rebounded to more than 30 million visits in 2009 for the first time since a slump following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

A draft report the museum complex released Tuesday shows visits to the Smithsonian’s 18 museums, galleries and the National Zoo increased about 19.4 percent in 2009, up from about 25.15 million visits in 2008.

Much of the increase can be attributed to the National Museum of American History, which reopened in 2008 after an extensive renovation. It drew about 1.4 million more visitors last year compared with its last full year open in 2005.

The National Museum of Natural History saw an increase of about 450,000 to 7.4 million visits, making it the most-visited museum.

Mitchell logs most evening news time

New York — NBC’s Andrea Mitchell logged more TV face time than any other network evening news reporter during the past decade.

News consultant Andrew Tyndall, who logs each evening newscast, calculated that Mitchell was on NBC’s “Nightly News” for 2,416 minutes from 2000 to 2009. The veteran diplomatic correspondent beat her NBC medical correspondent colleague, Robert Bazell, who had 2,328 minutes.

Tyndall says NBC had five of the six most heavily used reporters. The exception was CBS Pentagon reporter David Martin.

By far, the story the evening news broadcasts spent the most time on during the past decade was the Iraq War. But the war didn’t even make the top 20 of minutes logged during 2009.