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MONDAY • MARCH 8, 2010

HURT LOCKER’S HISTORIC WIN AND MORE OSCAR MOMENTS: It may have been a battle of the exes, but The Hurt Locker beat out Avatar to sweep the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. The film won Best Picture, and Kathryn Bigelow won the Oscar for Best Director for The Hurt Locker—the first woman ever to do so. She called her win “the moment of a lifetime,” and dedicated her award to “the men and women of the military who risk their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan—and may they come home safe.” Sandra Bullock won the award for Best Actress, and Jeff Bridges took home the award for Best Actor. “Did I really earn this or did I just wear you all down?” a stunned Sandra Bullock asked the audience as she accepted the Oscar. She dedicated the award to “moms who take care of the babies and the children no matter where they come from.” Precious made its mark when Mo’Nique, as expected, won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress just after Precious writer Geoffrey Fletcher upset Up in the Air, taking home the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The ceremony kicked off at Los Angeles’ Kodak Theater with three expected awards—Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor in Inglorious Basterds, Up for Best Animated Feature Film, and Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett for Best Song from a Feature Film for “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart. Watch our video of the 22 best Oscar moments, from the winners’ speeches to awkward red carpet exchanges.

IRAQIS BRAVE BOMBS TO VOTE: Iraqi women waited for poll workers to check their documents in the city of Fallujah, where at least 20 explosions struck Sunday Nearly 100 explosions went off in Baghdad in the hours before polls opened for Iraqis to choose a full-term parliament for just the second time since the American invasion, but turnout was still higher than expected. It could be a sign that insurgents are losing the grip they once had over the population. Sunnis did not boycott as they did in 2005, and there were few reports of voting irregularities. The election was a cliffhanger, but as polls closed, party leaders said that it looked like the parties of Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki and former Prime Minister Ayad Alawi had performed well, though neither likely captured an all-out majority. Al Maliki had campaigned on increasing security, Alawi on crossing sectarian lines. President Obama praised Iraqis for voting despite the violence.

OPPS-WRONG TERRORIST: Each year, nearly 100 young athletes in the US die, often in the midst of competition, of sudden cardiac death. The results of two independent US studies suggest that screening high school and college athletes for heart abnormalities with an electrocardiogram may be a cost-effective way to identify at-risk youth and save lives. Italy instituted mandatory screening of all young athletes in the early 1980s, and since then such deaths have dropped ten-fold.

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FED TO KEEP BIG-BANK OVERSIGHT: After the Federal Reserve failed us last financial crisis, it looks like we will soon learn if it learned its lesson: Senator Chris Dodd will propose this week that the Federal Reserve retain regulatory control over the 23 banks with more than $100 billion in assets, says the Financial Times. Now, hundreds of state-chartered institutions are saying “me too!”.

BIGELOW HURTS SOOO GOOD: Kathryn Bigelow’s historic win as first woman director ever to nab both Directing and Best picture Oscars for The Hurt Locker — trumping ex hubby’s James Cameron’s Avatar. Backstage with six wins under her belt the cinematic field commander took questions from the war zone of reporters. Ultimately, after being besieged about her ex and how she would’ve reacted is he had won with Avatar, Bigelow tactfully just shrugged her Oscars and said “You leave me speechless!”

HOW LIZ CHENEY DEFENDS HER DAD: Restoring Dick Cheney’s image may seem like a thankless task—his approval rating was 13 percent when he left office in 2009. But his daughter Liz has thrown herself at it enthusiastically. New York Magazine says that Cheney’s attacks on President Obama have been encouraged by Liz, who’s even more aggressive and hawkish than he is. Bush aides were stunned by the former veep’s step back into the national debate just two weeks after Obama was inaugurated. But Liz Cheney’s tireless defense of dear ole dad has already helped change the public perception of him. She’s defended the Cheney legacy on TV some 40 times this year, and pushed her father into writing his memoirs. She sat for 30 to 40 hours of interviews with her dad’s official biographer, Stephen Hayes, and has been dedicated to defending his record.

LBN-NOTICED: ***Last night marked celebrity publicist Michael Levine’s tenth attendance at the Oscars in his long career in Hollywood. After the awards, he spent the night at the Governor’s Ball talking with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his girlfriend Lu Parker, Hollywood Reporter Editor Elizabeth Guider, comedy writer Bruce Vilanch, Paramount head Brad Grey, Celebrity Chef Wolfgang Puck, Lions gate head Jon Feltheimer, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, actor Macaulay Culkin, Academy President Tom Sherak, Oscar host Alec Baldwin. He ended the evening by congratulating Sandra Bullock on her Oscar win. ***Tiger Woods’ porn-star mistress Joslyn James was the toast of a celebrity viewing party where she mingled with stars including Gary Busey, Tom Sizemore, John Heard, Domenico Vacca John Corbett and Bo Derek — plus 55 Playboy playmates at Norby Walters’ Night of 100 Stars Oscar Viewing Gala at the Beverly Hills Hotel. ***Before “Crazy Heart” star Jeff Bridges won his Best Actor Oscar, he celebrated his best actor win at the Film Independent Spirit Awards by playing the piano impromptu to a delighted crowd of partygoers in the backstage bar area at the downtown LA Live venue. A spy said, “He was in a pretty good mood. He and Andy Garcia were playing the piano and celebrating. Other guests in the bar couldn’t believe their luck.” ***Salma Hayek was spotted at the 18th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. ***Natalie Portman was spotted at the 2010 Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Hollywood last night. ***Hilary Swank was spotted at the Vanity Fair shindig at Sunset Tower in West Hollywood on Sunday. ***Renee Zellweger goes for brunch with a friend at Axe restaurant in Venice. ***Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban were spotted arriving in Sydney, Australia with their daughter Sunday Rose on Monday. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@TimeWire.net.

57 DEAD IN TURKEY QUAKE: Following the devastation in Haiti and Chile, another earthquake rattled six villages in eastern Turkey, killing at least 57 people, officials say. The preliminary magnitude was 6.0. Stone and mud-brick homes collapsed, as did the minarets of mosques. At least 100 were injured. The quake’s center was about 340 miles east of Ankara, and the village of Okcular looked to be the worst hit, with 17 dead and many homes toppled.

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER: ***ABC News, still searching for a permanent host for “This Week,” is said to be in talks with CNN foreign correspondent Christiane Amanpour. She is among the candidates ABC is eyeing to replace George Stephanopoulos, who left for “Good Morning America” in December. ***CNN is announcing that chief national correspondent John King’s new weeknight political show will be called “John King, USA,” a nod to the journalist’s plan to expand his focus beyond Washington, D.C. King is taking over the time slot once occupied by Lou Dobbs. ***The death of Michael Jackson resulted in top-selling magazine cover stories in 2009 for many titles, including Newsweek, Time, People, and Entertainment Weekly. Among the year’s worst-selling covers: Time magazine’s Sept. 14 story: “Jay Leno is the Future of TV.” ***Reader’s Digest Association is launching a user-generated Web site called Man Tested Recipes, which will serve up more than 2,500 recipes from male visitors to the publisher’s All recipes site. Men “approach cooking differently from the way women do.” ***The companies’ feud, most recently exemplified by a Disney move that temporarily prevented Cablevision customers from viewing the Academy Awards, promises to spread across the country to other cable providers and stations. ***As The National Enquirer chased reports of an affair involving John Edwards, it strung together a series of scoops and earned a little respect along the way.

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LBN-INVESTIGATES: The Constitution of Louisiana is the 2nd longest constitution in the world.

LBN-SEE IT: Guy Pearce feeds Cameron Diaz an In N Out burger.

OSCAR RATINGS ON THE RISE: Oscar appears to have driven the “Avatar” express to strong numbers Sunday, with preliminary local-market scores suggesting ratings for the Academy Awards on ABC will come in up by double-digit percentages vs. last year. As a result, the show figures to have moved north of 40 million viewers for just the second time in five years.

LBN-HEALTH WATCH: ***Each year, nearly 100 young athletes in the US die, often in the midst of competition, of sudden cardiac death. The results of two independent US studies suggest that screening high school and college athletes for heart abnormalities with an electrocardiogram may be a cost-effective way to identify at-risk youth and save lives. Italy instituted mandatory screening of all young athletes in the early 1980s, and since then such deaths have dropped ten-fold.

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HOW GEITHNER’S PLAN WORKED: The unpopularity of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner makes it easy to overlook a simple fact: His plan to rescue the U.S. economy worked. “My basic view is that we did a pretty successful job of putting out a severe financial crisis and avoiding a Great Depression or Great Deflation type of thing,” he tells The New Yorker’s John Cassidy, who was skeptical of the plan to subject banks to “stress tests” and take toxic assets off their hands. “We saved the economy, but we kind of lost the public doing it.” At the time, many critics wanted the Obama administration to nationalize banks, and Geithner now defends the decision not to. “That would have been a deeply transforming policy mistake,” Geithner says.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER: ***Although he was banned from attending the Academy Award ceremony, “Hurt Locker” producer Nicolas Chertier was feted at a viewing party during the show. According to IndieWire, Chartier, in an impromptu Oscar acceptance speech at the Malibu soiree, thanked his colleagues from the film and encouraged attendees to keep making movies. “Keep fighting,” he said.

LBN-COMMENTARY By PETER BEINART: This weekend’s Iraqi elections were inspiring—a testament to the fortitude of the Iraqi people, the weakness of al Qaeda, the adaptability of the American military, and yes, the troop surge pushed through by George W. Bush. But we may never see their like again. Sure, America has midwifed a democracy in Iraq. Yet when British troops left their African, Middle Eastern, and Asian dominions, they left behind many embryonic democracies, too. Most soon collapsed. The crucial statistic about the future of Iraqi democracy is this: On Election Day 2010, Iraq hosted 90,000 American troops. By law, the next time Iraqis hold a national election that number will be zero.

LBN-COMMENTARY By DICK MORRIS: All aspects of President Obama’s Chicago-style tactics are on display as he cajoles, bullies and bribes the House to pass his health care proposals despite the overwhelming public rejection with which they have been met.

LBN-COMMENTARY By ROSS DOUTHAT: Mysticism is dying, and taking true religion with it. Monasteries have dwindled. Contemplative orders have declined. Our religious leaders no longer preach the renunciation of the world; our culture scoffs at the idea. The closest most Americans come to real asceticism is giving up chocolate, cappuccinos, or (in my own not-quite-Francis-of-Assisi case) meat for lunch for Lent. This, at least, is the stern message of Luke Timothy Johnson, writing in the latest issue of the Catholic journal Commonweal. As society has become steadily more materialistic, Johnson declares, our churches have followed suit, giving up on the ascetic and ecstatic aspects of religion and emphasizing only the more worldly expressions of faith. Conservative believers fixate on the culture wars, religious liberals preach social justice, and neither leaves room for what should be a central focus of religion — the quest for the numinous, the pursuit of the unnamable, the tremor of bliss and the dark night of the soul.

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LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW: From last night, Julie & Julia co-stars Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.

LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Security was so ultra-tight at last night’s Vanity Fair post-Oscars party at the Sunset Towers Hotel in Hollywood, rumors were buzzing through the celebrity ranks that undercover CIA agents had been placed among the staff. ***Bad enough her death is trumped by Michael Jackson’s This is IT drop dead scenario but now Farrah Fawcett has been ignored by the Oscars as stars - and her legion of fans - are infuriated! The snub sparked speculation Farrah was omitted because of her predominantly TV career with online critics slamming the AMPAS for not adding her to the memorial montage clip fest. Jane Fonda Tweeted “Where was Farrah Fawcett? She should have been included.” Newly vocal critic Roger Ebert raged “No Farrah in the memorial. They have a whole lot of ’splaining to do.” ***Tom Cruise crashes motorcycle when a fender bender as he avoiding colliding with a car when astride his bike. As the an SUV ran a stop sign car approached Tom suddenly veered, whipping his Red Ducati into a spin out, witnesses reported. As Tom rose to his feet, he appeared to be limping slightly as several fans rushed to his aid. Cruise made two phone calls, waiting patiently outside KOI restaurant in L.A. for paramedics to arrive. ***Even though he’s facing a devastating financial crisis, legendary performer Wayne Newton canceled his concerts and risks losing his beloved Las Vegas ranch to be by his gravely ill daughter’s bedside. The entertainer, 67, was in St. Louis on Feb. 25 with his adopted daughter Erin as she lay near death in a coma.

LBN-DID YOU KNOW: ***Forensic scientists can determine a person’s sex, age, and race by examining a single strand of hair. ***Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung! ***Forty percent of Americans have never visited a dentist. ***From a complete stop, a human is capable of outrunning a Formula One Racecar for about 30 feet! ***Goat’s milk is used more widely throughout the world than cow’s milk.

LBN-QUOTE: “Normally the beautiful days in life come after fatigue and difficulties. The difficult labor produces a more beloved result.”-PRIME MINISTER NURI KAMAL AL-MALIKI of Iraq, after voting on a day with high turnout despite a wave of bombings.

LBN-HISTORY: On March 8, 1917, Russia’s February Revolution (so called because of the Old Style calendar used by Russians at the time) began with rioting and strikes in St. Petersburg.

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LBN E-Lert Edited by Natgeda Remy
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SUNDAY • MARCH 7, 2010

BIG MOUTH CAUGHT: Officers in Pakistan arrested American-born al-Qaida:The American-born spokesman for al-Qaida has been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday as video emerged of him urging U.S. Muslims to attack their own country. The arrest of Adam Gadahn is a major victory in the U.S.-led battle against al-Qaida and will be taken as a sign that Pakistan, criticized in the past for being an untrustworthy ally, is cooperating more fully with Washington. It follows the recent detentions of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the movement’s No. 2 commander. Gadahn has appeared in more than half a dozen al-Qaida videos, taunting and threatening the West and calling for its destruction. A U.S. court charged Gadahn with treason in 2006, making him the first American to face such a charge in more than 50 years.

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SUNDAY • MARCH 7, 2010

OSCARS LACK STAR POWER: Tonight’s Oscars are full of films with great storylines, however, the show may lack the one thing that draws in even more viewers: movie stars. Only three out of the 10 films nominated for best picture have A-list leads. Except for Sigourney Weaver in Avatar, neither the sci-fi blockbuster nor The Hurt Locker has major names. George Clooney, nominated for Up in the Air, Brad Pitt for Inglourious Basterds, and Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side are the only household names in the bunch. The 2010 Oscars support a major trend in Hollywood away from “the old model of tying a movie’s commercial fortunes to an actor” and banking on that big name to carry the film. Recession-conscious producers have become increasingly wary of dropping the film’s first $15m-$20m on a single star.

U.S. ENRICHES COMPANIES DEFYING ITS POLICY ON IRAN: The federal government has awarded more than $107 billion in contract payments, grants and other benefits over the past decade to foreign and multinational American companies while they were doing business in Iran, despite Washington’s efforts to discourage investment there, records show. That includes nearly $15 billion paid to companies that defied American sanctions law by making large investments that helped Iran develop its vast oil and gas reserves.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: Proportionally, hash browns have more fat and calories than a cheeseburger or Big Mac.

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FORGET RAHM, AXELROD IN HOT SEAT: Last week, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was the focus of Washington soothsayers, as critics questioned whether he has failed to deliver on the president’s agenda. Now, however, a profile in The New York Times suggests that this week’s finger-pointing may be aimed at Obama’s political adviser David Axelrod, as people wonder whether he has blundered in honing his boss’s message.

BIDEN TO THE RESCUE IN MIDEAST: President Barack Obama is sending his vice president to meet several Middle East leaders on a public diplomacy mission. Biden’s visit will begin on Monday and he plans to make stops with Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian, and Jordanian leaders. The trip should reassure Israelis over Obama’s commitment to their security after the U.S.-Israeli relationship was strained by Obama’s push for a “complete Jewish settlement freeze” and his recent outreach to the Muslim world with high-profile visits to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER: ***Louise’s Trattoria (www.Louises.com) awarded the prestigious “5 W Report” (www.5WReport.com) award as the best caterer (moderate price) of 2010. ***General Electric Chief Jeffrey Immelt decided to forego a bonus in 2009—the second year in a row he’s skipped out on the extra pay. Other execs at the conglomerate, however, are taking in a total of $11 million in bonuses. The payday comes as GE seeks to move away from investment into financial services and return to its core products. “GE must be an industrial company first,” Immelt wrote in a letter to shareholders Friday. ***Despite publicly discouraging companies from investing in Iran, the U.S. government has awarded more than $107 billion to companies doing business in the country since 2000, The New York Times reports. In fact, nearly $15 billion has been given to businesses who made large investments in Iran’s oil sector, in defiance of U.S. laws that prohibit doing business with the energy industry. ***As Toyota stumbles through its recall ordeal, G.M. and Ford have been handed a big chance to make their argument on quality to American consumers’ notes media expert and author Michael Levine.

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: In addition to being read in all 50 states of the United States, this LBN E-Lert is read daily in 24 foreign countries including : Japan, China, India, England, Greece, Iraq, Sweden, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Norway, Korea and Israel among others.

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER: ***You might want to rethink your Oscar party plans. Just after midnight in the middle of a repeat episode of Lost, ABC went dark for Cablevision customers in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut after the Walt Disney Company and cable provider failed to reach a deal over a new contract. A white screen appeared with the message, “Cablevision has betrayed you again. First HGTV and Food Network, now you lost ABC-7. Enough is enough! Go to save ABC7.com to switch your service now.” ABC-7 and Cablevision have been in negotiations for two years. Cablevision says Disney wants to raise its retransmission fees by an additional $40 million a year above the $200 million a year, while Disney says Cablevision charges $18 per month for its basic package but doesn’t share any of its profits with the program provider. ABC-7 currently remains black, leaving film fans scrambling to find a place to watch tonight’s awards show.

