LONDON — Tickets for Michael Jackson's 50 London concerts sold out within hours of becoming available, organizers said yesterday.

For Ayesha Obi — who, having waited since Wednesday, was first in line — the experience was a thriller.

"He is a legend and I love his message to the world," Obi, a 19-year-old student, said outside the O2 Arena in south London. "I've been hoping that he would perform live again."

The shows are scheduled to kick off in July and stretch into February. The pop singer has said the series, titled "This is It," will be his last in the British capital.

After 360,000 advance tickets sold out earlier this week, roughly 500,000 tickets were made available yesterday, organizers said. Hundreds of people waited outside the arena for the chance to buy them.

Tickets were priced between $70 and $105 — but some went for hundreds of dollars on Internet auction sites.

While Jackson has said the shows will be his last in London, there has been speculation they could be part of a world tour. Jackson, who has sold more than 750 million albums and won 13 Grammys, hasn't undertaken a major tour since 1997 or released an album of new material since 2001.

BRITISH LEGEND GRATEFUL TO WIFE

WASHINGTON — Tom Jones is not one to kiss and tell, but he's singing for the first time about his reputation as a ladies man. That, and how grateful he is that his wife stuck by him for 52 years.

Jones, who for the first time co-wrote some of the songs on his latest CD, sings on "The Road" that "I have felt weakness when I was strong, felt sweetness when I was wrong." But Jones also sings to his wife, Linda, that "the road always leads back to you."

Jones says his wife didn't ask a lot of questions about who he was with on the road, where she never wanted to join him lest she see how women threw themselves (and, famously, their undergarments) at him.

The bottom line, he says, is that she told him she'd be satisfied, "as long as you come home to me, as long as you don't go running off with somebody."

TEJANO STAR GUILTY IN DWI ACCIDENT

HOUSTON — Tejano music star Emilio Navaira will spend three days in jail and serve two years' probation after pleading guilty yesterday to driving while intoxicated when he wrecked his tour bus in suburban Houston last year.

The Grammy winner, wearing a white protective helmet for his head injuries nearly a year after the accident, could be seen shaking while he waited in court to enter his plea. Accompanied by his wife, Maria, the singer spoke very little during the hearing.

"He is accepting full responsibility for his actions," said Rudy Vasquez, one of Navaira's attorneys.

Navaira suffered significant brain trauma when he rammed the bus into freeway barrels, throwing him through the windshield. He is still missing part of his skull, and doctors also had to repair an aneurysm in his right lung.

'IRON CHEF' STAR EXPECTING SONS

LOS ANGELES — Things are about to get crowded in Cat Cora's kitchen.

The "Iron Chef America" star says she and her partner, Jennifer, are each expecting sons.

"(Jennifer) carried my embryo and I carried hers," Cora told OK Magazine.

The same anonymous sperm donor fathered all four children.

Cora, 41, and her 37-year-old partner will deliver their babies about three months apart. The couple already has two sons: Zoran, 5 and Caje, 22 months.