Martha to Skip 'Early Show' Again

By Stephen M. Silverman

07/09/2002 at 01:00 AM EDT

Another week, another no Martha Stewart on CBS's "Early Show." The domestic diva, 60, will not appear for her regularly scheduled appearance on the breakfast program this Wednesday, reports New York's Daily News. She remains largely at the center of a congressional investigation into possible insider trading stemming from her sale of nearly 4,000 shares of ImClone last December, a day before the pharmaceutical company's stock price plunged due to the Food and Drug Administration's rejection of its cancer treatment drug. "The 'Early Show' and Martha Stewart have agreed that she will not appear on the broadcast this week," the network said in a statement earlier this week. "In the meantime, CBS News will continue to monitor the (ImClone) situation and report on developments." Furthermore, the News reports, Stewart will apparently be a no-show at a $500-a-plate charity benefit for New York's Friends of the High Line, a nonprofit historical preservation group, which has a gala dinner scheduled for Wednesday night. That event will still take place in its intended venue: the ninth floor of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's offices. And Stewart shall remain listed on the program as a cohost, says the News; she is unable to attend because an unspecified scheduling conflict, the group told the paper.