ARMED HEIST HITS BERLIN POKER GAME: Four robbers dressed as employees and carrying guns crashed a poker tournament at a Berlin luxury hotel and walked away with the jackpot of $1.36 million. One account said the thieves carried machetes and hand grenades in addition to automatic weapons. Around 400 people were competing in the five-day affair organized by the European Poker Tour.

LBN-BOOK NEWS: ***President Obama holding “Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life” by New York Times best-selling author Neil Strauss.

LBN-HEALTH WATCH: ***A small, underfunded hospital in Arizona, with about 500 births a year, is outperforming richer institutions when it comes to keeping Caesarean rates down.

MELINDA DENNEHY’S NAKED PICTURES POPULAR WITH HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS, NOT WITH POLICE: Perhaps New Hampshire high school teacher Melinda Dennehy missed the orientation session when they explained that sending your naked photos to a student is sort of a bad idea. Police say the 41-year-old English teacher sent four sexy shots of herself to a 15-year-old male student at Londonderry High School. The student, it seems, thought that was pretty nifty. Police say he forwarded the images to his friends.

LBN-NOTICED: ***Jamie Foxx spent the night flirting with gorgeous Olivia Munn at the Hollywood Domino Gala the other night. ***”Crazy Heart” star Maggie Gyllenhaal doesn’t have much chance to win for Best Supporting Actress tonight, but it didn’t stop her from celebrating her nomination Thursday with friends and family at Asia de Cuba in West Hollywood. Guests included her husband, Peter Sarsgaard, and T-Bone Burnett. ***Susan Sarandon tried to keep rumors of a romance with business partner Jonathan Bricklin at bay by bringing her daughter, Eva Amurri, to an LA party for her ping-pong club SPiN the other night. ***There was a near riot at the Judith Leiber store on Rodeo Drive when bags which normally sell for $2,000-plus were sold off for just $100. Guests at the Friday event to benefit Healthy Child Healthy World included host Jessica Capshaw, firm fashion director Lucy Sykes Rellie, actress Amy Brenneman and P.R. maven Peggy Siegal. A spy said, “Guests were limited to buying one bag, but some begged to buy more.” Shop employees were working around the clock to supply stars including Diane Lane, Queen Latifah, Paula Patton and Hilary Swank with bags for Oscar night. ***Rigel CEO having lunch at Sparks Woodfire Grill on Pico Blvd in L.A. ***Lenny Kravitz and Dave Grohl in the audience at the 25th Film Independent’s Spirit Awards held at Nokia Event Deck at L.A. Live on March 5, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. ***Oscar nominee Avatar’s James Cameron, downtown LA partying at The Edison. ***Sarah Palin lurking off camera/hidden on side at the Fox station American Idol last week. ***Eva Longoria Parker poses on the red carpet at a pre-Oscar bash hosted by The Hollywood Reporter and the LA mayor in LA. *** Actor and director Jean-Claude Van Damme in Kiev, Ukraine shooting his upcoming film, “Tower.” ***”Up in the Air” star Vera Farmiga attends a press event for “The Boy In The Striped Pajamas” during the San Sebastian International Film Festival in San Sebastian, Spain. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@TimeWire.net.

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SURVIVAL DIFFERENCES ON SINKING SHIPS: A comparison of the survivors of two of the worst ship sinking in history–both of which involved similar vessels, passenger populations, and death tolls–has given researchers new insight into human selfishness and altruism. While survivors of the Lusitania were generally young, fit people age 16 to 35 who could rush to the lifeboats, survivors of the Titanic disaster were more often women, children, and those accompanying a child. Researchers say that since the Lusitania went down in just 18 minutes, survival instincts led people to behave selfishly. The Titanic, on the other hand, slowly sank over the course of nearly three hours, allowing for the emergence of social norms and selfless behaviors.

LBN-SEE IT: Actress Ellen Barkin, Yesterday and Today.

LBN-MUSIC INSIDER: ***Mariah Carey was her usual fabulous diva self backstage at the Film Independent Spirit Awards — tottering around on skyscraper heels so high she couldn’t walk and having security prop her up all night. The star, upstaging other actresses in a tight black dress showing off her famous curves, was celebrating her cast mates from “Precious,” which swept the board at Friday night’s awards at the LA Live arena — seen as a more relaxed precursor to the Oscars.

LBN-VIDEO LINK: - John Lennon and Bob Dylan take a cab ride.

LBN-RECOMMENDS: The Editors of the LBN E-Lert Recommend- http://www.skirball.org/.

LBN-RECOMMENDS: The Editors of the LBN E-Lert Recommend - www.janiscuts.com.

LBN-COMMENTARY By GIA KOURLAS: Though Twyla Tharp’s Broadway show “Come Fly Away” as a whole is new, certain dances have long been a part of Ms. Tharp’s Sinatra repertory.

LBN-COMMENTARY By MAUREEN DOWD: With two little words, Barack Hussein Obama thrilled the Muslim world. “Salaam aleikum,” he said, offering the traditional Arabic greeting “Peace be upon you” at the start of his Cairo speech last year. The address of the first American president with Muslim roots was a bravura attempt to leech out the poison between the Islamic and Western worlds, and revive the moribund Middle East peace talks. But now, many disillusioned Muslims are echoing the all-talk, no-action refrain first popularized by the woman who became secretary of state. “He said all the right words in his speech,” said Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister. “But the implementation took traditional roads.”

LBN-COMMENTARY By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: The thing I love most about America is that there’s always somebody who doesn’t get the word — somebody who doesn’t understand that in a Great Recession you’re supposed to hunker down, downsize and just hold on for dear life. I have a couple of friends who fit that bill, who think a recession is a dandy time to try to discover better and cheaper ways to do things. They both happen to be Indian-Americans — one a son of the Himalayas, who came to America on a scholarship and went to work for NASA to try to find a way to Mars; the other a son of New Delhi, who came here and found the Sun, Sun Microsystems. Both are serial innovators. Both are now shepherding clean-tech start-ups that have the potential to be disruptive game changers. They don’t know from hunkering down. They just didn’t get the word. As a result, one has produced a fuel cell that can turn natural gas or natural grass into electricity; the other has a technology that might make coal the cleanest, cheapest energy source by turning its carbon-dioxide emissions into bricks to build your next house. Though our country may be flagging, it’s because of innovators like these that you should never — ever — write us off.

LBN-COMMENTARY By MICHAEL LEVINE (Hollywood media expert and author): It confuses some when the Oscar goes to a director that didn’t make the best picture of the year. Tonight I predict that Kathryn Bigelow wins as “Best Director” largely because the Academy members believe that female victory is long overdue.

LBN-COMMENTARY By GEORGE WILL: It is said, more frequently than precisely, that the reasons the supreme court gives for doing whatever it does are as important as what it does.

LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By CONFUCIUS: The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved.

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LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Academy Awards bosses deleted a series of rude Tiger Woods jokes from the script. A well-placed source tells us writers penned cracks about the golfer’s cheating scandal for hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin to deliver. But the lines have been nixed by producers. The source said, “Some of the Tiger jokes were deemed too rude.” ***Madonna sparked rumors of a cooling off between her and boy toy Jesus Luz by making the Oscar-party rounds in LA with handsome “The City” star Adam Senn, who’s also a fellow Dolce & Gabanna model.

LBN-DID YOU KNOW: ***A snail can sleep for three years. ***A species of earthworm in Australia grows up to 10 feet in length. ***A woodpecker can peck twenty times a second. ***About 1 in 30 people in the U.S. are in jail, on probation, or on parole. ***According to Gaming Law, casinos have to stock enough cash to cover all the chips on the ‘floor’.

LBN-QUOTE: “Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.” - Gertrude Stein.

LBN-HISTORY: On March 7, 1965, a march by civil rights demonstrators was broken up in Selma, Ala., by state troopers and a sheriff’s posse.

LBN-FACESPACE:

1. Name: Elaine Wilkes, Ph.D., N.C., M.A., LEED.

2. What’s your occupation? Hay House author of the book “Nature’s Secret Messages: Hidden in Plain Sight”, Speaker, LEED Teacher, Wellness Coach.

3. What are your addictions? I’m a recovering learning addict. I used to hang out bleary-eyed at the local library until closing time wanting “one more book for the road.”

4. Who are your heroes in life? Mother Nature is an astonishing teacher. With over four billion years experience, she’s more than just a pretty space. She’s also a natural relaxer, rejuvenator, and free!

5. What have you learned in life? Life’s answers are right there—hidden in plain sight—if you’re present to them. My kindergarten teacher taught me to stop, look, and listen. Who knew she was so profound!

6. Email, Website: Elaine@ElaineWilkes.com, http://www.elainewilkes.com/, Book link (awarded rare red star recommendation from Publisher’s Weekly): http://tiny.cc/cHzqu

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LBN E-Lert Edited by Anna Alaverdyan.
Contributing Editors: Teju Jyothi, Rachel Yip, Kevin Aquino, Marissa Stone, Delia Ramos, Ben Yano,.

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SATURDAY • MARCH 6, 2010

3 KILLED, 54 WOUNDED IN BOMB BLAST ON EVE OF PIVOTAL IRAQ ELECTIONS: Three people were killed when a parked car rigged with explosives blew up Saturday in Najaf on the eve of parliamentary elections, the Interior Ministry said. At least 54 others — 17 Iraqis and 37 Iranians — were injured in the attack near the Imam Ali Holy Shrine, which houses the tomb of Ali, cousin of the Prophet Mohammed. Two of the dead were Iranians, the interior official said. Najaf, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Baghdad, is frequented by Shiite pilgrims from Iran. Iraqis will go to the polls Sunday to choose a 325-member parliament. The election has been marred by violence despite heavy security.

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SATURDAY • MARCH 6, 2010

OBAMA TAKES ON INSURERS: Following a meeting Friday with the chief executives of the country’s four largest health insurance companies, President Obama took to the airwaves Saturday morning to attack the group’s latest rate hikes. “They couldn’t give me a straight answer as to why they keep arbitrarily and massively raising premiums—by as much as 60 percent in states like Illinois,” Obama said in his weekly radio address. “If we do not act, they will continue to do this.” The President repeated his call to Congress to finish health-care legislation, which the House and Senate are working to pass within weeks. “I know it has been a long and hard road to this point,” Obama said. “And we are not finished with our journey just yet. But we are close. We are very close. And so I ask Congress to finish its work.”

ALL EYES ON IRAQ ELECTIONS: Iraqis will go to the polls Sunday to elect a new government, a crucial vote that could determine whether America can smoothly withdraw from the country as planned without facing further chaos. Iraq’s first election, while a rare and inspiring event in the Middle East, precipitated a civil war and sectarian tensions have been on the rise in recent months. If the election is viewed as illegitimate, if divisive candidates take office, or if new leaders prove more authoritarian, the results could be disastrous. “This is a very important election,” Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told The Washington Post in an interview. “It will decide the future of the democratic process in Iraq. It will be developed or stopped”. Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister, is staging a surprising political comeback by pushing a secular and nationalist agenda and drawing support from Sunnis.

JOBLESS RATE HOLDS STEADY, RAISING HOPES OF RECOVERY: The American economy lost fewer jobs than expected last month, bolstering hopes that the worst may finally be over in the wrenching event known as the Great Recession. The monthly snapshot of the job market released by the Labor Department on Friday was hardly cause for celebration: about 36,000 jobs disappeared from the economy in February, while the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.7 percent.

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LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER: ***Despite reports of unintended accelerations, Toyota denied the problems existed in Japan, where a pro-business culture undermines consumer protections. ***Apple announced the date when the Wi-Fi only version of the iPad will arrive in United States stores. The 3G version of the device will be coming later in April. ***The L.A City Council reclassified internet businesses for tax purposes, responding to concerns that they were going to be leaving town.

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AMERICA’S HIDDEN WAR IN SOMALIA: Afghanistan and Iraq aren’t the only fronts commanding America’s military attention. Afraid of allowing al Qaeda a safe haven in Africa, the U.S. is supplying crucial assistance to the remnants of Somalia’s government in a planned offensive to retake the country’s capital. Surveillance planes have been sighted in the area and American advisers have helped train Somali forces for the past several months, The New York Times reports.

WHITE HOUSE EYES IMMIGRATION FIX: Health-care legislation has fueled a brutal partisan battle over the last year, but President Obama’s next legislative skirmish may touch on an even more explosive issue: immigration. Obama has scheduled a meeting next week to discuss an immigration bill being put together by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). It is the first meeting since Schumer and Graham began work on the bill, and immigration advocates frustrated with a lack of action from the White House have planned a news conference for Monday as well as a larger upcoming demonstration.

TELETHON HELPS CHILE RECOVERY: Chile is getting a boost from aid at home and abroad following last week’s massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake: TV Chile began a telethon Friday with a goal of $27 million in donations from nearly 20 countries to help clean up damage caused by the quake and subsequent tsunamis. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has also promised $10 million in aid.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: In 1932, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell to its lowest point in the Great Depression; its value had dropped nearly 90% since Sept. 1929.

PRECIOUS SWEEPS INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS: Precious scored some nice momentum heading into the Academy Awards Sunday. The film won big at Friday’s Independent Spirit Awards, taking home statuettes for Best Feature, Best Director for Lee Daniels, Best Screenplay, and Best Female Lead for Gabourey Sidibe, and Best Supporting Female for Mo’Nique. Daniels threw an elbow at other nominees in his acceptance speech, saying, “[Hurt Locker Director] Kathryn Bigelow’s not here tonight. I am.” Mo’Nique’s acceptance speech was more subdued than for past wins, but she did address Sidibe from the podium, saying, “You are a special gift to the universe, baby.” Other big winners included Jeff Bridges for Best Male Lead in Crazy Heart and An Education for Best Foreign Film.

ON THE STREETS: L.A. Sheriff Lee Baca said budget cuts forced him to release 200 non-violent inmates from county jails.

LBN-HEALTH WATCH: ***Maternal mortality is often associated with bygone eras and Third World countries, but some experts say more new mothers in the U.S. are dying within 42 days of childbirth. A new report says the number of women who died in California shortly after giving birth has nearly tripled in the past decade, counting 16.9 per 100,000 births in 2006. A source who worked on the study said most women died from hemorrhage, blood clots, or underlying cardiac disease. But California is not alone—the Joint Commission issued an alert in January that maternal mortality rates could be increasing nationwide.

LBN-SNAP: Ian Schrager.

REPORT: ZUCKERBERG HACKED EMAILS: Long before Facebook was the international phenomenon it is today, founder Mark Zuckerberg was plotting to delay the launch of a competing project he was hired to help, according to Business Insider. And in 2004, when Zuckerberg was a Harvard sophomore trying to launch TheFacebook.com, the college’s newspaper was close to writing a story that aired the grievances of the competing site. Zuckerberg was rattled enough to use his fledgling site to find the personal passwords of the paper’s reporters and editors and log into their email accounts, according to Business Insider. This isn’t the first time that he has been accused of less than sterling behavior, especially during Facebook’s youth. The company is refusing to discuss the claims. “We’re not going to debate the disgruntled litigants and anonymous sources who seek to rewrite Facebook’s early history or embarrass Mark Zuckerberg with dated allegations,” a spokesperson said.

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LBN-MUSIC INSIDER: ***Billy Corgan, of the Smashing Pumpkins, worked with Courtney Love on songs for her new album, but now he wants nothing to do with her, he tells Rolling Stone. And if she releases the songs, as it appears she will, “it would be a real big problem, because I haven’t given my permission,” Corgan says. “I have no interest in supporting her in any way, shape or form. You can’t throw enough things down the abyss with a person like that.” As for ex-flame Jessica Simpson, “if people knew her like I knew her, they would love her like I do. It’s really simple.”

WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? Joe Manchin III, State Governor of West Virginia along with over 317,000 other “influencers” in all 50 of the United States and 24 foreign countries.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER: ***Prominent entertainment P.R. firm LCO (www.LCOonline.com) holds it’s first “Creativity Event” for staff and interns at the Paint Lab in Santa Monica. Staff will each paint their own original work on a canvas. ***Bonnie Eskenazi of the law firm Greenberg Glusker has been name California’s Entertainment Lawyer of the Year by The Recorder, the San Francisco-based legal publication. Eskenazi was recognized for representing the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien in a landmark profit participation case against New Line Cinema.

LBN-NOTICED: ***TV hostess and broadcast instructor Suzanne Sena having drinks last night at The Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills. ***Shaquille O’Neal wielding his fork left-handed at Lure Fishbar in NYC after surgery on his right. ***Ellen Barkin minus makeup, but with her perfect blond bob, getting on the elevator on the sixth floor of a medical building on East 34th Street in NYC. ***Roberta Flack relaxing by the pool at Acqualina Resort & Spa in Miami. ***Jamie Foxx at Skybar in L.A. ***Media personality Mark Joseph having lunch with Entertainment Tonight producer Alicia Ulrich at Ingrid’s in Beverly Hills. ***Bob Saget at Jones Lounge in West Hollywood. ***Actor Tom Cruise attends the 5th Annual ‘Oscar Wilde: Honoring the Irish in Film’ held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles on March 4. ***LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault and Charlize Theron keep their eyes on the catwalk at Christian Dior’s runway show during Paris Fashion Week. ***Avatar star Zoe Saldana is photographed out in Beverly Hills at the Hilton. ***Serena Williams texts and browses during the Louis Vuitton store party in Beverly Hills. ***Halle Berry was busy playing with her daughter, Nahla Aubrey, at Coldwater Park in Beverly Hills, California on Friday afternoon. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT – Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@TimeWire.net.

