DEA investigators have subpoenaed former child star (and current floozy) Mary-Kate Olsen to gain information about the death of her friend, Heath Ledger. Mary-Kate, however, refuses to speak with the feds about Ledger’s painkiller use or anything else without first being granted immunity. The AP reports:

Olsen’s lawyer has twice refused requests for her to speak with investigators, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. The lawyer, Michael C. Miller, said the “Full House” actress has nothing to do with the drugs, and has already told the government everything she knows.

“We have provided the government with relevant information including facts in the chronology of events surrounding Mr. Ledger’s death,” Miller said in a statement Monday, “and the fact that Ms. Olsen does not know the source of the drugs Mr. Ledger consumed.”

[…] Police say [the masseuse who found Ledger’s body] spent nine minutes making three calls to Olsen before dialing 911 for help, then called the actress a fourth time after paramedics arrived. At some point during the flurry of frantic calls, Olsen, who was in California, summoned her personal security guards to the apartment to help, police said.

Shortly after the Australian-born actor’s death, Olsen issued a statement that read: “Heath was a friend. His death is a tragic loss.”

I understand one of his many vetoes this legislative session: the courthouse construction bill, a piece of legislation pledging $88 million to the construction of a new Blackstone Valley courthouse. According to the ProJo, Carcieri said in his veto message, “Never, not even once, has any Rhode Islander — save a legislator or a judge — ever spoke to me of the pressing need to build a court-house in the Blackstone Valley.”

On the urgency of the project, however, Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank Williams declared in an April speech:

The need to better serve our citizens in northern Rhode Island and to decongest a severely overcrowded Garrahy Judicial Complex in Providence by building a Blackstone Valley Courthouse is not going to go away.

As a legal intern with the RI Office of the Public Defender, I may not be privy to every aspect of life at the Garrahy complex. I do, however, work there 4 days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and I’m a bit perplexed by the congestion with which the Chief is concerned. In fact, things can get pretty slow around there, and I’ve taken to reading The New Yorker in between Judge Higgins’ arraignments in Courtroom 4C, where I am usually stationed.

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Persian rug sells for record $4.45 million at auction in Rhode Island

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A silk Persian rug dating from the 16th or 17th century has sold for a record $4.45 million at auction.

The rug was sold by Christie’s auction house Tuesday on behalf of the Newport Restoration Foundation. It had been expected to fetch up to $1.5 million.

The rug, which measures 2.3 metres by 1.7 metres, had been purchased by the late tobacco heiress Doris Duke in 1990. She left it to the foundation when she died.

Elisabeth Parker, head of Christie’s rugs and carpets department, says there are only two other known rugs like it. She calls it an “amazing work of art” and says it has an intricate floral design and an unusually large number of colours, at 17.

Christie’s says the buyer prefers to remain anonymous.