WEEK IN REVIEW: Britney Stops to 'Chill'

By Stephen M. Silverman

10/22/2004 at 03:00 PM EDT

BRITNEY BREAKS: In a new message posted on her Web site, Britney Spears, 22 – who wed Kevin Federline, 26, in a surprise ceremony on Sept. 18 – writes: "Being married is GREAT and I can't wait to start my family!" But that may take time, she says: "I know now that my knee gave out on me this past summer so that I would have no choice but to stop. My body was shutting down and needed rest. It's funny how the Man upstairs works." As a result, she is "going to take some time off to enjoy life. ... Kevin and I are finally able to take our honeymoon!!"

OLSEN OUT: Mary-Kate Olsen, 18, left her studies at New York University and temporarily went back home to Southern California, her publicist told PEOPLE, stressing the fact, "She is not dropping out of NYU." Said Michael Pagnotta: "She's not leaving New York City or moving back to L.A. She is in L.A. on personal business. She is not going back into treatment (for an eating disorder that had been confronted earlier this summer). She has a team of people of both coasts whom she can access in L.A. or New York."

'DIRTY' HARRY: Britain's Prince Harry and a photographer clashed outside a London nightclub Thursday morning at 3 a.m. A spokeswoman from his father's office says: "Prince Harry was hit in the face by a camera as photographers crowded around him as he was getting into a car. In pushing the camera away, we understand that the photographer incurred a cut lip." Eyewitness Charlie Pycraft told PEOPLE that Harry – "looking pretty red-faced," as if "something triggered him off" – went out of his way to approach photographer Chris Uncle, 24. "He was half in the car and then lunged for a photographer," said Pycraft, calling Harry's action unprovoked.

O'REILLY FACTORS: Lawyers for FOX News commentator Bill O'Reilly, 55, have sought a court order demanding that Andrea Mackris, 33, who accuses O'Reilly of sexual harassment, turn over alleged audiotapes of phone calls between the two of them. This would reputedly settle the question over whether such tapes even exist. O'Reilly launched a pre-emptive legal strike last week with a lawsuit accusing Mackris (who says O'Reilly forced her to engage in phone sex) and her attorney of extortion and of trying to embarrass him.

REEVE RALLIES: A week and a half after her husband's death, Christopher Reeve's widow, Dana, joined Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry Thursday afternoon in Columbus, Ohio, to introduce him and express her support for him and his call for federally funded expansion of embryonic stem-cell research. Said Reeve before the crowd: "My inclination would be to remain private for a good long while. But I came here today in support of John Kerry because this is so important. This is what Chris wanted."