Before he was found dead at the age of 36 from an apparent drug overdose, DJ AM was considered a model in the addiction recovery community.

In an interview at the end of July, DJ Am, whose real name was Adam Goldstein, claimed that he had been sober 11 years after kicking an addiction to

In October, MTV had planned to debut his reality show, “Gone Too Far,” in which he and concerned family members staged interventions for drug abusers.

The inspiration for the show, he told MTV in the interview, was “I’m a recovering drug addict.”

“Something I’ve always done since the beginning of my sobriety is work with other addicts in recovery,” he continued. “Other than DJ, that’s kind of what I’ve always done. So now I’m doing the same thing just with a camera on.”

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Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein claimed to have 11 years of sobriety after being addicted to crack cocaine.

The future of a reality show that Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein was working on for MTV remains undecided after his death Friday night, his publicist said Monday.

Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein claimed to have 11 years of sobriety after being addicted to crack cocaine.

“It is too soon to have made any decisions at this time regarding the status of the show,” Jenni Weinman said in an e-mail regarding “Gone Too Far,” a show about drug addiction that was set to debut in October.

It was a subject close to his heart. The successful deejay and entrepreneur was a self-described crack cocaine addict who had 11 years of sobriety and wanted the show to help others.

Since his death, blogs and message boards have been full of speculation over whether the show contributed to his death.

Goldstein’s body was found in his New York City apartment with a crack pipe nearby and a half bag of crack cocaine and prescription drugs in the home, a police source told People.com.

In an interview with MTV this summer, Goldstein, 36, admitted that producing the series presented its share of trials for the recovering addict in him.

He recalled one moment early in shooting in which he purchased a crack pipe from a local corner store to show how easy they were to procure.

“I realized after I was holding it my palms were sweaty and I was like, wait a minute, this is not smart for me to be holding this and I started really kind of freaking out,” he said in an interview in July.

“It’s been tough, it’s like I’m on the borderline of seeing people in their disease that I used to be in. But I have to know why I’m there. There’s no better way for me to remember how low my bottom was than to see someone else at their bottom and offer them a chance out of it.”

He said that his experiences as a recovering addict inspired him to do the project. Before MTV approached him about the project, Goldstein said outreach to other drug addicts was already a second vocation for him after deejaying.

“Part of me feels like, ‘Who am I?’ I’m a DJ. This is my one chance. I owe it as a human who’s sober to say something to them. So that’s my job. That’s what I’m there for,” he said.

“I see myself in every single addict that I’ve done an episode on … I see a part of me in them. We completely relate to each on how we started, why we started and the fact we cannot stop on our own.”

After he survived a fiery plane crash last year that killed four and left him in need of skin grafts, Goldstein told People.com that he had a nurse dispense pain medication.

“In recovery, they say, ‘Take what is exactly prescribed and stop when they say to stop.’ I do what I’m told,” he said.

Rapper Jay-Z recalls how even after the crash, Goldstein stood by his commitment to deejay for him at a concert shortly after the tragic event.

“The accident happened and you know I’m thinking OK we’ll get up next year, whenever he gets back on his feet. But he called, ‘like man, don’t count me out for the concert.’ I’m like ‘what?’ And he came and he had a bandage on his head,” he told CNN.

“It was just a small thing, but his passion and love for what he did that’s what is always going to stick with me.”

The voting system, which will determine the winner of the best picture at this year’s Oscars is being changed, it has been announced.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said preferential voting will now be used to tally the final vote for the award.

Voters will be asked to rank nominees in order of preference from 1 to 10.

In all other categories, the victory goes to the performer who earns the most votes.

The new system for tallying vote for best picture is the same preferential voting system that the Academy uses in its nominating process.

However, this is the first time it has been introduced for best picture voting since 1945.

‘Strongest support’

The voting process has been adapted to accommodate the new picture shortlist, which has been increased to allow 10 films into the category, instead of five.

“Instead of just marking an X to indicate which one picture they believe to be the best, members will indicate their second, third and further preferences as well,” Academy president Tom Sherak said.

He explained that would “establish the best picture recipient with the strongest support of a majority of our electorate”.

The decision to use the preferential system was made because a larger field meant a winner could emerge with just slightly more than 580 votes out of the potential voting pool of 5,800 members.

