LBN Archive

WARNING SIGNS IGNORED AT JPMORGAN: Risk managers and senior investment bankers reportedly expressed concern over the risky bets being made at JPMorgan Chase in the years leading up to the company’s $2 billion trading loss. Insiders say bosses, including CEO Jamie Dimon, were more concerned with gigantic losses coming from bad mortgages and new regulations threatening the profitability of traditional banking, and this led to a culture of weaker risk management. “There was a lopsided situation, between really risky positions and relatively weaker risk managers,” one former trader told The New York Times. Meanwhile, reports indicate that the bank may be reclaiming bonuses from employees involved in the snafu, including former chief investment officer Ina Drew, who resigned on Monday as a result of the loss.

POLL: ROMNEY LEADS OVER OBAMA: Mitt Romney lept ahead of President Obama in a new nationwide poll Monday. The New York Times/CBS poll showed Romney at 46 percent and Obama at 43 percent. Last month the poll had found the two tied at 46 percent. 26 percent of respondents said that they were less likely to vote for Obama because of his position on same-sex marriage, while only 16 percent said that his announcement had made them more likely to vote for him. Additionally, most of those polled think Obama’s new found support of same-sex marriage is politically motivated. Meanwhile, 67 percent of those polled think he made the announcement “mostly for political reasons,” while only 24 percent think he did it “mostly because he thinks it was right.” President Obama’s claim that the GOP is mounting a war on women has proven to be a failure. A month into his assault on the Republicans and Mitt Romney, the new CBS-New York Times poll shows that the GOP presidential candidate now leads among women–and men.

IRAN EXECUTES ACCUSED ISRAELI SPY: Iran said on Tuesday that it had executed a man accused of being an Israeli intelligence agent responsible for the assassination of one of its nuclear scientists, Iranian state media reported.  Press TV, a satellite broadcaster, identified the man as Majid Jamali Fashi and said he had been convicted of killing the scientist, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, in January 2010. Mr. Mohammadi was a 50-year-old professor at Tehran University whose role in Tehran’s nuclear program was unclear. At the time of his death, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said he had no role in the nuclear program.

NEWS CORP AIDE BROOKS FACES HACKING CHARGE : U.K. prosecutors said they will charge Rebekah Brooks, the former head of News Corp.’s British newspaper unit, with conspiring to obstruct justice, marking the first charges filed in a criminal investigation into wrongdoing at the U.S. media company’s British tabloids.

FRANCE’S HOLLANDE SWORN IN : François Hollande was sworn in Tuesday morning as the president of France, becoming the first Socialist to hold the office in 17 years. Hollande asked that the inauguration ceremony remain as low-key as possible, and neither his children nor those of his partner, Valérie Trierweiler, were there. On Tuesday afternoon Hollande will name his prime minister, and then he will fly to Germany for talks on the Greek crisis with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

COLORADO CIVIL UNION BILL KILLED: A bill that would have allowed same-sex couples equal rights as married couples was killed on Monday night in a special legislative session. Although the bill had been likely to pass the state’s House of Representatives, Republicans rejected it, claiming the Democrats are trying to use it as an issue before the November elections. The bill went to the special committee known as the “kill committee”—because its members are in safe seats and can kill any bill they wish—on Monday morning by the GOP leadership.

OBAMA’S SWITCH ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE STIRS SKEPTICISM: Most Americans suspect that President Obama was motivated by politics, not policy, when he declared his support for same-sex marriage, according to a poll released on Monday, suggesting that the unplanned way it was announced shaped public attitudes.  Sixty-seven percent of those surveyed by The New York Times and CBS News since the announcement said they thought that Mr. Obama had made it “mostly for political reasons,” while 24 percent said it was “mostly because he thinks it is right.” Independents were more likely to attribute it to politics, with nearly half of Democrats agreeing.

FACEBOOK DISMISSED AS FAD BY HALF OF AMERICANS: Half of Americans think Facebook is a passing fad, according to a new poll by the Associated Press and CNBC. In the run-up to the social network’s initial public offering, half of Americans also say the social network’s expected asking price is too high.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER:   ***Improvements in technology and deal variety helped Groupon post a nearly 90% increase in revenue during the first quarter, giving the company a much-needed boost after weeks of stock declines. The daily deals site reported first-quarter revenue of $559.3 million.

