ELTON JOHN SUES TIMES OF LONDON

News Corp may find itself in yet another costly legal battle, this one involving its most prestigious newspaper, the Times of London, rather than its tabloid, the Sun,which already faces its fair share of legal difficulties over alleged payments to police officials for information. On Wednesday, singer Elton John filed a lawsuit over the publication of a Times article alleging that he was involved in an overseas tax-shelter scheme involving Patrick McKenna of Ingenious Media, who, it said, was John’s former accountant. The Times later retracted the article and apologized, acknowledging that McKenna had never been John’s accountant. However, on Wednesday, the singer’s lawyers called the apology “wholly inadequate,” noting that it was virtually buried in the newspaper, whereas the original story had appear on its front page. They said that they would seek damages to compensate for the “sense of insult and injury” to the singer’s reputation as well as his “personal distress and embarrassment.”