LBN-TODAY’S BIRTHDAY: Michelangelo (1475). Among the world’s most celebrated artists, Michelangelo was one of the foremost figures of the Renaissance. The marble David, which he completed before his 30th birthday, set a new standard in nude sculpture, and his paintings in the Sistine Chapel are among the most influential frescoes in the history of Western art. A true “Renaissance man,” he also was an architect and poet and wrote more than 300 sonnets.

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER: ***Variety has restored the missing “Iron Cross” review to its website and says it was only down for factual vetting in response to a legal threat, not because of pressure from an advertiser. ***Joel Grover’s team at Channel 4 in L.A. turned their hidden cameras on abuse of disabled parking placards by able-bodied drivers, finding among other things that “in some neighborhoods, almost every parked car is displaying a disabled placard, leaving no place for the rest of us to park our cars. We found this in sections of downtown Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, and Westwood.

LBN-RECOMMENDS: The Editors of the LBN E-Lert Recommend: http://www.mindlightgroup.com/ .

CORRECTED LBN-COMMENTARY By PETER HANKOFF: Going to visit the captive dolphins and whales is like going to death row to play with the inmates. Their deceptive smiles and friendly performances belie the bigger issues: where did these creatures come from, where are they going, and how long do they live? Is this really any less barbaric than applauding dancing bears or the other now-outlawed animal acts of the 19th century? The simplest way to show the dolphins how intelligent we are is by how we choose to spend our discretionary income. LBN editor’s note: Peter is working on a project with Ric and Lincoln O’Barry.

LBN-COMMENTARY By MARTHA ZOLLER (Syndicated Talk Radio Host): If the election were held today, President Obama would not be re-elected. The two major promises that appealed to independents, who decide every election, were tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans and transparency. He’s gone after health care reform with a vengeance at a time when we need job creation. Independents are breaking right, now. So in 2012, I’m not sure, but if the election were held today, he would not be re-elected. The key is what happens in the mid-terms.

LBN-COMMENTARY By BILL O’REILLY: This month in Chicago, an event will honor three men as “living legends.” The men are Minister Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor of Barack Obama’s church, and Father Michael Pfleger, a radical-left Catholic priest. The men will stand together, and thousands of spectators will pay to see them.

LBN-COMMENTARY By DANIELLE PERGAMENT: With few tourists, the dead of winter is the time to visit Tuscany, when the landscape is bright green, locals fill the cafes, and the cuisine is at its best.

LBN-COMMENTARY By LEE SIEGAL: Sarah Palin and reality-TV titan Mark Burnett are about to collaborate on a “docudrama” about Alaska? Ha! A pundit on Fox, a comedian on Leno, and now a producer and most likely star of her own TV show—surely, by cheapening herself and making herself look ludicrous as an entertainer, Sarah Palin is destroying (thank heavens) her political ambitions. Surely, especially at a critical historical moment like this, even the most disaffected Americans will reject a political aspirant who has turned herself into a TV buffoon.

LBN-COMMENTARY By MICHAEL MOORE (Oscar and Emmy-winning director): President Obama, I don’t know what your team has been up to, but they haven’t served you well. And Rahm, poor Rahm, has turned into a fighter — not of Republicans, but of the left.

LBN-COMMENTARY By MARK PENN (CEO, Burson-Marsteller): Reduce costs, improve the system, and then expand coverage. Going one round at a time in health care reform, hand in hand with economic recovery, would be a strategic win for the administration.

LBN-COMMENTARY By RACHEL WOLFF: For many of us—art nerds and tourists alike—seeing a Monet just isn’t what it used to be. What was once so airy and magical loses its allure when we come to realize just how prolific the man was. Every major museum seems to have some water lilies, the bridge at Giverny, and haystacks—and most of them are great. But over the years, I’ve tended to approach Monets with a sort of “seen three, seen ‘em all” mentality.

LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE: Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms - in themselves such judgments are stupidities.

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LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Dr. Drew Pinsky’s alleged stalker Charles Pearson just pled not guilty to six felonies — one count stalking and five counts of criminal threats. During Pearson’s arraignment, which took place moments ago in Pasadena, CA, his bail was upped to $400,000. ***Mickey Rourke has had his share of women, but who knew he had 14 of them in one night. “Forget Ashley Cole, his behavior has nothing on a film star,” he told British TV host Lizzie Cundy, according to UK’s Sun. “WAGs [wives and girlfriends of soccer stars] get an easy time - they should try living with Hollywood hellraisers.” Ashley Cole is a UK soccer star at the center of several sex scandals including a gay orgy. “I once spent a weekend in the UK and had 14 women in one night,” Rourke said.

LBN-DID YOU KNOW: ***A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat so you can eat your plate. ***A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime. ***A lot of lovemaking can unblock a stuffy nose. Sex is a natural antihistamine. It can help combat asthma and hay fever. ***A queen bee uses her stinger only to sting another queen bee. ***A small airplane can fly backwards.

LBN-QUOTE: “The one common experience of all humanity is the challenge of problems.” - R. Buckminster Fuller.

LBN-HISTORY: On March 6, 1857, in its Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court held that Scott, a slave, could not sue for his freedom in a federal court.

LBN-FACESPACE:

1.      Name: Tara Romanella.

2.      Which living person do you most despise? Despise, that’s strong. I guess there are one or two people but being that I despise them I don’t feel it is necessary to mention or even think of their names.

3.      When and where were you happiest? Before my parents’ divorce, when we lived in Toronto. It happened when I was 14 and it is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever gone through. But before that when I was younger, I remember traveling with my parents to Europe and seeing so many amazing things. I was a very lucky child and can look back now and thank God that I was so fortunate to experience the things that I did.

4.      What is your profession? I am currently an apprentice at LCO working on New Business. I also work at Banana Republic at The Grove.

5.      Which talent would you most like to have? I wish I were trilingual, bilingual at least. I’d also like to fly!

6.       If you could be any fictional character, which one would you be and why? Belle from “Beauty and the Beast.” She had such a big heart to love something that everyone else was so scared of and hey, it paid off in the end.

7.      What is your greatest regret? Not moving to Los Angeles after high school and attending university out here. I’m here now though and that is what counts.

8.      What are your favorite names? I like names that are different, uncommon. I think Tristan is beautiful for a boy and I love the name Vivien.

9.      What one occasion do you lie? When I’m in trouble, ha! I am actually pretty against lying; I find it to be a huge character flaw.

10.  Email: tmromane@gmail.com

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LBN E-Lert Edited by Anna Alaverdyan.
Contributing Editors: Teju Jyothi, Kevin Aquino, Marissa Stone, Delia Ramos, Ben Yano.

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FRIDAY • MARCH 5, 2010

LBN-INVESTIGATES: A middle-income American family with a child born in 2008 can expect to spend about $221,190 ($291,570 when adjusted for inflation) for food, shelter, and other necessities to raise that child over the next seventeen years. In 1960, a middle-income family could have expected to spend $25,230 ($183,509 in 2008 dollars) to raise a child through age seventeen.
A middle-income American family with a child born in 2008 can expect to spend about $221,190 ($291,570 when adjusted for inflation) for food, shelter, and other necessities to raise that child over the next seventeen years. In 1960, a middle-income family could have expected to spend $25,230 ($183,509 in 2008 dollars) to raise a child through age seventeen.

JOBLESS RATE HOLDS STEADY AT 9.7%; 36,000 JOBS LOST IN FEBRUARY: The American economy shed 36,000 nonfarm jobs in February as the unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent, the Labor Department said Friday, a more positive report than expected given the series of winter storms that shut down much of the East Coast. The report interrupted a trend of easing in the recession-bleakened job market in recent months. But economists, whose forecasts for Friday’s report had varied more widely than usual, said the February data may be substantially revised in the next few months’ reports.

TERROR TRIALS MAY MOVE TO TRIBUNAL: In what would be a major reversal for President Obama, White House advisers are close to announcing a new policy regarding terror detainees that would see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected 9/11 plotter, tried in a military court. Obama’s decision to try Mohammed in civilian court in New York created endless political headaches from both sides of the aisle and the Washington Post reports that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is offering to help with bipartisan support for closing Guantanamo Bay if the decision is reversed.

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10 BILLION TWEETS SERVED: The Internet’s premier hub for bite-sized conversation has reached a major milestone: according to tweet ID numbers, the site’s users have surpassed 10 billion tweets. Only four months ago Twitter passed the 5 billion mark on the 140-character updates, used by everyone from publicity-hungry celebrities to protestors in Iran. The contents of tweet #10,000,000,000 are unknown, as the user has protected their updates, but #999,999,999 (a link to an gallery of urban photography) and #10,000,000,0001 (a simple phrase: “DON’T U EVER”) are viewable online.

TOYOTA OBFUSCATING INFORMATION?: Only adding to public distrust in Toyota, the car company has been found to be keeping information that could help explain safety issues due to sudden unintended acceleration confidential. Similar to airline “black boxes,” cars are equipped with event data recorders, or EDRs, but, in statements made to the Associated Press, Toyota gave contradicting and ambiguous information about what the EDRs actually recorded.

PRISONER ARRESTS: Complaints and new arrests have prompted some states to reconsider giving prisoners’ time off for good behavior.

WAS THE PENTAGON SHOOTER A WINGNUT?: Two officers were wounded when a man walked up to them outside of the Pentagon Metro station and opened fire. The gunman was later fatally shot by police in a shootout. John Patrick Bedell is the man believed responsible for shooting 2 officers at the Pentagon Thursday evening, he has been linked to postings about 9/11 conspiracies.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER: ***China is in the middle of a spectacular real estate boom. But the question is whether it is in the middle of a bubble — one that might threaten the global economy. ***A vast project in Florida will be the world’s second-largest solar plant, attached to the nation’s largest fossil-fuel power plant.

SMART PEOPLE READ THE LBN E-LERT: Nationally syndicated talk radio host and publishing legend Judith Regan along with over 317,000 other “influencers” understands that information is power and the LBN E-Lert is a power-tool.

UNEMPLOYED APPLICANTS SWARM THEME PARKS: If you see a long line outside Disneyland, don’t worry—it’s probably for job applicants, not Space Mountain. A job fair at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, drew 1,600 people—in the rain. Universal Studios received more than 1,100 job applications in one day last month, and Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm have received so many applications they are postponing their job fairs. Applications are coming from everyone from unemployed mortgage agents to sales clerks to construction workers looking for temporary positions. With the unemployment rate in California at 12.4 percent, those theme-park jobs are no longer just for teenagers seeking their first jobs. “We are getting a lot of people who, in a normal economy, would be considered overqualified,” said a manager at Universal Studios Hollywood.

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER: ***As NBC patches together a new lineup for the 10 p.m. hour to fill the hole left by the former “Jay Leno Show,” the network is calling on “Dateline” to fill in the gap on Fridays by stretching the news magazine to two hours. “Dateline” will face a familiar foe: ABC’s “20/20.” ***Facebook is worth almost 10 times as much as Twitter, according to media expert and author Michael Levine. Index pegs Facebook’s worth at $11.5 billion, while Twitter’s value is said to be $1.44 billion. Other companies with values estimated at more than $1 billion include LinkedIn. ***Newsweek, a subsidiary of the Washington Post Co., plans to launch an edition in Pakistan, marking the first such move by a Western magazine in the country. Newsweek Pakistan will be published under a licensing deal with local publisher AG Publications. ***Time Inc.’s Entertainment Weekly is marking its 20th anniversary with three special issues this year. The magazine is also expanding its coverage to include apps, games and Web sites, says managing editor Jess Cagle. “We’re going to keep expanding the stuff we cover.” ***The Huffington Post attracted a staggering 40 million unique visitors in the last month, according to the news and opinion sites own numbers. Verticals are driving growth, says cofounder Arianna Huffington. The new tech and sports sections already account for 10% of traffic. ***Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert may have lost his voice, but he found it again on the Web. Ebert aims to monetize his blog by starting “The Ebert Club.” An annual fee of $5 will offer Ebert fans a variety of content, including advance notice of ticket sales to Ebertfest.

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ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: Israel is just one of the 24 foreign countries with daily LBN E-Lert readers.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER: ***Maybe this ’80s nostalgia kick is going a bit too far. After seven films in its original ten-year run, New Line is planning on reviving its Police Academy series, which grossed $240 million worldwide and spawned a pair of TV spin-offs. The slapstick comedy will be helmed by original producer Paul Maslansky. “It’s going to be very worthwhile to the people who remember it and to those who saw it on TV,” Maslansky told the Hollywood Reporter. “It’s going to be a new class. We hope to discover new talent and season it with great comedians. It’ll be anything but another movie with a numeral next to it. And we’ll most probably retain the wonderful musical theme.” ***Tonight at Getty House, L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa is hosting a pre-Oscars reception for Academy Awards nominees. The mayor’s office says it’s being paid for by Microsoft Bing and L’Oreal Paris, but the Coalition of L.A. City Unions says it plans to protest with a “mock red carpet” as close as the LAPD lets them get. ***P.R. firm 42West has appointed veteran music publicist Dvora Vener Englefield to head their newly created music department.

LBN-NOTICED: ***Samuel L. Jackson at the Mann Chinese Theatre in Hollywood last night for the 2010 Italian Film Festival. ***Eva Longoria was spotted at the Hollywood Reporters Nominees Night in Los Angeles last night. ***Diane Lane and Gerard Butler attend the star-studded Artists for Peace & Justice Fundraiser in Beverly Hills. *** “Avatar” director James Cameron and wife Suzy Amis arrive at the Global Green USA annual pre-Oscar party in Hollywood. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@TimeWire.net.

LBN-LINK: Watch the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan Click here - www.CostOfWar.com.

LBN-BOOK NEWS: ***Sarah Palin is entering a deal to write a new book for News Corp. unit HarperCollins. Palin’s yet-to-be-titled book will be “a celebration of American virtues and strength.” Palin is the author of the 2009 bestseller “Going Rogue,” also published by HarperCollins. ***Journalist Richard Rushfield’s AMERICAN IDOL, a look behind the scenes at the tumultuous ten year history of America’s most popular television show, sold to Elisabeth Dyssegaard at Hyperion, with Brenda Copeland editing, for publication in January 2011, by Daniel Greenberg at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world).

GAY SEX SCANDAL AT THE VATICAN: The Vatican is dealing with fallout from a corruption scandal within its ranks that took a salacious turn Thursday with the news that one of the Pope’s aides was soliciting gay prostitutes. According to The Guardian, Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, or staffer who attended to the Pope, was caught on a police wiretap allegedly negotiating the procurement of a male prostitute with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a Vatican chorister. “I saw your call when I was in the Vatican, because I was doing rehearsals in the choir in St Peter’s,” Ehiem says in one conversation, the Guardian reports. He then suggests Balducci meet a man “two metres tall 97 kilos aged 33, completely active.” Balducci was arrested last month on suspicion of corruption over public-works contracts, but the investigation also revealed his suspected involvement in prostitution.

SHOW SOME COURAGE: Have some guts for once in your life and forward this LBN E-Lert to your friends, family and associates. They will thank you.

LBN-VIDEO LINK: - Classic Jack Benny

LBN-COMMENTARY By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: So the yearlong production, set to close after Massachusetts’ devastatingly negative Jan. 19 review, saw the curtain raised one last time. Obama care lives.

LBN-COMMENTARY By BARBIE LATZA NADEAU: Amanda Knox was not convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher because she did cartwheels in the police station or owned a vibrator, as her supporters suggest. Knox, 22, along with her 25-year-old former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, were found guilty by a jury in Perugia, Italy, based on hard forensic evidence, according to the sentencing judge’s 427-page reasoning, which was issued Thursday and obtained by The Daily Beast. The two judges and six jury members for the 11-month trial agreed with the prosecution’s case, calling it a “comprehensive and complete picture without gaps and inconsistencies.”

LBN-COMMENTARY By PEGGY NOONAN: It is now exactly a year since President Obama unveiled his health-care push and his decision to devote his inaugural year to it—his branding year, his first, vivid year. What a disaster it has been. At best it was wastes of history’s time, a struggle that will not in the end yield something big and helpful but will in fact make future progress more difficult. At worst it may prove to have fatally undermined a new presidency at a time when America desperately needs a successful one.

LBN-COMMENTARY By MELENA RYZIK: This awards season has had as much narrative sweep as a made-for-television mini-series.

FILM REVIEW By MANOHLA DARGIS: Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” is busy, garish and periodically amusing.

LBN-COMMENTARY By PAUL KRUGMAN: Democratic and Republican debates over unemployment benefits and health care show that the parties currently live in different universes, both intellectually and morally.

LBN-COMMENTARY By PETER HANKOFF (Documentary Filmmaker): Going to visit the captive dolphins and whales is like going to death row to play with the inmates. Their deceptive smiles and friendly performances belie the bigger issues: where did these creatures come from, where are they going, and how long do they live? Is this really any less barbaric than applauding dancing bears or the other now-outlawed animal acts of the 19th century? The simplest way to show the dolphins how intelligent we are is by how we choose to spend our discretionary income.

LBN-COMMENTARY By ASRA Q. NOMANI: When Marine Jake Scully drapes his sinewy blue body around his Na’vi bride, Neytiri, the heroine of James Cameron’s Oscar-nominated epic Avatar, his neural tendrils fuse with hers in one of the most unusual sex scenes ever produced on film. Critics and commentators have been dissecting the themes of the Hollywood mega-blockbuster, from its just-war doctrine and environmental ethics. But there’s a philosophical dimension that this otherworldly sex scene captures that most folks have overlooked: the Tantra of Avatar.

LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By LOUIS PASTEUR: The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences. The universe is asymmetric.

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LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

LBN-OVERHEARD: ***The cab driver who accused Naomi Campbell of assaulting him earlier this week has apologized to the supermodel, saying in a statement from his lawyer that he “got angry and overreacted This whole thing has been blown out of proportion and I apologize to Ms. Campbell for causing that to happen.” In spite of a history of violent outbursts Campbell has insisted that this time around she’s in the clear. “I have worked very hard on correcting my previous wrongdoings and I will not be held hostage to my past,” she said. “I try to treat everyone with respect and I am pleased the driver has apologized.” ***Mick Jagger and Angelina Jolie got satisfaction and spent more than one night together during a torrid affair, according to a bombshell new book. The puffy-lipped rocker and actress, who’s 32 years younger than Mick, first hooked up in 1997 when Jolie appeared in the Rolling Stones video “Anybody Seen My Baby,” author Jenny Paul claims in her tell-all, “Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie: The True Story.” ***While most stars were loading up on swag from the Oscar gifting suites, Sarah Palin left one of them with less than when she arrived. The former vice-presidential candidate made a $1,700 donation to the Red Cross for Haiti and Chile at a swag suite at LA’s Interior Illusion store Wednesday.

LBN-DID YOU KNOW: ***10 percent of the Russian government’s income comes from the sale of vodka. ***15 percent of Americans secretly bite their toes. ***160 cars can drive side by side on the Monumental Axis in Brazil, the world’s widest road. ***68 percent of a Hostess Twinkie is air! ***A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball made of rubber.

LBN-QUOTE: “You know, do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer, yeah” -Sean Penn on the cynics who question his Haiti relief efforts.

LBN-HISTORY: On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.

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LBN E-Lert Edited by Natgeda Remy
Contributing Editors: Teju Jyothi, Rachel Yip, Kevin Aquino, Marissa Stone, Delia Ramos, Ben Yano, Anna Alaverdyan.

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THURSDAY • MARCH 4, 2010

MARIE OSMOND PUT ON SUICIDE WATCH - FRIENDS FEAR:
“My baby’s gone. How can I go on? That was Marie Osmond’s heartbroken cry after learning her tormented 18-year-old son Michael had committed suicide - and now worried family members have put the devastated star on a suicide watch. Family friends have told sources that despite his devoted mom’s efforts to help, Michael’s lifelong battle with depression and issues with his sexuality drove him to jump to his death from the eighth floor of his apartment building in downtown Los Angeles on Feb. 26. “I think Michael was distraught because he was conflicted over his sexuality and didn’t believe he could ever come out as a gay man to his religious strict Mormon family,” said a family insider.

POLLS OPEN WITH BLAST IN IRAQ: Five people were killed and 22 wounded by an explosion near an empty polling station in Baghdad as police and others qualified to vote early take part in Iraq’s second national election for a full-term parliament. Reports conflicted over whether the cause was a roadside bomb or a rocket. The election poses a major test of Iraq’s security forces, but the Pentagon said Wednesday that conditions there would have to be “extraordinarily dire” for the U.S. to reconsider the plan to pull all 96,000 combat troops out by August, and all forces out by the end of the year.

OBAMA CALLS FOR HEALTH-CARE VOTE: President Obama urged Congress Wednesday that it was time to “finish its work” on health care and suggested that he was in favor of using reconciliation, the controversial legislative maneuver which would avoid a Republican filibuster in the Senate, to do it. The Republicans are likely to respond with weeks of legislative jujitsu.

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SECRET GOP MEMO LEAKS FEAR-MONGERING STRATEGY: From the department of “no one was supposed to see this” comes the Republican National Committee’s internal pitch to its fundraisers. A PowerPoint presentation, obtained by Politico, makes it clear that the committee’s strategy for raising money this election cycle will be fear-mongering. The committee says its campaign should focus on a promise to “save the country from trending toward socialism.” Helpful advice included is that wealthy “ego-driven” donors can be seduced by offers of access and, what they termed “tchochkes.” Another gem from the presentation is the page headed “The Evil Empire.” On it, President Obama is made to look like the Joker from Batman, Nancy Pelosi is depicted as Cruella DeVille, and Harry Reid as Scooby-Doo. RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s office has already distanced itself from the pitch. “Obviously, the chairman disagrees with the language and finds the use of such imagery to be unacceptable,” committee communications director Doug Heye told Politico.

WHITE HOUSE PUSHES VOLCKER RULE: The Obama administration is strongly backing the so-called Volcker Rule, which limits the size of financial institutions and prevents commercial banks from making high-risk trades, as Congress continues to debate financial reform. The Senate is debating a consumer-protection agency, and Republicans say they could reach a deal with Democrats within the week. With the 2008 financial crisis in mind, many wish to see the end of banks that are “too big to fail.”

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PALIN PITCHING TV SHOW ABOUT ALASKA: Sarah Palin could be yet again reinventing herself to reap the benefits of her 15 months of fame. After sportscaster, governor, vice-presidential candidate, pundit, and public speaker, she may be trying her hand as a television producer. Entertainment Weekly is reporting that she and reality-TV show producer Mark Burnett have been holding meetings with network executives to pitch a docudrama about Alaska and The Live Feed says the Palin family would appear on-camera. One source described the potential show a “Planet Earth-type look” at the state she once ran.

LBN-HOW FAIRY TALES REALLY END: Beauty & The Beast.

GEITHNER’S PAL LEAVING TREASURY: Lee Sachs, a close adviser to Tim Geithner at the Treasury Department, announced his plans to leave the public sector “in the next couple of months.” The move signals a shift in the Obama administration’s focus as it moves out of a period focused on emergency economic response, according to Bloomberg. Sachs was a managing director at Bear Stearns before he was brought aboard by Geithner. Sachs and Geithner do triathlons together. Sachs says Geithner is fast.

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER: ***The “executive dashboard” that MySpace execs use internally to track the social network’s performance shows that the number of active users is considerably smaller than the 100 million-plus cited publicly. Also, the rate of user decline appears to be accelerating. ***President Obama will help Fox’s “America’s Most Wanted” celebrate its 1,000th episode Saturday by agreeing to be interviewed by host John Walsh. Obama will discuss the show’s impact in its 22 years as well as his administration’s anti-crime initiatives. ***The Paley Center for Media, the television industry think tank, is exploring the possibility of creating its own awards show that could end up competing with Emmy Awards. An awards show could create a much-needed new revenue stream for the nonprofit Paley Center. ***Peter Lauria, the media beat reporter for the New York Post, is jumping to the Daily Beast, where he will also cover the media business. Instead of working for Rupert Murdoch, Lauria will be working for Barry Diller, whose IAC/InterActiveCorp funds the Tina Brown-edited site.

DALAI LAMA STARTS TWEETING: Are you one of the Dalai Lama’s more than 100,000 Twitter follows yet? His Holiness has been using the social networking site since he arrived in Los Angeles last week. According to The Times of London, the Tibetan leader is the “most senior world religious leader” to take to the 140-character messaging site. In a move that may not bode well for his karma, the Dalai Lama has yet to follow anyone here.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER: ***Advertisers on Facebook are a motley bunch. Some are Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble. Others are “not only creepy but off-putting,” says a media consultant. ***Fans who cannot watch enough of “Project Runway” can now get their fashion fix on a new video-game version, released for the Wii system. ***The number of buyers who agreed to purchase previously occupied homes fell sharply in January, a sign that demand for housing is sinking this winter, especially after stormy weather hit much of the country. The National Association of Realtors says its seasonally adjusted index of sales agreements fell 7.6 percent from December to a January reading of 90.4. It was the lowest reading since last April.

WILL REAGAN LAND ON $50 BILL?: Would the Gipper look good on the $50 dollar bill? Fourteen Republicans in Congress say that its time to dump Civil War general and 18th president Ulysses S. Grant from the note and replace him with Ronald Reagan. “One decade into the 21st century, it’s time to honor the last great president of the 20th and give President Reagan a place beside Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy,” Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican from North Carolina who is leading the money change effort, said in statement Wednesday. In past, Reagan fans have tried to get the 40th president on the $20 note and the dime.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: Ninety-one percent of Americans live in places at moderate-to-high risk of earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, high-wind damage or terrorism.

WHAT IT’S LIKE TO WORK FOR ZUCKERBERG: The Wall Street Journal profiles the working habits and aspirations of one of Silicon Valley’s most-watched men in Thursday’s paper: 25-year-old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. One of the games he likes to play is to imagine what he would do if he had $1 trillion dollars to work with. He says he is in no hurry to turn his social networking behemoth into a public company. Don’t expect much praise, if you work for him. But do expect movie quotes: Zuckerberg is particularly fond of Troy, which he screened for employees once. He even delivered a gong to the office so workers could announce new developments with added authority.

LBN-HEALTH WATCH: A common weed killer known as atrazine causes chemical castration in frogs and can even turn some into females. Researchers found that long-term exposure to low levels of atrazine emasculated three-quarters of male laboratory frogs, while ninety percent of the study subjects exhibited low testosterone levels, decreased breeding gland size, feminized laryngeal development, suppressed mating behavior, reduced sperm production, and decreased fertility. Furthermore, the remaining 10 percent actually turned into females that were able to copulate with males and produce eggs.

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LBN-NOTICED: ***Joan Rivers was in a feisty mood hosting Michael Musto’s party at 230 Fifth in NYC to celebrate his 25 years at the Village Voice. While being introduced by gender-bending comic Murray Hill, who joked that “he” was the only straight guy in the room, Rivers grabbed the mike and declared, “I’ll do my own [expletive] introduction!” She then proceeded to announce to the crowd, “I am John Rivers.” Also at the party were “Ugly Betty” stars Michael Urie, “Real Housewives” star Countess LuAnn de Lesseps, and every drag queen in town. ***The love affair between Hollywood and Bill Clinton continues. The former president was feted Monday at the Peninsula Hotel in LA at an event hosted by Bosnian refugee Diane Jenkins and hotheaded actor Sean Penn, partners in a Haiti relief effort. Among those who had cocktails, dinner and a Q&A with Clinton that lasted until midnight: Barbra Streisand, Jack Nicholson, Salma Hayek, Matthew McConaughey, and Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two journalists Clinton freed from North Korean imprisonment. ***Prominent gift company owner Wally August having a busy meeting yesterday at Factor’s Deli on Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles. ***LCO staff members - Natgeda Remy, Gia Ghadimian and Shannon Donnelly having a bonding dinner last night at Canter’s Deli on Fairfax in Los Angeles. ***Signorney Weaver at The Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. ***Brooke Shields in 8th row center at Lyceum Theater in NYC watching Valerie Harper doing Tallulah in Looped. Lady behind her complained constantly that the girl (Brooke) was too tall and blocked her view and she should move to the rear of the theater. ***Paula Abdul was spotted making her way around Beverly Hills on Wednesday. ***Anna Kournikova was spotted hitting up Barneys New York in Beverly Hills yesterday. ***Reese Witherspoon and Renee Zellweger pose together at fashion designer to the stars Vera Wang’s store opening in LA. ***Robert Downey Jr. sports a trucker hat at the Los Angeles Lakers game as they take on the Indiana Pacers in LA. ***Shakira was spotted at the 80th International Geneva Motor Show in Geneva, Switzerland on Wednesday. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@TimeWire.net.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER: ***Robert De Niro will join Bradley Cooper in Relativity Media’s suspense thriller “The Dark Fields.” The project starts shooting in Philadelphia in May and is, notes Variety, the first big screen deal the actor has made since he switched from WME to CAA in January. ***Stars who not long ago vied for as much as $25 million a picture have seen their upfront salaries shrink. ***Woody Allen has signed Marion Cotillard to play the “Muse” and satr opposite Owen Wilson in his next untitled he is shooting this summer in Paris.

LBN-VIDEO LINK: Roger Ebert Debuts New Voice on Oprah Film critic Roger Ebert hasn’t spoken publicly since mid-2006, when he experienced post-surgical complications related to thyroid cancer. This week, he made an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show to present his new voice technology while making his Oscar predictions.

WALTERS: ‘BEEN THERE, DONE THAT’: After a while you get used to certain things: one of them is Barbara Walters cajoling the nominees on an Oscar night pre-show. This year will be her last. She began interviewing the likes of Audrey Hepburn and Warren Beatty in 1981. Now 80, Walters told The New York Times, “I just feel, ‘Been there, done that.’” About that Beatty, he was no fun. “Warren Beatty was the worst,” Walters said. She was most charmed by Lauren Bacall, George Clooney, and Anthony Hopkins. This year’s guests include Sandra Bullock and Mo’Nique.

LBN-RECOMMENDS By MURRAY HILL(COMEDIAN): I’m reading Tracy Morgan’s autobiography I Am the New Black right now and am loving it. I plowed through like 100 pages last night. I gotta tell you, I wasn’t a fan of his comedy on Saturday Night Live, but I heard an interview on NPR with him and I was like this guy is a lot deeper than you would think. He talked about having a persona and coming from the streets, and on Saturday Night Live he was just a stereotype, all the material was pigeonholed. And in the book he talks about how Saturday Night Live wanted him to fit in that role.

LBN-COMMENTARY By SUSAN ESTRICH (Attorney): It was a great car. A 1981 Toyota Corolla, white with blue interior, and no extras. Exactly $5,000 — $1,000 down, the rest financed. To be honest, I really wanted a Honda Accord. My mother had one, and what a dream that car was. But it was also $1,000 more, and while that might not sound like so much, believe me, it was. So I “settled” for the Toyota. After nine years behind the wheel of a 1972 yellow Ford Maverick, it seemed like a very significant step up. And it was. I don’t remember that car breaking down in the seven years I drove it. Not once. My goddaughter nicknamed the Maverick “clunker” for obvious reasons. Not the Toyota.

LBN-COMMENTARY BY GEORGE MICHAEL: Amy Winehouse is one of the most gifted singer-songwriters to emerge in Britain in the last few years. And Lady Gaga has my full attention. She’s a unique songwriter with an original overall package. And Bjork - she just gets better. Her voice is amazing.

LBN-COMMENTARY By KIM ELSESSER: The Academy Awards should allow men and women to compete for one Oscar for best actor.

LBN-COMMENTARY By REBECCA DANA: Oprah Winfrey gets a lot of credit for being the Queen of Daytime TV, but it’s actually a brash 67-year-old grandmother who owns the afternoon airwaves. More weeks than not, Judith Sheindlin, beloved or feared by much of America as television’s Judge Judy, bests Winfrey in the Nielsen ratings. She may not have her own magazine or a cable channel in the works. She may not give away cars or questionable recommendations for books and sweat lodges. But for 14 years (and much longer if you count her pre-television career), Judge Judy has been winning audiences’ hearts by not taking anyone’s crap.

LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By GALILEO GALILEI: Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty.

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LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Laura Dern found out the hard way — and so did Jennifer Aniston. But Johnny Depp’s longtime gal pal has no intention of joining the trail of broken-hearted Hollywood ladies left crying to Oprah Winfrey after Angelina Jolie stole their men. So when Vanessa Paradis found out her “Pirates of the Caribbean” stud and Jolie were to shoot a passionate love scene in their new movie “The Tourist,” she ordered Depp to find another gig, a source said. But by all appearances, Depp has not been able to cut himself out of the shoot. Filming started last month and Depp and Jolie were spied sharing a laugh on set at the Palazzo Pisani Moretta in Venice on Tuesday. ***A terrified Burt Reynolds was rushed to the hospital for emergency, lifesaving heart surgery that left him in such agony he pleaded for additional painkillers.

LBN-DID YOU KNOW: ***The most dangerous job in the United States is that of an Alaskan Crab Fisherman. ***The WD in WD-40 stands for Water Displacer. ***There are 365 steps on the front of the U.S. Capitol Building - one for every day of the year. ***There is a giant mushroom in Oregon that is over 2,400 years old, covers 3.4 square miles of land, and is still growing! ***Warner Chappell Music owns the copyright to the song ‘’Happy Birthday'’. They make over $1 million in royalties every year from the commercial use of the song.

LBN-QUOTE: “The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.” - Aldous Huxley.

LBN-HISTORY: On March 4, 1933, the start of President Roosevelt’s first administration brought with it the first woman to serve in the Cabinet: Labor Secretary Frances Perkins.

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LBN E-Lert Edited by Natgeda Remy
Contributing Editors: Teju Jyothi, Rachel Yip, Kevin Aquino, Marissa Stone, Delia Ramos, Ben Yano, Anna Alaverdyan.

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WEDNESDAY • MARCH 3, 2010

OBAMA UNVEILS FINAL HEALTH-CARE BILL: Another day, another health-care announcement: President Obama officially unveils his final health-care package today, a day after he announced he would incorporate four Republican ideas into the final package. Jake Tapper says Obama will endorse the use of reconciliation in the Senate if Republicans deny the chamber an up-or-down vote.

REPRESENTATIVE CHARLES B. RANGEL SAYS HE IS STEPPING DOWN TEMPORARILY AS HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:Caught in a swirl of ethics inquiries, Representative Charles B. Rangel said on Wednesday that he would temporarily step aside as leader of the House Ways and Means Committee.

BUNNING ENDS FILIBUSTER: Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) accepted a deal to end his filibuster of a bill that would extend unemployment and COBRA benefits after pressure from both parties. Bunning had protested that “pay-go”—a rule that calls for each spending increase to be offset by a cut elsewhere—was not being applied to the bill, which would cost $10 billion to extend benefits an extra 30 days.