CHAIRMAN OF BEST BUY RESIGNS AFTER AN INTERNAL AUDIT: The founder of Best Buy, Richard M. Schulze, has resigned as chairman after an internal investigation released on Monday said that he knew about a former chief executive’s improper relationship with an employee but did not report it to the board.  The former chief executive, Brian J. Dunn, who abruptly resigned in April, “violated company policy by engaging in an extremely close personal relationship with a female employee that negatively impacted the work environment,” the report by the company’s audit committee said. Mr. Dunn, 51, is married with children, and the employee in question was a 29-year-old female subordinate who still works at Best Buy.

BLAGO’S WIFE DESCRIBES PRISON VISIT: Patti Blagojevich, the wife of imprisoned former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, wrote a Facebook post on Monday night describing the prison visiting room as “one of the saddest places on Earth.” Blagojevich wrote that she had visited her husband at the Littleton, Colo., Englewood facility over the weekend, and that her husband was “so happy to see the [sic] us,” presumably meaning herself and the couple’s two daughters. But, she wrote, “that visiting room has to be one of the saddest places on Earth. All those little kids visiting their dads. It breaks your heart.” Rod Blagojevich began his 14-year prison sentence in March, and his lawyers said he has been put on cleaning detail washing pots and pans.

‘SWAMP PEOPLE’ CAST MEMBER DIES: Mitchell Guist, one of the stars of the History Channel reality series Swamp People, died Monday night, a Louisiana sheriff said. Assumption Parish Sheriff Mike Waguespack said Guist had fallen while aboard his boat on the Intercoastal Waterway, near Pierre Part, La. The cause of his fall, and the cause of his death, is still unknown. Swamp People features residents of Louisiana’s Atchafalaya swamp country during alligator-hunting season. The network said Guist turned 49 on Friday.

SURFER’S RECORD-BREAKING RIDE: Professional surfer Garrett McNamara’s heart pounding ride on a massive wave off the coast of Portugal has given him more than just a thrill—it has earned him a place in the record books. Experts reviewed footage of the Hawaiian surfer’s feat and calculated the wave’s height to be a towering 78 feet (24 meters). According to Guinness World Records, it was the biggest wave ever ridden, beating the previous record, set in 2008, by more than a foot.

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER: ***On at least four occasions, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews mocked Sarah Palin for how he felt she’d do if she were ever on the hit television game show Jeopardy!. In a delicious example of instant karma, the self-proclaimed brainiac got his chance to show America how smart he was in a special “Power Players” version of the show Monday, but came up quite short finishing dead last with the paltry sum of only $2,300.

WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? Seven (7) members of the NFL Commissioners office along with 474,000 “influencers” in all 50 states and 11 separate time zones.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: Contrary to popular belief, suicide rates during the Christmas holiday are low. The highest rates are during the spring.

LBN-MUSIC INSIDER:   ***Saturday Night Live has set the stage for its season finale this weekend — and a star-studded stage it’ll be: Host Mick Jagger will perform with Foo Fighters, Jeff Beck and Arcade Fire live from New York on Saturday. There had been rumors — perhaps just hopeful speculation — that the NBC late-night staple might be setting for the first public performance by The Rolling Stones since their marathon A Bigger Bang tour ended in August 2007. The group is marking its 50th anniversary this year and has been rehearsing recently, but Keith Richards says he won’t be joining his bandmate on the show.

LBN-BOOK NEWS:   ***Bookstore sales fell 3.7% in March, to $922 million, according to preliminary estimates released Tuesday morning by the Census Bureau. For the first quarter of 2012, bookstore sales fell 2.3%, to $3.94 billion. Store sales fell in every month of the quarter. For the entire retail segment, sales rose 7.7% in the month and 9.8% for the quarter.   ***Random House imprint Vintage Books has announced that “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Truman Capote’s classic New York City novella, will be released as an e-book for the first time. Other Capote favorites, including “Music for Chameleons,” also will debut in digital form.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER:   ***CBS has ordered a sitcom for next season called “Friend Me,” which is said to be inspired by Groupon. The series will star Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Nicholas Braun as “best friends who move to Los Angeles to begin their exciting new lives working at Groupon.”   ***CNN plans to launch a feature film banner called CNN Films that will develop “tentpole” non-fiction films for TV and theatrical release. The plan is to pursue well-known documentarians and filmmakers to produce the features. The first films are expected out next year.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: Some sharks can bite hard enough to cut through a thick piece of steel. Like lions and other predators, sharks usually kill only when they are hungry, which isn’t very often. Some sharks can live a year without eating, living off the oil they stored in their bodies.

