ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Country singer Mindy McCready said Wednesday she will probably not be able to bring her 5-year-old son back to Florida to fulfill a judge’s order by this afternoon – because she is nearly 7 months pregnant with twins. By not returning as ordered, she risks arrest.

Speaking exclusively to The Associated Press, McCready said that she and her mother have had a long custody battle in Florida over Zander. Her mother was awarded guardianship in 2007.

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Mindy McCready says she probably won’t bring her son back to Florida as a judge has ordered. Associated Press file

Lenny Kravitz

The battle became more public this week, when the Florida Department of Children and Families said a missing person report was filed with police after McCready took Zander from her father’s home. McCready was able to visit with the boy there under a court order, and the 36-year-old singer said she had spent much of the past month with her son at the home. Her mother and father are divorced.

McCready alleges that her son suffered abuse while living at her mother’s home and that is one of the reasons  she left with the boy last week.

“I’m a mom first,” said McCready from Nashville, Tenn. “No matter what happens, I’m going to protect my kid. If I have to go to jail, so be it.”

When reached at her Lee County home Wednesday night, McCready’s mother, Gayle Inge, said the abuse allegations are “absolutely not true.”

During the interview with the AP, a tearful McCready recounted a messy and confusing tale of court custody battles and family fights. McCready is suing her mother and a tabloid newspaper for libel.

On Tuesday, DCF discovered that McCready and the boy were not at her father’s home and a judge ruled she must return him voluntarily by 5 p.m. today or risk arrest.

France gives Kravitz Legion award

PARIS – France has paid tribute to Grammy winner Lenny Kravitz with its highest award, the Legion of Honor.

Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand hailed the 47-year-old singer-songwriter at a Paris ceremony on Wednesday, telling him “you freed yourself of the barriers between black and white sound.”

Kravitz told The Associated Press that he got his first big break at a 1989 music festival in the western French city of Rennes that transformed his career “overnight.” He said “I know it sounds like a fairy tale.” Kravitz was born to a black mother and white father. His latest album, “Black and White America,” tackles interracial issues.

Madonna noise dispute settled with neighbor

NEW YORK – Madonna has made peace with a neighbor who said the superstar made a racket by using her New York City apartment as a rehearsal studio.

Court records show Karen George’s lawsuit against the singer and building was settled as of Wednesday. Lawyers for Madonna and the building’s co-op board are saying only that the matter is resolved. George’s attorney hasn’t immediately returned a call.

George said Madonna’s dance and exercise routines subjected neighbors to “blaring music, stomping and shaking walls” for up to three hours daily. Madonna took steps to dampen the sound in 2009, but George said they didn’t work.

Madonna and the board said the noise never topped legal levels. The singer said in March she’d built a studio elsewhere and wasn’t using the apartment for music anymore.

Prince Harry returns after U.S. training

LONDON – Royal officials say Prince Harry has returned to Britain following his helicopter training exercise in the U.S.

St. James’s Palace says Harry completed his course in the U.S. and came back to the U.K. on Monday.

Harry spent two months training in the U.S – first at the Naval Air Facility in El Centro, California, where he flew Apache helicopters in the desert near the Mexican border. He then went to the Gila Bend Air Force Auxiliary Field in southern Arizona, where the training included firing missiles, rockets and cannons from the helicopters.

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