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GRAND JURY MAY INDICT EDWARDS: The ultimate fall from grace, sources say a Federal grand jury is about to indict John Edwards. In another shocker, close sources say Edwards’ estranged wife Elizabeth could help send the former presidential candidate to jail! Edwards, the disgraced two-time Presidential loser, is being investigated by the feds, including the FBI and IR, for possible campaign violations related to paying his mistress Rielle Hunter.

CLIMATE DEBATE: Grudgingly, many climate scientists are beginning to engage critics, admit mistakes and open up their data.

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THE 20TH ANNUAL NIGHT OF 100 STARS BLACK TIE DINNER VIEWING GALA: Norby Walters, veteran music agent, reprises his role as Producer and Dinner Chairman. The formal sit-down dinner viewing party has always included past Oscar winners and nominees who will return to pay tribute to this year’s favorite Award nominees. Stars and their guests will be dressed to the nines in Formal fashions represented by the nations finest design houses. The media has always rated the Night of 100 Stars as one of the top Award parties. The Daily News rated this party as “the number one Oscar party, just for the sheer number of celebrities attending”. ABC’s Good Morning America covers this party from inside and said. “Voting Academy members flock to the Night of 100 Stars and we are here tonight with last year’s winners Peter Fonda and Martin Landau along with Tom Arnold, Anna Nicole Smith, and the cast of the West Wing. Is this an Oscar party or the Golden Globes?” The Jimmy Kimmel Show tapes segments for the show and said, “A wild party with mostly celebrities and they are everywhere you look”. The Hollywood Reporter says, “Numerous former Academy Award winners and nominees turned out Sunday during the Night of 100 Stars Oscar Gala including (150 stars) Richard Dreyfuss, Martin Landau, Fred Willard, James Cromwell.”

LBN-HOW FAIRY TALES REALLY END: - Snow White.

LBN-NOTICED: ***Prominent business news radio anchor Frank Mottek having dinner last night with this longtime girlfriend Julia Alexander at Morton’s Steakhouse on La Cienega in Beverly Hills. ***Jennifer Garner getting her eyebrows shaped at Anastasia Beverly Hills. ***Venus Williams, Kim Clijsters and Ana Ivanovic lunching at Marea in NYC for a meet-and-greet with a handful of magazine and newspaper editors. ***Derek Jeter chatting with Self’s Lucy Danziger in the middle of his lunch with CC Sabathia at the Lime in Tampa. ***Patricia Field drinking vodka on the rocks out of a wine glass while waiting for a friend at the Brasserie Cognac bar in NYC. ***Pierce Brosnan and wife Keely celebrating their son Paris’ ninth birthday with another couple at Nello in NYC. ***Award-winning playwright, author and actress Shelene Atanacio spotted lunching at Kate Mantilini yesterday. ***At the opening party for The Four Seasons Hotel Beverly Hills new restaurant Culina, Modern Italian last night, celebs Morgan Freeman, Ryan Seacrest paling around with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and Top Chef’s Stefan Richter all enjoyed passed apps like crudo, ravioli, and veal. ***Charlize Theron was spotted on Wednesday afternoon walking out of the Four Seasons Hotel in Paris, France. ***Salma Hayek attended the Dora The Explorer 10th Anniversary Celebration at Nickelodeon Animation Studio on Tuesday. ***Actor Matt Damon attends a photocall to promote the new movie ‘Green Zone’ at the Adlon Hotel on in Berlin, Germany. ***Adrien Brody and Robert Duvall pose together at The Wrap’s pre-Oscar party in Beverly Hills. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@TimeWire.net.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER: ***Nicolas Chartier, the “Hurt Locker” producer who ran afoul of AMPAS campaign regulations by sending emails disparaging “Avatar,” has been denied attendance at the 82nd Oscar ceremony by the Academy. Chartier, a financier who raised the money for the film and would have not been included as a nominee had the Academy not made an exception to its rules, sent emails suggesting that voters choose his movie over “the $500M film.” ***The Michael Russell Group is walking away from its gig doing publicity and promotion for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, ending a relationship that stretches back 17 years. MRG president Michael Russell told The Wrap that its contract with the HFPA had expired late last year, and the amount of work to maintain the account had outpaced the fees it was collecting. ***How fearful is the Academy of James Cameron? According to New York Magazine, Bill Mechanic, who is producing the Oscar telecast, has yanked a Sacha Baron Cohen sketch over fears that the Avatar director might get so angry that he’d walk out of the ceremony. An unnamed insider said that Baron Cohen intended to appear onstage as a female Na’vi, whose statements would be translated by Ben Stiller. As the sketch progressed, Baron Cohen would become increasingly angry with Stiller’s obviously false translations, then reveal that “she” was pregnant with James Cameron’s love child before confronting the director Jerry Springer style. The sketch was cut, as another unnamed insider put it, because “Cameron isn’t known to be, shall we say, ’self-deprecating.’” ***Justin Timberlake has signed on to star opposite his former girlfriend, Cameron Diaz, in Columbia Pictures’ romantic comedy “Bad Teacher.” Eric Stonestreet and Molly Shannon have also boarded the project, which co-stars Jason Segel and Lucy Punch. ***The Tribeca Film Festival is set to become associated with a new venture to distribute films digitally and in theaters under the Tribeca name. ***Archie Comics has left CAA and signed with WME.

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BLACKWATER INVESTIGATION TAINTED?: When Blackwater security guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007, everyone blamed the company, but the State Department’s hands may be dirty too, The New York Times reports. In testimony made public on Tuesday, Kenneth Kohl, the lead prosecutor in the case against Blackwater, said he had evidence that the inquiry into the affair was tainted.

PERRY, WHITE WIN TX GOV. PRIMARIES: Texas Gov. Rick Perry is a big step closer to holding on to his job, having defeated popular Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary. Perry won 51 percent of the vote to Hutchinson’s 31 percent, and pulled a big lead over Tea Party favorite Debra Medina. The two have been rivals for two decades, since he was elected agriculture commissioner and she state treasurer in 1990.

MISSING CALIF. TEEN’S BODY FOUND: California police have found the body of Chelsea King, the 17-year-old girl who went missing last week, near the shores of San Diego’s Lake Hodges. King disappeared after going for a jog. Two days ago, police arrested John Albert Gardner III, a convicted sex offender who’s DNA was found on King’s clothing, which was discovered near where police think she was abducted. Gardner was arrested in 2000 for committing lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 and is also now suspected of connection to the disappearance of another San Diego teenager.

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER: ***Facebook revenue is rising rapidly and could top $1 billion this year, according to the online publication Inside Facebook. The social networking behemoth is estimated to have raked in $225 million in brand advertising in 2009. Facebook declines to comment on the report. ***Janice Min, who left Us Weekly in July, is said to be making the rounds with Ben Silverman pitching Web-site concepts to online media, such as AOL. Min “could be interested in launching a celebrity mom-based site.” Silverman is part of Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp.

LAPD APOLOGIZES TO KENNEDYS: The Los Angeles Police Department has apologized to the Kennedy family for including the shirt, tie, and jacket that Robert Kennedy wore when he was murdered as part of a homicide exhibit in Las Vegas. The LAPD apparently never asked the Kennedy’s for permission to use the items, which were included in the 2010 California Homicide Investigators Association Conference. Other items were from the Black Dahlia slaying, Marilyn Monroe’s death, the O.J. Simpson case, and the Manson family murders.

LBN-SPORTS INSIDER: ***The authorities questioned Carlos Beltran about Dr. Anthony Galea, who is suspected of supplying performance-enhancing drugs.

SMART PEOPLE READ THE LBN E-LERT: Writer and author Larry Grobel along with over 3170,000 other “influencers” understands that information is power and the LBN E-Lert is a power-tool.

LBN-VIDEO LINK: Jessica Simpson says John Mayer apologized to her for that whole “sexual napalm” thing — but she ain’t accepting it. In an interview that aired this morning on Oprah, Jessica says she “felt betrayed” when her ex spilled the dirty details of their sex life to Playboy — and though he said he’s sorry via e-mail, she never wrote back.

LBN-COMMENTARY By GINA PICCALO: Helena Bonham Carter is talking about her inner child, nestled as she is in yet another romantic and whimsical getup, this one reminiscent of Madonna circa Like a Virgin. She was “an obedient child” whose early film roles, A Room With a View, Howard’s End and The Wings of the Dove, were rooted in the rigid mores of English society’s Edwardian era. She can’t bear to watch those movies now. There’s little trace in them of this vivacious being here, a woman whose cackling laugh surely echoes down the hall of her Hollywood hotel. Only the corsets of those roles foreshadowed the Gothic babe she would become, the tousled muse to the phantasmagoric Tim Burton.

LBN-COMMENTARY By MAUREEN DOWD: The Middle Eastern foreign minister was talking about enlightened “liberal” trends in his country, contrasting that with the benighted “extreme” conservative religious movement in a neighboring state. But the wild thing was that the minister was Prince Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia — an absolute Muslim monarchy ruling over one of the most religiously and socially intolerant places on earth — and the country he deemed too “religiously determined” and regressive was the democracy of Israel. “We are breaking away from the shackles of the past,” the prince said, sitting in his sprawling, glinting ranch house with its stable of Arabian horses and one oversized white bunny. “We are moving in the direction of a liberal society. What is happening in Israel is the opposite; you are moving into a more religiously oriented culture and into a more religiously determined politics and to a very extreme sense of nationhood,” which was coming “to a boiling point.” “The religious institutions in Israel are stymieing every effort at peace,” said the prince, wearing a black-and-gold robe and tinted glasses.

LBN-COMMENTARY By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: I was traveling via Los Angeles International Airport — LAX — last week. Walking through its faded, cramped domestic terminal, I got the feeling of a place that once thought of itself as modern but has had one too many face-lifts and simply can’t hide the wrinkles anymore. In some ways, LAX is us. We are the United States of Deferred Maintenance. China is the People’s Republic of Deferred Gratification. They save, invest and build. We spend, borrow and patch. And this contrast is playing out in the worst way — just slowly enough so the crisis never seems acute enough to take urgent action. But, eventually, infrastructure, education and innovation policies matter. Businesses prefer to invest with the Jetsons more than the Flintstones, which brings me to the subject of this column. I had a chance last week to listen to Paul Otellini, the chief executive of Intel, the microchip maker and one of America’s crown jewel companies. Otellini was in Washington to talk about competitiveness at Brookings and the Aspen Institute. At a time when so much of our public policy discussion is dominated by health care and bailouts, my public service for the week is to share Mr. Otellini’s views on start-ups. While America still has the quality work force, political stability and natural resources a company like Intel needs, said Otellini, the U.S. is badly lagging in developing the next generation of scientific talent and incentives to induce big multinationals to create lots more jobs here.

LBN-FILM REVIEW By MANOHLA DARGIS: The sins of the father weigh heavily and sometimes scarcely at all in the documentary “Harlan — In the Shadow of ‘Jew Süss.’”

LBN-COMMENTARY By JOHN STOSSEL: “It’s a free country.” That’s a popular saying — and true in many ways. But for a free country, America does ban a lot of things that are perfectly peaceful and consensual. Why is that?

LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE: What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine. They are not wounds and blood and fever, spotted and low, or dysentery, chronic and acute, cold and heat and famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization and disorder on the part of the inferior jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior.

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LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Last gasp of Camelot, Caroline Kennedy is furious over an upcoming TV mini-series that portrays her father, President John F. Kennedy, as a sex maniac, say insiders. The eight-part History Channel series The Kennedys won’t air until 2011, but it’s already been slammed as a “cheap soap opera” by critics. ***Actor/director/perennial balding Opie, Ron Howard’s plaintive plea to the world. When he dies, he doesn’t want to be remembered as Opie. ***Lil Wayne will not be going to jail today — dude’s check-in date was just pushed back again for the 3rd time!!! If you’ve been following the saga — Wayne was originally supposed to go to jail a few weeks ago but the judge cut him a break so the rapper could swap out his diamond teeth for a less expensive set.

LBN-DID YOU KNOW: ***Teflon is the slipperiest substance in the world. ***The ‘’vintage date'’ on a bottle of wine indicates the year the grapes were picked, not the year of bottling. ***The bark of an older redwood tree is fireproof. ***The first product that Sony came out with was the rice cooker. ***The IRS employee’s tax manual has instructions for collecting taxes after a nuclear war.

LBN-QUOTE: “Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.”- Steven Wright.

LBN-HISTORY: On March 3, 1991, in a case that sparked a national outcry, motorist Rodney King was severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers in a scene captured on amateur video.

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LBN E-Lert Edited by Natgeda Remy
Contributing Editors: Teju Jyothi, Rachel Yip, Kevin Aquino, Marissa Stone, Delia Ramos, Ben Yano, Anna Alaverdyan.

TUESDAY • MARCH 2, 2010

LENO CRUSHES LETTERMAN IN RETURN: In the local people meter markets Leno was twice as popular with adults 18-49, scoring 2.0 rating vs a 1.0 rating for Letterman. In the metered market household ratings between 11:30p-12:30a Jay Leno’s return to The Tonight Show dominated Letterman and Late Show. Leno had a 5.4/14 (household rating/share) to Letterman’s 3.0/8. Sure, Leno’s first night back (and perhaps first week or two back) is likely inflated by a post-Olympic halo, but the early indication is “all is forgiven.”

SENATE NEAR DEAL ON FINANCIAL REFORM: Is it a bipartisan success, or an unnecessary watering down of important legislation? Key Democratic and Republican senators are near a deal on financial-regulatory reform, sources tell The Wall Street Journal. Rather than create a standalone Consumer Protection Agency, as President Obama wants, the Senate deal would vest consumer-protection powers in the Federal Reserve—an institution some say has neglected consumer protection in the past.

NYT DROPS NEW PATERSON BOMBSHELL: Gov. David Paterson personally directed his press secretary to ask a woman who had accused his close aide of attacking her to say the run-in was nonviolent and contradict her previous accounts to the police in court; The New York Times cites three sources as saying. Paterson also allegedly had a state employee, who was a mutual friend of both the woman and the governor, make contact with the accuser to “finalize an order of protection against the aide” before her court date.

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GM RECALLS 1.3 MILLION CARS: General Motors is picking up right where Toyota left off. The company announced on Tuesday that it is recalling 1.3 million compact cars in North America after a power steering problem was linked to 14 crashes and over 1,100 complaints. The recall affects the 2005-2010 model Chevrolet Cobalt and 2007-2010 Pontiac G5 in the United States; the 2005-2006 Pontiac Pursuit sold in Canada, and the 2005-2006 Pontiac G4 sold in Mexico.

TEN HOUSE DEMS UP FOR GRABS: Ten House Democrats indicated they are keeping open the option to switch their “no” votes to “yes” votes on Obama’s health-care overhaul, according to an AP survey. Out of 39 Democrats who voted against the original House bill, 10 said they were undecided or wouldn’t state their vote, putting them in the field of players Obama and Nancy Pelosi have to wrangle to their side.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: In 2001, 59-year-old Robert Tools received the world’s first fully implantable artificial heart.

WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT: ***12 members of the White House staff. ***Over 100 winners of the Academy Award. ***Film producer Mike Medavoy. ***Radio talk show host Dennis Prager. ***Over 300 Grammy Award winners. ***Professors from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke, Columbia, NYU, UCLA, Cornell, MIT, Brown, Princeton. ***Leading agents from CAA, ICM, WME, and UTA. ***Political commentator Dick Morris. ***The NFL Commissioner. ***The Mayors of Baltimore, San Diego, New York, Philadelphia and Dallas. ***3 Nobel Prize winners. ***Vice-President Joe Biden. ***Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Doug Stephan. ***Comedian Adam Christing. ***Entertainment Tonight anchor Mary Hart and along with over 317,000 other “influencers” in all 50 of the United States and 24 foreign countries.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER: ***Starring in his first major TV series, Oscar-winner Dustin Hoffman will appear in HBO’s horseracing drama pilot, “Luck,” from David Milch and Michael Mann. ***Vanity Fair will hold its Academy Awards party this Sunday at Los Angeles’ Sunset Tower Hotel, where an elite guest list will dine as the telecast begins at the nearby Kodak Theater. Also: For those who aren’t invited, Vanity Fair is offering a free Hollywood iPhone app. ***Meryl Streep has a record 16 Academy Awards acting nominations, yet her batting average is minor league when it comes to winning. Streep has two Oscars but also has by far the worst winning percentage among acting recipients who have earned two or more awards. ***”It was my focus to raise the bar for any other Pre-Hollywood Award Gifting Suites to as high a caliber as we did with our Oscar Suite of 100 Stars”, says Anita Talbert, Founder/Producer of www.Hollywoodawardsuites.com. It was the first Suite ever held at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the true icon of Hollywood history, glamour and luxury. We also had an unprecedented attendance of over 60 stars top stars who rarely, if ever, attend gifting suites including Alex Tribeck, William Shatner, Natalie Cole, Antonio Sabato, Jr., Lorenzo Lamas and daughter Shayne Lamas, Bridget Marquart, Martin Landau, Lisa Bloom, Sofia Milos, Hector Elizondo, Fred Willard, Chris McDonald, Lou Ferrigno, Mimi Rogers, Peter Facinelli, Jenny Garth, Jason Ritter, Nia Long, John Salley, Candy Spelling and scores more. My partner, Norby Walters and I are thrilled with the outcome, it was a true prelude to his glamorous Oscar night party, Night of 100 Stars at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”

LBN-NOTICED: ***Prominent Organization Psychologist Esther Weinberg having dinner last night with a group of friends at Taste in West Hollywood ***Annalynne McCord pulling a fast one by leaving Serendipity 3 in NYC about 15 minutes before her date, Kellan Lutz. ***Tennis legend Yannick Noah and soccer star Youri Djorkaeff being worshipped by adoring French fans at the second anniversary of Bagatelle in NYC. ***Mitt Romney posing for pictures with staffers at the Great American kosher vegetarian restaurant on West 57th in NYC. ***Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak with plenty of security as he dined with his family at Serafina on 61st near Madison in NYC. ***Prominent L.A. massage therapist and healer Steve Oskard having lunch yesterday at Sparks Woodfire Grille on Pico in L.A.. ***International Dutch actress Thekla Reuten making Fedora Primo Hats in Santa Monica her first stop as she begins work on a new project after appearing in The American with George Clooney. ***Continuing to work on their new film together, Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz were spotted on the set of Dream House yesterday. ***Ryan O’Neal and daughter Tatum arrive at the 24th Annual ASC Awards For Outstanding Achievement in Century City, California. ***Emma Thompson putting in her fake teeth during a photocall for “Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang” in Madrid. ***Sharon Osbourne walks the black carpet at the MAC VIVA GLAM launch in London. ***Alpine skier Lindsey Vonn was spotted back shopping on Robertson Blvd in Los Angeles, California on Monday. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@TimeWire.net.