LBN-SPORTS INSIDER:   ***Torii Hunter was placed on the Los Angeles Angels’ restricted list Monday after his teenage son was arrested in Texas. The town of Prosper, Texas, issued a news release announcing 17-year-old Darius McClinton-Hunter of neighboring McKinney, Texas, was arrested Monday in a sexual assault case.

l,LBN: Gay activist, Ms. Ricky, an LBN E-Lert reader from Waco, Texas

LBN-COMMENTARY By CHUCK OJEDA (Sports Writer): Of the three LA franchises fighting hard to remain in the post-season, who would have imagined the number eight seeded NHL Kings would have the strongest chance to advance?  After dropping the number one and two seeds to stay alive, the Kings are one game up on their final opponent before competing for the Stanley Cup.  How did they manage to stay so far under the radar?  DEFENSE.  Saves are never as sexy to the media as scoring goals so the underrated goalie Jonathan Quick’s breathtaking stops have largely gone unnoticed, but are now paying dividend.

LBN-COMMENTARY by Thomas Sowell: When two white newspaper reporters for the Virginian-Pilot were driving through Norfolk, and were set upon and beaten by a mob of young blacks — beaten so badly that they had to take a week off from work — that might seem to have been news that should have been reported, at least by their own newspaper. But it wasn’t. “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News Channel was the first major television program to report this incident. Yet this story is not just a Norfolk story, either in what happened or in how the media and the authorities have tried to sweep it under the rug.

LBN-COMMENTARY By DAVID BROOKS: Two of the nation’s smartest analysts have just come out with reports on how the presidential election looks six months out. Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution argues that at this point President Obama has a modest advantage over Mitt Romney. The pollster Peter D. Hart says that “this election is no better than a 50-50 proposition for the president.”  But when I look at the data, a slightly different question comes to mind: Why is Obama even close? If you look at the fundamentals, the president should be getting crushed right now.

LBN-NOTICED:   ***It was family day for former Bachelor star Ben Flajnik on Saturday. With fiancée Courtney Robertson in tow, Flajnik was also joined by his mom Barbara and sister Julia at Joico’s On the Go Beauty event on the rooftop of the Thompson hotel in Beverly Hills.   ***No need to purloin pearls and diamonds like her Dark Knight Rises alter ego, Catwoman – Anne Hathaway’s Friday shopping spree in Miami was entirely on the up-and-up.  Still sporting her super-short haircut for her role in the upcoming movie adaptation of Les Miserables, she indulged herself at the luxe South Beach boutique The Webster, where she bought a cardigan sweater and her very first Azzedine Alaïa dress. The actress, 29, was accompanied by her lovey-dovey fiance Adam Shulman, legendary fashion designer Valentino, and polo player Nacho Figueras and his wife Delfina Balquier. ***Drew Barrymore and Will Kopelman hosted a swanky engagement bash for 300 guests — including Barrymore’s “Charlie’s Angels” co-star Cameron Diaz — at the Press Lounge rooftop in Hell’s Kitchen in NYC on Friday. ***Elin Nordegren’s romance with wealthy businessman Jamie Dingman continues to quietly heat up. Tiger Woods’ ex and Dingman — who’ve been dating for a year — were spotted on Saturday acting cozy while they watched Dingman’s pal Henrik Lundqvist help the Rangers polish off the Capitals in Game 7.   ***“Survivor: One World” winner Kim Spradlin passing on Armand de Brignac Ace of Spades Champagne for water at a season- finale bash at the Dream Midtown’s Ava Lounge.   ***STEVIE Wonder with wife Kai Milla “enjoying mani-pedis” at Bellacures in LA.   ***KARMIN’S Amy Heidemann with Seventeen editor Annebet Duvall at the Steve Madden Music Summer Concert Series at his Ludlow Street shop.   ***ROBIN Williams, Steve Martin and Matt Stone at “One Man, Two Guvnors.”

