NEW YORK – Fox News Channel is parting ways with former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, ending her three-year tenure as a contributor on the network.

While Palin’s time at Fox was occasionally rocky, the network’s news executive, Bill Shine, said Friday that “we have thoroughly enjoyed our association” with her.

“We wish her the best in her future endeavors,” said Shine, Fox’s executive vice president for programming.

A person familiar with discussions between Fox and Palin described the parting as amicable, saying that Fox and Palin had discussed renewing her contract but she decided to do other things. The person was not authorized to speak on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Palin’s lawyer in Alaska, John Tiemessen, had no immediate comment on her exit. Palin’s last appearance on Fox News was Dec. 19 on Greta Van Susteren’s show.

Palin signed to deliver commentary on Fox in January 2010, reportedly for $1 million a year. It was a coup for both sides at the time; the former Alaska governor was a little more than a year removed from her attention-getting run for the vice presidency and was considered one of the leading contenders for the 2012 presidential nomination. At Fox, she had a platform on the most popular network for conservative viewers.

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But there were some indications of tension between her and Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes, who was quoted in a 2011 story by The Associated Press saying, “I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings.”

But four years removed from her vice presidential candidacy, Palin’s influence had waned.

JFK mementos to go on the auction block

BOSTON – The family of a former special assistant to President John F. Kennedy is auctioning hundreds of photographs, documents, gifts and other memorabilia that once belonged to the late president.

David Powers, who died in 1998, was a close personal friend to Kennedy and his wife, Jackie. He was also the first curator of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston until he retired in 1994.

Powers’ family found “an extraordinary collection” of memorabilia locked away last year as they prepared to sell the family home, according to John McInnis Auctioneers in Amesbury, Mass.

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Powers, who joined Kennedy for his first political campaign for Congress in 1946 and was with him when he was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, collected keepsakes and documents spanning years of friendship with the Kennedy family.

His collection of about 2,000 items will be auctioned in 723 lots on Feb. 17.

The collection includes the president’s Air Force One leather bomber jacket; photos of the baptism of his only surviving child, Caroline Kennedy; pictures of John F. Kennedy Jr.’s birthday party taken in December 1963; a collage of photos that show JFK and Jackie before he was elected president; and a statement announcing Kennedy’s candidacy for president.

‘Not to be published’ Diana photo: $18,306

AMHERST, N.H. – A photo marked “not to be published” that shows a teenage Diana Spencer before she became Princess of Wales has been sold by a New Hampshire auction house for more than $18,000.

The photograph shows a group of friends relaxing during a ski trip, with Diana reclining on a bed, with a young man seated behind her and a bottle of whiskey on the window sill. It was acquired by a British newspaper just after her engagement to Prince Charles, but someone at the paper wrote “not to be published” across it, presumably because it would’ve embarrassed the royal family.

RR Auction in Amherst, N.H., says the photo sold in the online auction Thursday to a real estate investor from San Diego for $18,306, well above early estimates.


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