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER: ***Reports that newsman Anderson Cooper met with CBS execs to discuss an anchor job are false, says CNN. Cooper “is not engaged in any additional conversations with them beyond those necessary for his continuing role on ‘60 Minutes.’ ” CBS says: “We’re not talking to him.” ***Former MSNBC host Dan Abrams is aiming to become an Internet mogul. His latest site, the fashion-focused Styleite.com, will go live March 15. The fashion community lags behind on the Web, he claims. Next up is a sports site, SportsGrid.com, launching later this month.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER: ***Best-selling author and Hollywood publicist Michael Levine will give a “Secrets of Success” 3 hour workshop in Beverly Hills on Saturday March 13 from 1-4pm limited to only 20 people. Click Here

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DANCING WITH THE STARS CAST REVEALED: What do a former astronaut, a sex tape star, and the mother of eight have in common? They’ll all be taking the stage for next season’s Dancing With the Stars. Buzz Aldrin, Pamela Anderson, and Kate Gosselin are just three of the 11 celebrities hitting center stage to show off their moves. Joining them will be ESPN sportscaster Erin Andrews; Beverly Hills, 90210 star and former hellraiser Shannen Doherty; Olympic gold medalist figure skater Evan Lysacek; Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver and notorious end-zone dancer Chad Ochocinco; Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger; host of decluttering show Clean House Niecy Nash; Bachelor Jake Pavelka; and soap star Aidan Turner.

LBN-VIDEO LINK: Morgan Freeman’s New Olympics Commercial. It just wouldn’t be the Olympics without Morgan Freeman’s advertising narration. Here, his latest. It’s quite stirring.

DO YOU? Do you have the GUTS to forward this LBN E-Lert to your friends and family? Do you? Do you?

LBN-SEE IT: Anne Heche bums a light from James Tupper.

LBN-MUSIC INSIDER: ***The only person other than Carly Simon who knows the identity of her “You’re So Vain” lover said it’s definitely not David Geffen. Simon touched off another round of speculation over the 38-year-old mystery when she hid a clue in a new version of the song about the guy who walked into a party like he was walking onto a yacht. If you play it backward, you hear her whisper “David.” British newspapers concluded that meant Geffen, who was her boss at Elektra. But NBC Sports honcho Dick Ebersol said, “I’ve never before spoken on this issue and I never will again but I can assure [you] the David is not David Geffen a really good guy.” Simon revealed the vain one’s name to Ebersol in 2003 after he bid $50,000 for the answer at a charity auction. He’s a friend of Simon and said at the time he made the winning bid “to make sure Carly didn’t have to tell a total stranger.” ***Tom “T-Bone” Wolk, who performed with scores of musicians but was best known as the longtime bass player for the band led by pop-rock stars Daryl Hall and John Oates, has died. He was 58.

LBN-MEDIA TRACKER:

LBN-COMMENTARY By ALESSANDRA STANLEY: The new NBC shows “Parenthood,” beginning on Tuesday, and “The Marriage Ref,” which had its premiere on Sunday, rise above flimsy formats with good writing and exceptional casts.

LBN-COMMENTARY By ROBERT REDFORD (Actor, Director, and Environmental Activist): The citizen force is about to be unleashed, and this time, it will be in support of the most critical environmental vote of my lifetime: passing clean energy and climate legislation in the Senate.

LBN-COMMENTARY By NORMAN LEAR (Founder, People for the American Way): Ever since I smoked my first good cigar, I have felt that if there were no other reason to believe in God, Havana leaf would suffice. I’ve had similar epiphanies while biting into a ripe peach.

LBN-COMMENTARY By MARTHA ZOLLER (Columnist, Author, and Radio personality): Santa Claus isn’t real? Santa represents the spirit of giving at Christmas and you should try to wait for the child to talk to you about Santa and then let them in on the secret of the spirit of Christmas. Then, they can be a part of the magic with you. If you have more than one child, the older ones will take care of telling the younger ones.

LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By JIMI HENDRIX: In order to change the world, you have to get your head together first.

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LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Billy Baldwin’s 18-year marriage to Chynna Phillips nearly ended in heartbreak when she filed for divorce on Friday — but then had a dramatic change of heart Sunday. Baldwin, now filming “Gossip Girl” in New York, was shocked when Phillips instructed her lawyers to file in Santa Barbara. But after an emotional weekend, the singer — who just completed treatment for anxiety following months of stress — told her attorneys to withdraw the bombshell divorce filing yesterday. A source said, “Chynna has gone under a lot of personal and professional stress. The divorce petition came after a long and emotional buildup. But once it was filed, she realized she didn’t want to lose Billy and asked her lawyers to withdraw it.” ***Mariah Carey was nearly two hours late for her final concert in Las Vegas. The diva had problems with her vocal cords and demanded to see her doctor before she finally got on stage at the Pearl Concert Theater Saturday night. ***It’s war between two financial gurus: Robert Kiyosaki, author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” which urges business and real estate investment, and Suze Orman, who preaches long-term savings and paying off debts quickly. “I can’t believe this lady,” Kiyosaki tweeted yesterday. “No way in hell she believes what she teaches.” Orman fired back: “At least I did not lead millions of people down the path to lose all their money in real estate as you did. Shame on you.” ***Jaime Escalante, the legendary Garfield High math teacher portrayed by Edward James Olmos in the movie “Stand and Deliver,” has cancer and his family has run out of money to pay his medical bills. Olmos is helping to raise funds. ***A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Ronald Reagan’s grandson after dude blew off a court date for a marijuana arrest … an arrest that flew right under the radar. Cameron Reagan was arrested on November 9, 2009 after cops pulled the 31-year-old over for speeding in Malibu. ***Charlie Sheen’s complicated life is about to get even more complicated. A woman who slept with Charlie and wife Brooke Mueller at the same time is about to come forward and tell her story, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively.

LBN-DID YOU KNOWS: ***Next to Warsaw, Chicago has the largest Polish population in the world. ***Q-Tip Cotton Swabs were originally called Baby Gays. ***Reno, Nevada is actually west of Los Angeles, California. ***Research indicates that babies who suck on pacifiers are more prone to ear aches. ***Tasmania is said to have the cleanest air in the world.

LBN-QUOTE: “Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” - William James.

LBN-HISTORY: On March 2, 1877, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though Tilden had won the popular vote.

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LBN E-Lert Edited by Natgeda Remy
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MONDAY • MARCH 1, 2010

PELOSI: WE HAVE THE VOTES: Is health care almost here? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and an aide to President Obama said separately Sunday that congressional Democrats will have the votes to pass the health-care overhaul. Acknowledging that the vote could risk the political careers of some House Democrats, Pelosi said she’s confident she can pass a bill based on the version the Senate passed in December.

CHILE OPENS DOOR TO AID: A day after commenting that “we generally don’t ask for help,” Chilean President Michelle Bachelet signaled her country is ready to receive international aid to recover from the catastrophic quake that has killed more than 700 and displaced 2 million. Experts say recovery will take years and tens of billions of dollars.

U.S. SETS MEDAL RECORD: The Olympic torch went out in Vancouver on Sunday after the U.S. hockey team’s nail-biting loss to Canada in the finals. Still, despite that disappointing closing note, the U.S. Olympic team has much to be proud of: Its 37 medals were a new record for medals won by a single country in the Winter Games, and the U.S. led the overall medal count for only the second time ever (the first being in Lake Placid in 1932). Canada, meanwhile, beat the record for gold medals won by a single country at the Winter Games, with the gold medal in hockey giving them their 14th and final gold.

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FRANTIC RESCUE EFFORTS IN CHILE AS TROOPS SEEK TO KEEP ORDER: With frantic rescue efforts under way, a rising death toll and isolated outbreaks of looting, the Chilean president on Sunday issued an order that will send soldiers into the streets in the worst-affected areas to both keep order and speed the distribution of aid. After huddling in a crisis meeting with her cabinet, President Michelle Bachelet called the damage caused by Saturday’s magnitude-8.8 quake “an emergency unparalleled in the history of Chile.” She said the death toll had reached 708 and suggested it would probably grow in the days ahead.

KRUGMAN: KILL THE BILL: With Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chris Dodd weakening financial-regulatory reform in hopes of attracting Republican votes, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes, “The question now seems to be whether we’ll get a watered-down bill or no bill at all. And I hate to say this, but the second option is starting to look preferable.” Krugman argues that “A weak financial reform wouldn’t be tested until the next big crisis.

RULINGS RESTRICT CLEAN WATER ACT, FOILING E.P.A.: Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators. As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them. And pollution rates are rising.

LBN-SEE IT:One morning last week, a Marine with Company K slept in a compound near Marja. The Marines cleared a road, later linking up with another company.

E.U. PREPS GREECE BAILOUT: Hey, it’s still a heckuva lot cheaper than AIG: Germany and France are putting together a $41 billion plan to bail out Greece, according to The Wall Street Journal. Greek officials are expected to sign off on the deal when Prime Minister George Papandreou visits Berlin, but German officials insist that no such deal is in the making.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER: ***The British insurance company Prudential said Monday it had agreed to buy American International Group’s big life insurance business in Asia in a deal valued at $35.5 billion. The sale of American International Assurance would allow A.I.G. to make the biggest repayment yet toward the more than $180 billion it received as part of a U.S. government bailout. ***Microsoft’s new mobile phone software, coming at the end of this year, offers “tiles” instead of icons, and has “hubs” for similarly themed functions.

SMART PEOPLE READ THE LBN E-LERT: Los Angeles Business Journal top Editor Charlie Crumpley along with over 317,000 other “influencers” understands that information is power and the LBN E-Lert is a power-tool.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: Juneau, Alaska, can be reached by cruise ship, ferry, or air, but it is the only U.S. state capital that cannot be reached by road.

LBN-VIDEO LINK: Business WATCH Warren Buffett: The Health Care System Is Like an ‘Economic Tape Worm’

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER: ***Rupert Murdoch, who turns 79 next week, is “not going gently into the night.” The media chieftain is waging a war with Google over use of his content, rebuilding the Wall Street Journal with an eye on destroying the New York Times, and battling back his own family’s efforts to take control. ***ABC’s Academy Awards broadcast is all but sold out of advertising time less than a week before the big event. After this year’s Super Bowl set a ratings record and the Grammy Awards posted gains, this year’s Oscar cast is expected to attract big audiences as well. ***CBS execs, mindful that evening news anchor Katie Couric’s contract expires in a little over a year, have talked to Anderson Cooper of CNN about an anchor job. Also, as network news divisions weaken, ABC News and Bloomberg may be preparing for a news-gathering pact. ***Playboy still features the centerfold that made the magazine famous, but it is now in a slightly smaller print format. The parent company may shrink as well: Playboy says it could cut its headcount of 573 employees by half as it enters partnerships and outsources production. ***Variety reportedly yanked a negative review of the movie “Iron Cross” from its Web site after the film’s producers paid the Hollywood trade publication $400,000 for an awards campaign. Publisher Brian Gott “ordered it removed after the producers called to complain. ***As ABC News prepares to cut hundreds of jobs and with news available more places than ever, the future for network news divisions is deeply insecure. ***Video screens in coffee shops, casual eateries and airport newsstands in five major cities will display the work of The New York Times starting Monday.

LBN-NOTICED: ***SI Newhouse Jr., in sweatshirt and sneakers, and his wife, Victoria, abandoning his regular booth in the Condé Nast cafeteria for lunch at Le Pain Quotidian on 40th Street near Times Square in NYC. ***Jennifer Connelly working out with an overly protective trainer at Equinox on 10th Avenue in NYC. ***Justin Bieber munching on Sour Patch Kids in the lobby of Allegria Hotel in Long Beach, LI, where he stayed with his mother, manager and tutor. ***Charlie Rose buying a Sony TV at J&R Music & Computer World on Park Row in NYC. ***Fertility expert Dr. Gil Mileikowsky having dinner last night at James Beach in Venice. ***Relationship author Liz Kelly shopping at Brookstone at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica yesterday. *** Johnny Depp was spotted on the set of The Tourist in Venice, Italy on Monday. ***Leonardo DiCaprio was spotted at the Los Angeles Lakers game on Sunday. ***Jennifer Garner at Milk + Bookies Story Time Celebration in Los Angeles, California at the Skirball Center on Sunday. *** Bruce Springsteen arrives at Lady Gaga’s O2 Arena show after-party, held at posh London restaurant Mr Chow’s. ***Actor Harrison Ford holds his Honour Cesar Award during the 35th Cesar Film Awards at Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, France. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@TimeWire.net.

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PUSHING FORWARD: After pushing into a Taliban enclave in Afghanistan, American forces must gain support among people with a deep suspicion of the central government.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER: ***On March 2, Ebert will speak for the first time in four years on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Using a remarkable new computer technology, Ebert will chat with Oprah about his Oscar picks for this year. Oprah and her cameras will also follow Ebert and his wife, Chaz, for a day, exploring his life and wining up with a chat in Oprah’s studio. Other Oscar-related segments are planned for the “Pre-Oscar Special,” including visits with Morgan Freeman and Colin Firth.

LBN E-LERT # 1: Thousands of readers throughout Europe passionately report that that the LBN E-Lert is their “Number 1″ source of news and information.

LBN-HOW FAIRY TALES REALLY END - Cinderella.

WHERE’S ERIN BROCKOVICH?: The Southern California legal assistant who became famous when Julia Roberts portrayed her in the movies now runs Brockovich Research & Consulting with a couple of assistants out of her Agoura Hills home. She advises people who believe they’ve been hurt by contamination by getting them connected with public agencies and lawyers, who pay her.

DUBAI ASSASSINS TRAVELED TO U.S.: Assassins in our midst! Two of the 26 suspects wanted in the January 20th Dubai assassination of a Hamas leader entered the U.S. after the hit job, sources tell The Wall Street Journal. One entered the country on February 14 with a British passport and another on January 21 with an Irish passport. There is no record of either having left the U.S., though it’s possible they exited with different papers, since their passports are suspected of being fraudulent.

JAY LENO BACK ON TONIGHT SHOW: For better or worse, Jay Leno will retake his Tonight Show desk Monday evening, after months of controversy thanks to NBC’s booting of Conan O’Brien after a mere seven months. This week, Leno’s guests will include Sarah Palin, the cast of Jersey Shore, and the American Olympic gold medalists fresh from Vancouver. Leno hopes to regain his dominance in the ratings; rival David Letterman has greatly benefited from NBC’s late-night scrambling.

LBN-BOOK NEWS: ***E-books are cheaper to produce than print volumes, but consumers may not realize that expenses like overhead and royalties are still in effect, publishers say.

LAST CALL: The February LBN Eye is still up - Click Here

LBN-COMMENTARY By MICHAEL REAGAN: My father, Ronald Reagan, battled successfully to simplify the tax code but his work has been largely undone. The arrogance of those who use the tax code to manipulate citizen behavior and Congressional ambitions for personal advancement have again corrupted the already destructive income tax system.

LBN-COMMENTARY By JON CARAMANICA: John Mayer may be an old-fashioned sort of musician, but he’s a hypermodern sort of celebrity, and that can lead to trouble, real or imagined.

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LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Tiger Woods won’t have to travel far to get help. A source tells us the embattled golfer is receiving private therapy sessions out of a home in Cave Creek, Ariz., and that Woods himself has been staying at the house. ***Ex-wife Denise Richards may be called by prosecution in the Charlie Sheen assault case. Aspen, Colo. Authorities want to speak to the ex- Mrs. Sheen about a 2005 restraining order she took out against the “Two and a Half Men” troublemaker. ***Michael Jackson received the fatal dose of Propofol through an IV in his leg, and law enforcement believes Dr. Conrad Murray may have tried covering it up this according to law enforcement sources and an anesthesiologist who reviewed the case for the LAPD.

LBN-DID YOU KNOW: ***Buttermilk does not contain any butter. ***Gardening is said to be one of the best exercises for maintaining healthy bones. ***In New York City, approximately 1,600 people are bitten by other humans every year. ***Indoor pollution is 10 times more toxic than outdoor pollution. ***King Kong was Adolph Hitler’s favorite movie.

LBN-QUOTE: “It was like God said, ‘No, run out the back.’ If we’d gone out the front, we’d be dead.”-CARMEN PEÑA, 48, a grandmother whose home in Santiago was in shambles after a magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck Chile early Saturday.