LBN-OPENING THE EYES OF 474,000 “INFLUENCERS” IN ALL 50 OF THE UNITED STATES AND 25 FOREIGN COUNTRIES DAILY:

LBN-OVERHEARD:   ***New job, new hair color! At the FOX upfronts in New York City on Monday, Demi Lovato was announced as one of the new X Factor judges — and debuted new blonde locks, too. Before her trip to New York, the singer popped into West Hollywood’s Nine Zero One Salon Friday night, where her hair was transformed from brunette to blonde and blonde extensions were added.   ***Hilary Swank is ready to touch gloves and come out fightin’ — she’s filed a lawsuit against a company in Southern California for allegedly using pics of her from “Million Dollar Baby” in their ads … without her permission. According to a lawsuit filed last week in L.A. Superior Court, Swank says a company called Robert’s Home Audio and Video used pictures of her in their ad campaign without prior consent, a violation of her right of publicity.

LBN-THIS DAY IN HISTORY: US Department of Agriculture Is Created (1862)

US President Abraham Lincoln created the Department of Agriculture, which he referred to as the “people’s department,” at a time when most Americans were farmers. It played a key role in the survival of many during the Depression, and today it continues to ensure that those in need receive food. It also aids farmers, inspects meat and dairy products, oversees food stamp and school lunch programs, and administers national forests.

LBN-TODAY’S BIRTHDAY: Richard Avedon (1923) A major figure in fashion photography, Avedon studied photography in the US Merchant Marine. He became a regular contributor to Harper’s Bazaar in the 1940’s and was later associated with Vogue. Known for his stark, black-and-white portraits of people in unusual poses.

HUSBAND OF 9/11 VICTIM GOES TO GITMO TO SPARE PLOTTERS FROM DEATH SENTENCE: The husband of a woman killed on 9/11 went to Guantanamo Bay on a shocking secret mission — to try to save the lives of the al-Qaeda monsters who planned the murder.  Blake Allison — one of 10 relatives of victims to win a lottery for tickets to the arraignment of confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his evil accomplices — had told people he was making the trip because “I wanted to see the faces of the people accused of murdering my wife.’’ But while there, the 62-year-old wine-company executive held a clandestine meeting with the terrorists’ lawyers, in which he offered to testify against putting their clients to death.  A vocal critic of capital punishment, Allison wants to convince the US government to spare the lives of KSM and his minions even if a military commission convicts them of a slew of death-penalty charges.

OUT: JPMorgan Chase’s $2 billion trading blunder not only fanned the fires of tighter bank regulation, it led Monday to the resignation of the bank’s chief investment officer, Ina Drew.

MORE FUN IN MEXICO – AT LEAST 49 MORE MUTILATED BODIES FOUND DUMPED IN MEXICO: The latest atrocity in the Mexico drug wars is the remains of at least 43 men and six women found in plastic garbage bags near the town of Cadereyta Jimenez, on the side of a highway that runs between Monterrey and Nuevo Laredo on the U.S. border. Most of the victims had been decapitated and their hands and feet cut off. The condition of the bodies makes it difficult to determine exactly how many people are there. They appear based on tattoos and evidence at the scene to be members of a drug cartel and likely were killed by a rival cartel. It follows by a week or so the discovery of nine bodies hanging from a highway overpass near Nuevo Laredo and 14 others decapitated and stuffed in bags. Earlier this month, 15 more bodies were discovered on the road to Chapala, a popular retirement community for Americans.

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GREEK EURO EXIT ‘NOT ATTRACTIVE’: Beware the Greeks, especially bearing debt. Officials in the euro zone are weighing their options Monday as politicians in Greece continue to struggle to form a government that would enable the next tranche of bailout money for the country. Patrick Honohan, a member of the European Central Bank Governing Council, said the prospect of Greece withdrawing from the currency “is not necessarily fatal, but it is not attractive.”

AFTER OBAMA’S DECISION ON MARRIAGE, A CALL TO PASTORS:  About two hours after declaring his support for same-sex marriage last week, President Obama gathered eight or so African-American ministers on a conference call to explain himself. He had struggled with the decision, he said, but had come to believe it was the right one.  The ministers, though, were not all as enthusiastic. A vocal few made it clear that the president’s stand on gay marriage might make it difficult for them to support his re-election.