The 82nd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on 2 February at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Cooler temperatures Tuesday could help firefighters slow down a fast-moving, deadly wildfire that has charred nearly 122,000 acres in Southern California.

Firefighters stand by Monday as a wall of flames from a backfire light up a hillside in La Crescenta, California.

Two firefighters lost their lives Sunday trying to get control of the Station Fire, which is burning through steep and rugged terrain in the Angeles National Forest. This area north of Los Angeles has not seen a major fire in more than 60 years.

Temperatures will be in the 90s, but they will be lower than the triple-digit highs that, combined with low humidity, caused the fire to explode in size from at least 40,000 acres on Sunday to more than 100,000 acres Monday.

By Tuesday morning, the Station Fire had consumed 121,762 acres, an increase of 16,000 acres since Monday, said Mike Dietrich, the U.S. Forest Service’s incident commander. It’s the largest of at least five burning in the state.

Firefighters are “fighting for every foot” of land, Dietrich said Tuesday.

But he added, “I feel a lot more optimistic today than I did yesterday. Yesterday I characterized the fire as ‘angry,’ today I’m going to characterize it as ‘cranky,’ ” he said.

More than 2,500 firefighters are trying to get a handle on the blaze, which is 5 percent contained.

It is unclear what caused the fire, which began Wednesday and has destroyed 53 structures so far. At least 10,000 homes, 500 businesses and 2,000 other structures are threatened.

At times, flames reached 100 feet into the sky, racing up hillsides just a stone’s throw from some houses, destroying some buildings while leaving others unscathed.

“This ridge was really bad; there [were] fire tornadoes going up into the skies,” said Mike Sarkissian, describing video footage he shot of the fire raging in Tujunga Canyon, where he rents a home.

In some areas, the fire is scorching miles of land in a matter of hours. It could take another week for firefighters to control the blaze fully, authorities have said

The Commonwealth has fully suspended Fiji after it refused to bow to demands to call elections by next year.

Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma cited the Pacific island country’s lack of progress towards democracy.

Mr Sharma said he was taking the step - only the second full suspension in the organisation’s history - “in sorrow”.

Commodore Frank Bainimarama seized power in Fiji in a 2006 coup and has said elections can only be reinstated in 2014, as part of his “roadmap”.

He says he needs time to institute reforms that will end the ethnic-based voting system tipped in favour of ethnic Fijians.

But his critics charge that under his rule, Fiji has suspended the constitution, detained opponents and suppressed freedom of speech.

‘True democracy’

In a statement, the Commonwealth said it had demanded that Fiji commit, by 1 September, to rejoining negotiations with the opposition and to holding credible elections by October 2010.

Mr Sharma said that although Cmdr Bainimarama had reaffirmed “his commitment to the principles of the Commonwealth”, he had not met the terms of the 1 September deadline.

He said Fiji’s suspension was therefore “a step the Commonwealth is now obliged to take, and one that it takes in sorrow”.

Cmdr Bainimarama repeated his opposition to the 2010 election timetable when he spoke to commercial radio earlier on Tuesday, reported AFP news agency.

“The Fiji government believes the roadmap is the only path to ensuring sustainable and true democracy, which includes… to have elections in 2014,” he said.

“We will remain with that.”

Contact continues

Fiji has already been banned from Commonwealth ministerial meetings. With its full suspension, all Commonwealth aid will be cut off and Fiji will not be allowed to participate in the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

However, not all Commonwealth contact with Fiji will cease. Its special representative to the country, Sir Paul Reeves, is set to visit Fiji from 9-11 September - a fact welcomed by Mr Sharma in his statement.

Fiji has already been suspended from the regional Pacific Islands Forum, and some European Union aid to the country has been put on hold.

Fiji has had a chequered relationship with the Commonwealth. It was expelled in 1987 after two military coups, but was readmitted 10 years later when democracy was restored. It was also suspended in 2000 for 18 months.

The only other country to be fully suspended in the Commonwealth’s history is Nigeria, during the rule of Gen Sani Abacha in 1995.

Nigeria returned to the Commonwealth after democratic rule was restored.

Pakistan was twice suspended from council meetings, and Zimbabwe was on course to be suspended when President Robert Mugabe pre-empted the move by walking out himself.

The Commonwealth is a grouping of 53 former British colonies, dependencies and other territories.