LBN-HISTORY: On March 1, 1932, the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was kidnapped from the family home near Hopewell, N.J.

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LBN E-Lert Edited by Natgeda Remy
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SUNDAY • FEBRUARY 28, 2010

CHILE STILL REELING FROM 8.8 QUAKE: National Emergency Agency officials say the Chilean death toll is over 300 after the 8.8-magnitude earthquake shook the South American country yesterday. The shock was the most powerful earthquake to hit the area southwest of Chile’s capital, Santiago, in 100 years, damaging nearly half a million homes and throwing residents from their beds. After the shock, seven-foot high waves rattled the Pacific, killing at least five people on remote islands.

MARIE OSMOND’S SON: Suicide Note Shows Sadness. Marie Osmond son, Michael, left a suicide note for a woman who lived in his apartment building, and shortly after she retrieved it she heard the ominous sirens below, law enforcement sources tell TMZ. We’re told Michael Blosil was supposed to hang out with the woman Friday night, but left her a text just before 9 PM, telling her he had left a note for her in his apartment. The woman went to Michael’s apartment and his roommates let her in. Sources say the group found the note, which said, among other things the woman was his only good friend in L.A. and he was very unhappy. The note also mentioned things he would be doing for the very last time. It did not mention suicide, but law enforcement sources tell us it was clear, that is exactly what it was. The roommates, who up until that point knew nothing was wrong, and the woman became alarmed, but very shortly thereafter they heard sirens and saw emergency vehicles on the street and figured out what happened. We’re told that it was a very short time span from the time the woman got Michael’s text to the time they heard sirens.

U.S., CANADA FACE OFF IN HOCKEY: They’ve saved the best for last. The U.S. and Canada will face off in men’s hockey Sunday, providing Olympics fans with one of the biggest contests of the Winter Games on the last day of competition. For Canada, no gold medal would be sweeter. “We’ve been building up for this for years,” said one Canadian player. The U.S. hasn’t won gold in hockey since Lake Placid 30 years ago. “It’s unbelievable the amount of excitement that’s going on back in the U.S. right now about our team,” American Ryan Callahan said. The puck drops at 3:15 EST.

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WARREN BUFFETT’S BEST PUNCH LINES: Warren Buffett’s much-watched Berkshire Hathaway announced an increase in profits Friday. But some investors were interested in the Oracle of Omaha’s shareholder letter not for money advice, but to get a taste of Buffett’s trademark humor. The billionaire didn’t fail to deliver. He had a laugher on country music: “Sing a country song in reverse, and you will quickly recover your car, house, and wife.” Buffett went for the kill with this doozy relating to his investment in Geico: “An old Wall Street joke gets close to our experience. Customer: Thanks for putting me in XYZ stock at 5. I hear it’s up to 18. Broker: Yes, and that’s just the beginning. In fact, the company is doing so well now, that it’s an even better buy at 18 than it was when you made your purchase. Customer: Damn, I knew I should have waited.”

‘MOSSAD MANIA’ STRIKES ISRAEL: The recent murder of a Hamas leader in Dubai may have put Israel in diplomatic hot water, but the affair has been magic for the country’s spy agency and its recruiting effort. “Mossad mania” has gripped Israel, The Times of London reports. Mossad memorabilia is flying off the shelves in Israel. Glasses like the ones worn by suspected killers have become bestsellers. Young men and women are eager to sign up to be spooks. “I’ve always had a dream to work for the Mossad.”

NEW AND NOT IMPROVED: A new generation has made militant networks in Pakistan more sophisticated and deadly.

CHALABI RISES AGAIN IN IRAQ: Onetime Pentagon darling Ahmad Chalabi may contend for a major Iraqi government position, leading the U.S. to become uneasy, reports the Los Angeles Times. Chalabi helped the Bush administration during its invasion of Iraq but has since been a thorn in America’s side after the U.S. dumped him as its favorite in 2004. Now, events appear to be supporting Chalabi in a bid for reentering parliament as a leading Shiite candidate and possible replacement for a high post. During the last few weeks, top brass have become concerned with Chalabi’s ties with Iran, although the Iraqi denies passing information to its neighbor.

ANOTHER KENNEDY EYES CONGRESS: Well that didn’t take long. With Scott Brown only days into his term serving as Teddy Kennedy’s replacement in the Senate, another Kennedy from Massachusetts is eyeing a possible congressional run. The Associated Press reports that Joseph P. Kennedy III, the 29-year-old grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, is considering running for the district representing Cape Cod if Rep. William Delahunt, the Democrat who currently holds the post, decides to retire.

UNLIKELY ACTIVIST WHO GOT TO THE TEA PARTY EARLY: Keli Carender has a pierced nose, performs improv on weekends and lives here in a neighborhood with more Mexican grocers than coffeehouses. You might mistake her for the kind of young person whose vote powered President Obama to the White House. You probably would not think of her as a Tea Party type. But leaders of the Tea Party movement credit her with being the first.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER: ***America’s most famous investor, Warren E. Buffett, struck a confident note in his annual letter to the shareholders of his holding company on Saturday, as he described in characteristically colorful terms how his businesses had largely ridden out the calamity of the financial crisis. ***When it comes to online data, those lengthy written notices about protecting your privacy are no longer enough, experts say. ***Prominent L.A. business attorney Rick Citron (www.Candlaw.com) was chosen by the prestigious “5 W Report” (www.5WReport.com) as the best business attorney of the year - 2010.

LBN-THIS DAY IN HISTORY: ATF Raids Branch Davidian Compound (1993). After investigating charges of child abuse and the illegal stockpiling of weapons at the Texas ranch of the Branch Davidian religious sect, US ATF agents raided the compound. The confrontation turned violent, and 10 people were killed in the firefight. A siege of the compound ended 51 days later, when the complex was engulfed in flames. Seventy-nine people, including 21 children and Davidian leader David Koresh, died in the incident.

LBN-TODAY’S BIRTHDAY: Mario Andretti (1940). Mario Andretti is the only racecar driver to have won the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500, and the international Formula One championship. He retired from Indy-car racing in 1994 with 52 victories but continued his attempts to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans sports-car endurance race until the age of 60. The Italian-American legend has been called the “Driver of the Century.”

LBN-SNAP: Rihanna.

LBN-NOTICED: ***Heidi Klum worked her way into the weekend with a sexy new photo shoot session in Hollywood on Friday. ***After time in Germany for the Berlinale Film Festival, Renee Zellweger was spotted in Los Angeles, California on Saturday. ***Mariah Carey hosted her Official End of Tour Party in Las Vegas on Saturday night. ***Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner walking down Sunset at Curson Guitar Academy. ***Angelina Jolie was spotted arriving on the set of her new movie “The Tourist” with Brad Pitt and their brood of children on Sunday. ***KNX Radio Anchor Bob Brill having dinner last night with a group of friends at El Cholo on Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica. ***”Office” star John Krasinski doing a quick voice-over at Sound Lounge in NYC just after a casting call for Emily Blunt sound-alikes. ***Bette Midler lunching at Fresco by Scotto with her daughter, Sophie, and publicist Ken Sunshine. ***Michael Kors, his boyfriend Lance Le Pere, and designer Betsey Johnson at Morton’s in Midtown, NYC. ***Warren Beatty, Andrew Stein, and Al Pacino at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills. ***Former Knick Charles Oakley at Bar Artisana in NYC telling owner Jeremy Casilli he’d like to return to the NBA as a coach. ***Chinese actress, writer and Independent Filmmaker Yan Cui coming back for seconds at Fedora Primo Hat Merchants in Santa Monica. ***Adrien Brody at CVS on Cahuenga and Vine in Hollywood. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@TimeWire.net.

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http://www.cancer.org/docroot/home/index.asp

LET THESE WOMEN PRAY: In an uprising reminiscent of the lunch-counter protests of the 1960s, women at one of Washington D.C.’s most popular mosques are copying the tactics of the civil-rights movement, and refusing to follow rules that ban them from praying with the men.

JAILED MAN SPENDS 27 YEARS IN SOLITARY: Tommy Silverstein, who murdered a guard while in jail in 1983, has spent 27 years in solitary confinement, the longest period of such treatment in history, according to his lawyers. He lives in the high-security Supermax prison in Colorado, where the lights are always on and he is fed through a slot in his cell. His lawyers say such treatment violates the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. To pass the time, Silverstein crochets and does yoga. “It’s almost more humane to kill someone immediately than it is to intentionally bury a man alive,” he once wrote a friend. Silverstein first entered prison in 1978 after being convicted of committing robbery.

NO CRIME: No criminal charges are expected in the death of Julia Siegler, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Harvard-Westlake School who was struck by two cars Friday morning while crossing Sunset Boulevard. “It appears to be a horrible accident,” says LAPD captain Nancy Lauer. Reports on Friday called it a hit and run, but police later said both drivers stopped. The girl was crossing on a red light, according to the Times story.

SMART WOMEN READ THE LBN E-LERT: ***TV hostess Leeza Gibbons. ***Former Ebay Chief Executive Meg Whitman. ***Charitable Foundation Director Melinda Gates. ***Author Hara Marano. ***Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Judith Regan. Along with over 317,000 understand that information is power and the LBN E-Lert is a power-tool. It’s simple: The ideas and insights of the LBN E-Lert keep you ahead of the curve.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER: ***Halle Berry, who left ICM a couple of weeks ago, has signed with CAA. She continues to be managed by longtime representative Vince Cirrincione.

LBN-SPORTS INSIDER: ***Bode Miller came to the Vancouver Games seeking to make history by medaling in each of the five alpine events, and to be the first to stand atop four podiums in a single Olympic Games. But he failed to qualify in the Slalom on Saturday, not even making it past the first round. He missed a gate early on, in a run that was made difficult by heavy snowfall. “It’s unfortunate to make a mistake so early in the course before you really have a rhythm for it. But that’s the way slalom goes,” Miller said. Miller, who will ski away with three medals, is still happy with his overall performance. Teammate Ted Ligety also failed to make it past the first round.

LBN-COMMENTARY By BARRY FARBER: If naiveté were a disease Obama could be diagnosed as terminal without removing his shirt.

LBN-COMMENTARY By MANOHLA DARGIS: On the road to screen immortality, Jeff Bridges transformed from a pretty boy to a weathered veteran with bottomless soul.

LBN-COMMENTARY By FRANK RICH: Violent invective, once largely confined to blogs and talk radio, is now spreading among Republicans in public office or aspiring to it.

LBN-COMMENTARY By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is courageous in his stance on the country’s energy policy.

LBN-COMMENTARY By AL GORE: It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it. Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.

LBN-COMMENTARY By EFRAIM KARSH: We may scoff at the idea that the Olympic Games have anything to do with the “endeavor to place sport at the service of humanity and thereby to promote peace,” as the Olympic charter enshrines as its ideal. But at least nations across the world were able to put aside differences for two weeks of friendly competition in Vancouver. A mundane achievement, perhaps, but it’s one that’s beyond the grasp of the Islamic world. The Islamic Solidarity Games, the Olympics of the Muslim world, which were to be held in Iran in April, have been called off by the Arab states because Tehran inscribed “Persian Gulf” on the tournament’s official logo and medals. It’s a small but telling controversy. It puts the lie to the idea of the Islamic world as a bloc united by religious values that are hostile to the West. It also gives clues as to how the United States and its allies should handle two of their most urgent foreign policy matters: the Iranian nuclear program and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: I ordered each man to be presented with something, as strings of ten or a dozen glass beads apiece, and thongs of leather, all which they estimated highly; those which came on board I directed should be fed with molasses.

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LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW: Evan Lysacek.

LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Supermodel bad girl Kate Moss is prepping for the ballet, according to the Daily Mail. The British tabloid says that the Jill of all trades will dance with ballet legend (and Carrie’s Sex and the City love interest) Mikhail Baryshnikov in an upcoming short film. The dance is being choreographed and directed by Michael Clark. One source tells the paper that Moss is hard at work and has dropped hard partying for the role. ***Lady Gaga’s been enjoying herself since becoming famous. “I wanted to sleep with as many rock ‘n’ roll guys as I could, and I’ve certainly had my fun,” the singer says in the latest issue of Cosmo. Still, she’s career-oriented: “Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.” ***Brooklyn Decker is making the jump from modeling to acting. We’ve learned the Sports Illustrated cover girl and wife of tennis champ Andy Roddick, just signed on to star in “Just Go With It,” a romantic comedy starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. “I’m so happy and excited to be working with such an amazing cast and crew on my first film. I just hope no one minds if I try to get Sandler in a mankini for my next shoot,” Decker says. ***Marie Osmond’s son leaps 8 stories to his death.

LBN-DID YOU KNOW: ***About twenty-five percent of the population sneezes when they are exposed to light. ***Airports that are at higher altitudes require a longer airstrip due to lower air density. ***Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952, but he declined. ***An apple, potato, and onion all taste the same if you eat them with your nose plugged. ***Because metal was scarce; the Oscars given out during World War II were made of plaster.

LBN-QUOTE: “Ericka T. Bass calls her filth a “rant”. I call it filth, plain and simple.”- Reverend Holland Sims, First Church of Christ.

LBN-HISTORY: On Feb. 28, 1993, a gun battle erupted near Waco, Texas, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to serve warrants on the Branch Davidians; four agents and six Davidians were killed as a 51-day standoff began.

LBN-FACESPACE:

1.   Name: Bradley Scott Kugler.

2.   What do you dislike most about your appearance? Most consistently the bag under my eyes, more recently my expanding belly.

3. Which band would you like to see reunite? The Smiths or The Police.

4.     If you could get the answer to any question, what would you ask?: Who killed President Kennedy?

5. What or who is the greatest love of your life? My kids and wife.

6.     Occupation: Photographer and Owner of Distribution Business.

7.   What is the quality you like most in a person of the opposite sex?     The ability to make the most out of any situation, good or bad.

8.   What is your current state of mind? Appreciative.

9.   How would you like to die? Getting that ‘last shot’ that will be remembered and hopefully not in too painful a way.

10. E-mail and website: brad@dva.com , www.bradkugler.com .

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SATURDAY • FEBRUARY 27, 2010

MARIE OSMOND’S SON COMMITS SUICIDE:

Marie Osmond’s teenaged son, Michael Blosil, has killed himself by leaping to his death around 9 p.m. Friday in Los Angeles, reports Entertainment Tonight, which quotes Marie’s brother, Donny Osmond, as saying, “Please pray for my sister and her family.”

Through her rep, Marie Osmond released a statement Saturday. It says, “My family and I are devastated and in deep shock by the tragic loss of our dear Michael and ask that everyone respect our privacy during this difficult time.”

According to ET, Michael left a note explaining he intended to end his life after a lengthy battle with severe depression that left him, he said, feeling as if he had no friends and could never fit in.

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SATURDAY • FEBRUARY 27, 2010

MASSIVE 8.8 QUAKE HITS CHILE: Chile is only beginning to survey the damage after a devastating 8.8 magnitude earthquake occurred off the coast, close enough to do major damage to its two most populated cities, Santiago and Concepcion. Government officials say at least 78 are dead, a number likely to rise, and powerful aftershocks further endanger Chileans caught in the disaster. “This is a major event. This happened near some very populated areas,” a geophysicist with USGS told CNN. “With an 8.8, you expect damage to the population in the area.”

OBAMA-”HEALTH CARE CAN’T WAIT”: With the bipartisan health-care summit behind him, President Obama used his radio address Saturday to prepare America for the next step, which is likely a Democratic-only push to complete a bill. “I am eager and willing to move forward with members of both parties on health care if the other side is serious about coming together to resolve our differences and get this done,” Obama said. “But I also believe that we cannot lose the opportunity to meet this challenge.” Added Obama: “The tens of millions of men and women who cannot afford their health insurance cannot wait another generation for us to act.”

LBN-NOTICED: ***A star-packed group of celebrities and moguls had dinner last night at the home of Stewart and Lynda Resnick (owners of Fiji Water, Teleflora, etc) in Beverly Hills to hear best-selling author and New York Times star columnist Tom Friedman talking about how America “can get its groove back”. Included in the dinner group were David Geffen, Steve Martin and wife Ann, Warren Beatty, Bill Maher, Norman Lear, Bob Dailey, Sherry Lansing and Bill Friedkin, Michael Levine, Michael Milken, Terry Semel among others. ***Don Barrett, founder of the popular website http://www.laradio.com/, was the guest of honor at the LCO (www.LCOonline.com) monthly training program for staff and interns at lunch yesterday. ***Internet entrepreneur Andrew Sachs having a beer at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills with web guru Josh Goodman. Among the topics discussed was their continued respect for the tremendous success of this LBN E-Lert. Both gentlemen are long-time daily readers. ***Ozzy Osbourne was given a key to the city of West Palm Beach, Florida by Mayor Lois Frankel and then escorted by the Florida Highway Patrol to a book signing of his new autobiography I Am Ozzy at Barnes & Noble in Palm Beach Gardens. ***Self Editor-in-Chief Lucy Danziger sat next to Mick Jagger and Graydon Carter at the Monkey Bar the other night after celebrating her new book, “The Nine Rooms of Happiness,” which she co-wrote with psychiatrist Catherine Birndorf ***Axl Rose partying until 8 a.m. at Greenhouse in NYC with club owner Barry Mullineaux and an entourage of 30 that arrived in three large limos. ***Dan Rather, just back from Haiti for HD Net, taking in his grandson’s basketball game as Carmine Street whipped the Epiphany School at Epiphany’s gymnasium on East 28th Street in NYC. ***Sandra Bullock made a grand arrival at the 41st NAACP Image Awards in Los Angeles, California on Friday. ***LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian were spotted side-by-side in Malibu, California on Thursday afternoon. *** Beth Ostrosky Stern and hubby Howard Stern attend the “Green Zone” New York premiere at AMC Loews Lincoln Square. ***Loni Anderson arrives at the 12th Annual Costume Designers Guild Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. *** Stepping out for a bit of shopping, Elisabetta Canalis was spotted in Milan, Italy on Friday. *** Musician Carlos Santana and actor Morgan Freeman backstage during the 41st NAACP Image awards held at The Shrine Auditorium on February 26 in Los Angeles, California. ***BE AN LBN-CORRESPONDENT – Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@TimeWire.net.

