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She's fired!

Carolyn Kepcher, a Trump organization executive famous for her role as a tough-talking judge on the hit television reality show The Apprentice, is being replaced on the show by his daughter and is no longer with the company.

In an article last week the New York Post said Donald Trump's TV sidekick was fired after spending too much time cultivating her own celebrity with speaking engagements.

Kepcher had been with the real estate mogul for more than 10 years. In an e-mailed statement she said, "Donald and I had different visions for my future role in the company."

Trump's daughter, Ivanka, will replace Kepcher on The Apprentice, and his son, Donald Jr., will replace the show's other judge, George Ross, the Post said.

Trump would confer with Kepcher and Ross each week before deciding which corporate wannabe seeking a full-time job with Trump would have to hear his curt

signature phrase, "You're fired!"

Ross remains with the Trump organization.

Since TV fame beckoned, Kepcher has been active with speaking engagements, made a number of talk-show appearances and two years ago wrote a book, Carolyn 101, which promised to reveal the secrets of her success and give readers guidance for their professional lives.

The Donald takes care of his own. The same cannot be said, it seems, for the son of a wealthy New York socialite.

A judge wants the smelly couch and tattered nightgowns that became symbols of the guardianship battle over 104-year-old philanthropist Brooke Astor thrown in the garbage, according to court papers made public last week.

In a tale that made the front pages of New York's tabloids, Astor's grandson has claimed that under his father's care she was reduced to living in squalor in her Park Avenue duplex.

He's gone to state Supreme Court in Manhattan seeking to have his father removed as her guardian.

"Her bedroom is so cold in the winter that my grandmother is forced to sleep in the TV room in torn nightgowns on a filthy couch that smells, probably from dog urine," Philip Marshall said in a July 18 sworn statement included in the newly unsealed papers.

The judge responded by ordering officials at J.P. Morgan Chase bank, her temporary guardians, to replace furniture in the apartment, "including the old coach" in the TV room. Astor, he added, should be bought "new nightgowns, new outfits, new underwear and new accessories."

Marshall's father, Anthony Marshall, a Tony-winning Broadway producer who is Astor's son from a previous marriage, has vehemently denied mistreating his mother.

Astor's charitable efforts through the Vincent Astor Foundation, named for her husband, a descendant of 19th-century tycoon John Jacob Astor, won her a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 1998. She has been a leading society figure for decades.

In his statement Phillip Marshall claimed his father "has enriched himself at the expense of my grandmother," pocketing nearly US$2.4 million last year to manage her affairs while Astor, "who was accustomed to dining with world leaders," has been "forced to eat oatmeal and pureed carrots, pureed peas and pureed liver every day."

In another case of alleged mistreatment, former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell has complained to police that her three-month-old daughter was physically abused, the singer's assistant said Saturday.

Halliwell had made a complaint to the police Child Protection Unit at a London police station on Aug. 18, personal assistant Antony Read said.

Read said the complaint was about "an incident concerning her daughter Bluebell whilst in the care of a temporary member of staff."

"Bluebell is now happy and well, and there are no further concerns for her welfare," he added.

London's Metropolitan Police confirmed the force was investigating an allegation of physical abuse involving a three-month-old baby. No one has been arrested.

Halliwell -- Ginger Spice of 90s "girl power" group the Spice Girls -- gave birth to Bluebell Madonna, her first child, in May.

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