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NEW DIRECTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE?: With widespread opposition in the Senate to the consensus environmentalist approach to regulating greenhouse emissions, known as cap and trade, a bipartisan group of lawmakers are looking to find an alternative that could defeat a likely filibuster. Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), John Kerry (D-MA), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have spent months planning their push for climate legislation and are now exploring a new approach that would cap carbon for some sectors of the economy and try to reduce them in different ways.

INVESTIGATORS SAY TOYOTA WITHHELD SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE: It seems like the Toyota scandal just keeps on going. Two days after the carmaker’s president testified before Congress, additional investigations now reveal that the company “withheld substantial” evidence in vehicle liability lawsuits. Documents from the company’s former lawyer reveal that Toyota mishandled safety disclosures related to rollovers, not the acceleration issue that has led to the recent round of recalls. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, claimed Toyota has demonstrated a “systematic disregard for the law.”

LBN-INVESTIGATES: The iron framework of the Statue of Liberty was devised by French engineer Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, who also built the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

WARNING: Sirens sound across Hawaii, warning of possible tsunami and signaling people in coastal areas to evacuate.

U.S. AND CANADA SET FOR REMATCH: With one victory against the hockey-centric country beneath their belts, the U.S. men’s hockey team has to play Canada one more time on their home turf in order to earn an Olympic gold medal. “It’s hard to beat a team twice in a tournament like this,” the U.S. team’s coach said, despite their blowout win against Finland yesterday.

PUZZLE: Officials are trying to determine why Iran moved much of its nuclear fuel to where it could easily be attacked.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER: ***Retailers are turning to mobile phone applications as devices for information and ordering.

LBN-HEALTH WATCH: ***Some infectious-disease specialists say Gram-negative bacteria could emerge as a bigger threat than MRSA.

CUOMO OBVIOUS GOV. FRONTRUNNER: State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo may be following in his father’s footsteps, now that New York Governor David Paterson has dropped his bid for election. Although Cuomo did not receive the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2002, Paterson has made room at the top of the list for the New York legacy this time around. “It puts him as the early odds-on favorite for a multitude of reasons—money, name recognition, popular standing, momentum,” one pollster said. On Friday, Cuomo issued the following statement: “I am sure this is a difficult choice and a sad day for the governor and his family. It is in the best interests of all New Yorkers that the state government functions through this difficult time and address the pressing budgetary problems we face.”

GARY COLEMAN SUFFERS SEIZURE: While on the set of The Insider yesterday morning, Gary Coleman suffered an apparent seizure and was rushed to the hospital, according to sources from the entertainment show. Television personality Dr. Drew Pinsky was with Coleman, known for his role on Different Strokes, when the incident occurred. Pinsky reportedly helped the ailing star until paramedics arrived at the studio. Last week, Coleman walked off The Insider when a panel continued to bombard him with questions about whether or not he abused his wife. Just a month ago, Coleman was hospitalized after suffering from “seizure activity,” as he referred to the episode.

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MICHAEL JORDAN BUYS NBA TEAM: Charlotte basketball fans can only hope Michael Jordan is half as good at owning a team as he was playing for one. The sports icon reportedly struck a deal Friday to purchase the Charlotte Bobcats from owner Bob Johnson. Jordan has been affiliated with the team as an executive for the last several years, but turning the Bobcats around financially will be difficult—Johnson ran up $150 million in debt after paying $300 million for the team, which launched in 2004.

LBN-SNAP: Singer Gloria Estefan.

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LBN-BOOK NEWS: ***Jerry Weintraub broke up a fight at Elvis Presley’s funeral, wooed Julia Roberts with $20, and played party planner to George H.W. Bush during the producer’s more than 50 years in Hollywood. In his new memoir, “When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead,” due out in April, Weintraub details his highs, lows and moments of comeuppance as a film producer and manager of Presley, Frank Sinatra and John Denver, to name a few.

SMART PEOPLE READ THE LBN E-LERT: ***Attorney David Fox. ***White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. ***Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Doug Stephan. ***Feminist attorney Gloria Allred. ***Hollywood agent Jeff Berg. Along with over 317,000 other “influencers” understand that information is power and the LBN E-Lert is a power-tool.

LBN-SPORT INSIDER: ***Alex Rodriguez crashed his $400,000 Maybach as he arrived at the Yankee spring training camp in Tampa on Thursday morning. A-Rod was involved in what’s described as a “minor fender bender” as he arrived at Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field at about 6:15 a.m. to prepare to tell the media he’s a “changed man” after a tumultuous 2009.

LBN-COMMENTARY By MICHAEL LEVINE (Media Expert and Author): There are a relatively small number of truly brilliant people on the planet and an even smaller number of courageous ones; that’s Thomas L. Friedman’s gift. He is both jaw-dropping brilliant and courageous enough to tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. And that’s what makes him lastingly important.

LBN-COMMENTARY By CONSTANTINO DIAZ-DURAN: A lingerie model’s bid to become the drug-running queen pin of South America seems doomed now that an international warrant has been issued for her arrest. Angie Sanselmente Valencia is a gorgeous 30-year-old brunette who set out to establish herself as the leader of a cartel that would use models and beauty queens to run drugs from South America to Europe. But she was a little too confident in her looks, and those of her underlings. Now, that hubris might lead to the dismantling of her fledging cartel, as the Argentine police claim to be hot on her tracks.

LBN-COMMENTARY By CHARLES M. BLOW: Recent data do not support the ubiquity of black crack-mom characters in the movies.

LBN-COMMENTARY By BILL O’REILLY: Rush Limbaugh recently mocked me because I do not call President Obama a socialist. Although I asked Obama to explain his “socialistic tenets” in my last interview with him, I have not branded him with the “S” word, because the label does not exactly apply to his governance thus far.

LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By LEONARDO DA VINCI: Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

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LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Daniel Radcliffe is lending his face to a public-service announcements for the Trevor Project, a hotline aimed at preventing suicide in gay teens. The Harry Potter star filmed the spots this week and said the decision to get involved came from his background growing up in acting circles. ***Brittany Murphy obtained a prescription for 120 hydrocodone (Vicodin) pills 11 days before her death and the day she died there were only 11 pills left in the bottle. What’s more is that we’ve learned the L.A. County Coroner’s Office cannot locate the doctor who prescribed the pills and they are on the hunt to find him. ***Nicolas Cage’s ex-business manager is caught up in a lawsuit between Nic and his baby mama — and he wants out. According to documents filed this week in Los Angeles Superior Court, Sam Levin — who himself is involved in a lawsuit with Cage — claims Christina Fulton’s allegations against him hold no merit. Fulton claims she suffered nearly $13 million in damages. Cage and Levin are involved in a bitter suit over Cage’s financial ruin. ***Jim Carrey has a new place to try out his comic material — the nursery. The 47-year-old actor is now a grandfather. Carrey’s daughter Jane, 22, gave birth to her first baby — a son named Jackson Riley Santana — early Friday morning, according to a media release.

LBN-DID YOU KNOW: ***The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. ***Hot dogs are the most widely consumed form of sausage in the USA. ***At the start of World War I, none of the participating forces issued metal helmets to their troops. ***A toaster uses almost half as much energy as a full-sized oven.

LBN-QUOTE: “The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.” - Robert Frost.

LBN-HISTORY: On Feb. 27, 1991, President George H.W. Bush declared that “Kuwait is liberated, Iraq’s army is defeated,” and announced that the allies would suspend combat operations at midnight.

LBN-FACESPACE:

1.   Name: David Ephraim.

2.   Which living person do you most despise? To “despise” someone is rather extreme. Anyone that is charged by focusing on the negative should really direct their energy in a more productive manner. Why do people spend most of their time with the things/people they least like?

3.   When and where were you happiest? What I do today, professionally, is very different from what I had ever anticipated. Gratification came the day I realized, this is it. This is what I do, I like it, and I’m good at it. My work is a big part of who I am and have become. I’m happy today because I got here. Personally, I am happiest when I know I am making a positive contribution to something worthwhile and have a positive impact on those about whom I care. For instance, when I help those in need of both professional and personal assistance I feed gratified. This can be at work, home, or at play!

4.   What is your profession? Whether it is you, your business, or product, ATAK Interactive tells the world what you have to offer. We make them like it, get it, and want it. We offer best in class website design, ecommerce solutions, custom programming, online marketing, and ongoing support for our customers.

5.   Which talent would you most like to have? I’d love to be musically inclined. I enjoy all music and would love to be able to play an instrument and perform.

6.   If you could be any fictional character, which one would you be and why? I’d be anyone of the Super Heroes because they espouse desires to help those who are in need. I do like Hiro Nakamura in the TV show “Heroes” on NBC because he can go back in time and teleport from place to place. If I had his power I wouldn’t over abuse the term “hindsight is 20/20.”

7.   What is your greatest regret? There are greater things to come. My past got me here and I have to remember every bit of it. I don’t regret what has passed.

8.   What are your favorite names? I like my name, David. I was named after my great-grandfather who overcame great challenges to take care of his family and make a life for all of us.

9.   One what occasion do you lie? I am concerned about using the word lie because honesty is very important to me. However, I am not so naive as to believe that there is never a time to bend the truth. I have complimented people when compliments may not have been necessary, bent the truth to avoid hurting someone I care about, and omitted telling the truth when doing so may have put someone in an uncomfortable situation.

10. Email and Website: David@atakinteractive.com , www.ATAKInteractive.com .

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FRIDAY • FEBRUARY 26, 2010

GATORADE DROPS TIGER WOODS:

PepsiCo’s Gatorade said Friday that it has ended its business relationship with Tiger Woods. “We no longer see a role for Tiger in our marketing efforts,” a Gatorade spokesman said. He added the company’s partnership with the Tiger Woods Foundation will continue.

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FRIDAY • FEBRUARY 26, 2010

OBAMA: HEALTH DEAL MAY NOT WORK: Was it all for naught? President Obama concluded Thursday’s health-care summit with Republicans by saying that he did not think a bipartisan deal with Republicans was likely and suggested Democrats would use reconciliation to pass it over a Republican filibuster. “We cannot have another yearlong debate about this,” Obama said. Particular sticking points were covering the uninsured and outlawing insurers from rejecting customers with preexisting conditions. “I don’t know frankly whether we can close that gap,” Obama said. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were expected to count votes in their caucuses after the summit.

DESPITE PRESSURE, CHINA STILL RESISTS IRAN SANCTIONS: Despite intense public and private pressure by the Obama administration, China has not yet shown any sign that it will support tougher sanctions against Iran, leaving a stubborn barrier before President Obama’s efforts to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Diplomats from two major European allies said this week that China had refused even to “engage substantively” on the issue of sanctions, preferring to continue diplomatic efforts with Tehran. And one senior diplomat said he believed that the most likely outcome might be a decision by China to abstain from voting on a resolution in the United Nations Security Council.

TWO BLASTS ROCK KABUL: Just one day after lifting an Afghan flag over Marja, the Taliban have claimed responsibility for a car bombing and suicide bombing in central Kabul that left at least 18 people dead and 32 wounded The New York Times reports. The car bomb hit a guesthouse popular with Indians, while suicide bombers descended on another guesthouse popular with Britons and Americans.

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OVER AND OUT: Embattled New York Gov. David Paterson will not seek full term in office, Democratic Party source say.

LBN READERS WIN AGAIN!: The House Ethics Committee found Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel violated House rules when he accepted trips to the Caribbean. Rangel’s jaunts are considered hidden financing by corporations, and were accepted in knowing violation of House rules. Yesterday afternoon, all 317,000 LBN E-Lert readers got the news. BEFORE Fox News, CNN, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times.

COMMON GROUND: President Obama and Congressional Republicans sparred over health care during an all-day televised forum, with Republicans repeatedly urging the president to scrap his bill and start over.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER: ***The Federal Reserve is examining the stratagems devised by Goldman Sachs and other big banks to help Greece mask its burgeoning debt over the last decade.

Kim Yu-Na Wins Gold: South Korea’s Kim Yu-Na triumphed Thursday, winning the Olympic gold with a record total score of 228.56 points after skating a 150.06 in the long-program and flawlessly executing a series of jumps, including the triple-flip. “I’ve been dreaming about this moment,” she said during a press conference. “I can’t believe this is not a dream any more.” Although Japan’s Mao Asada successfully performed two triple axels in the long program, she only managed the silver after slipping twice, errors that she said made her “full of regrets.”

KILLER WHALE TO BE SPARED: SeaWorld will keep Tilikum, the killer whale who killed a trainer in front of an audience on Wednesday, instead of destroying him or setting him free, MSNBC reports. The chief of animal training at SeaWorld said that the beast has been captive too long to return to the wild, and that he would not be killed because he is part of the amusement park’s breeding program and a companion to its seven other whales. SeaWorld has suspended all orca shows until it completes a review of how the trainers interact with the animals. One thing will definitely change: VIP visitors who were occasionally allowed to pet the whales will no longer do so.

WAGE LEVER: One in four Americans work for companies with federal contracts, and administration officials see an opportunity to lift more families into the middle class.

SIRIUS XM POSTS PROFIT, ITS FIRST SINCE MERGER: The satellite radio company Sirius XM Radio posted its first quarterly profit since its merger and said it expected to add 500,000 new subscribers in 2010 as the recovery in the car market increased demand. The results on Thursday suggest that the company, run by the media industry veteran Mel Karmazin, has solidified. Just a year ago, it flirted with bankruptcy.

SENATE HIJACKED—AGAIN: A rogue retiring GOP senator is single-handedly blocking a bill that would extend expiring unemployment benefits and health care payments to jobless Americans. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), largely considered a pariah within his own party after he was essentially forced by GOP leaders to retire this year rather than run for re-election, is demanding that the benefits be paid for with unused stimulus funds rather than add to the deficit.

GADDAFI CALLS FOR JIHAD AGAINST SWITZERLAND: Libya’s dispute with Switzerland was intensified Thursday after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi called for ‘jihad’ against the European nation “with all means” due to its referendum to ban minarets. “Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate, is against (the Prophet) Mohammad, God and the Koran,” Gaddafi said. “The masses of Muslims must go to all airports in the Islamic world and prevent any Swiss plane landing, to all harbors and prevent any Swiss ships docking, inspect all shops and markets to stop any Swiss goods being sold.”

NYC CANCELS SCHOOL: A whole bunch of kids must have done their snow dances: New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg canceled school for the city’s 1.1 million public school students on Friday after a massive snowstorm dumped 10 inches of fluff on the city, with more slated to come.

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REPORT: CRIST TO BOLT GOP: Sinking in the polls against his Republican primary opponent, Marco Rubio, and branded as unacceptably moderate by conservative activists throughout the country, Governor (and LBN reader) Charlie Crist’s time with the GOP may have finally come to an end. According to a report by Jack Funari of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, sources say Crist is laying the groundwork for an independent bid in order to bypass his contest with Rubio. His recent behavior certainly indicates as much: After being hammered in his primary over his early praise for President Obama and his backing of the stimulus bill, Crist forcefully doubled down on his decisions earlier this month despite their extreme unpopularity among Republicans.

LBN-NOTICED: ***Nadya “Octomom” Suleman let loose Wednesday after her appearance on “The View”. The mother of 14 showed up at Greenhouse in NYC with a fur vest-wearing, Birkin handbag- toting male companion and a photographer pal about 11 p.m., drank water, and left by 12:30 a.m. The trio returned at 3 a.m. and drank shots at the bar. ***Mike Myers wearing a Canadian jersey as he watched his Canadian hockey team beat the Russians at the Blue Seats Sports Bar on Ludlow Street in NYC. ***Astor trial juror Judi DeMarco –who says she voted to convict Anthony Marshall after being threatened by another juror — enjoying drinks with friends at Pete McManus’ bar on 17th and 19th in NYC. ***Renee Zellweger tying a blond labrador to a tree outside Le Pain Quotidien on Madison in NYC, telling a fan it’s her boyfriend’s dog. (Bradley Cooper has a German shorthaired pointer and a chow-retriever mix). ***Rant columnist Ericka T. Bass singing “God Bless America” at the Hamburger Hamlet on the Sunset Strip last night around 11p.m. She had not been drinking. ***Before returning to London Jude Law was spotted sunning at “Do Brazil” on Shell Beach , St Barth’s along with a group of male and lovely female friends.. ***Sarah Jessica Parker at the Nations Capitol for the 2009 National Arts and Humanities Medal Ceremony last night. *** Nicole Kidman was spotted mingling with fellow guests at the Beverly Hilton Hotel for the 12th Annual Costume Designers Guild Awards. ***Jimmy Fallon arrives in Vancouver to tape his show, “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” during the Winter Olympics. ***Anne Hathaway turned up for the world premiere of Alice in Wonderland at London’s Odeon Leicester Square on Thursday. ***BE AN LBN CORRESPONDENT- Send your celebrity sightings to: LBNElert@TimeWire.net.