NEWSWEEK COVER: OBAMA IS ‘FIRST GAY PRESIDENT’: Just days after President Obama affirmed his support of gay marriage, Newsweek has given him a new title: “The First Gay President,” according to the cover of the new issue. Rival Time magazine released its controversial breast-feeding cover last week.

EDWARDS DEFENSE SET TO BEGIN: The John Edwards trial will be gaveled back into session Monday as lawyers for the onetime North Carolina senator begin his defense on six counts of alleged campaign-finance violations. The prosecution has said that Edwards misused $1 million from two donors to cover up that he had a pregnant mistress while on the 2008 campaign trail for the Democratic presidential nomination. Scheduled witnesses include Scott Thomas, a former Federal Election Commission chairman, as well as Harrison Hickman, a pollster. Edwards could face up to 30 years in prison if found guilty.

THERE IS SO MUCH MORE: Visit the LBN *agenda* Blog – click here.

INSURERS KEEP AN EYE ON FRACKING: Environmentalists say hydraulic fracturing will end the world in a whoosh of lethal contaminants, while drillers say it will save the American economy and inaugurate a utopia of oil and gas. In all the blowback and bluster associated with the controversial drilling technique, oil- and gas-company insurers find themselves wondering just how to assess the risks involved. “From an insurance standpoint, it’s really hard to underwrite something with a lot of uncertainty,” said Jeffrey Hanneman, director of Aon Risk Solutions.

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: Norway is just one of the 25 foreign countries with daily LBN E-Lert readers.

TIME MAGAZINE COVER WINS SUBSCRIPTION ORDERS REPORTS MEDIA EXPERT: Time magazine’s “Are You Mom Enough?” cover showing a mother breast-feeding her three-year-old son generated an enormous surge of talk late last week according to media expert and author Michael Levine. “The newsweekly said it sold more online subscriptions Thursday than it did all of last week” said Levine.

MOST CHILD DEATHS DUE TO PREVENTABLE INFECTION: Of the 7.6 million children under the age of five who died in 2010, two-thirds succumbed to infectious diseases that are largely preventable. Half of the child deaths occurred in Africa, with India, Pakistan, and China accounting for much of the rest. Despite the fact that the past decade has seen significant reductions in the leading causes of death, including diarrhea, measles, and pneumonia, pneumonia remained the leading cause of death in young children in 2010. Given the findings, experts believe that few countries will reach UN targets for reducing child mortality by the 2015 deadline.

CASTAWAY SUES U.S. CRUISE LINE: One U.S. cruise line has a litigious Robinson Crusoe on its hands. Eighteen-year-old Panamanian fisherman Adrian Vazquez says he and two others were stranded for 16 days after the motor on their fishing boat broke. Then, on March 10, they saw a cruise liner approach and called for help, but the ship, owned by Princess Cruises, allegedly passed them by. Vazquez’s two companions died in the nearly two weeks that followed before Vazquez was finally picked up near the Galápagos Islands. According to Princess, passengers aboard the cruise liner never told the captain they had seen a stranded boat

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER:   ***Reed Business Information, the publisher behind Variety, said it has put its “pariah” status behind it as more than half of its money will come from online subscriptions this year. Variety has attracted interest from “scores” of potential bidders, including Hollywood moguls.   ***The Daily News has shut down its weekly Spanish-language publication, Hora Hispana, just a little more than a year after relaunching it. Hora Hispana was discontinued “because there wasn’t enough advertising to support it,” according to a spokesman.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER:   ***Before resigning as CEO of Yahoo over the weekend, Scott Thompson is said to have disclosed to the company’s board of directors that he has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. The decision to step down from Yahoo was in part influenced by the cancer diagnosis.   ***Did you know that 11 leading executives from The Ford   Motor Company read the LBN E-Lert daily?   ***Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose limited role in promoting the No. 1 social network’s market debut has drawn criticism, has laid out its growth strategy to investors, saying that transforming its mobile and advertising experience are top priorities in 2012.

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WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? The Rev. Joel C. Hunter, the pastor of a conservative megachurch in Florida along with 474,000 “influencers” in all 50 states and 11 separate time zones.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: Gold is so rare that the world pours more steel in an hour than it has poured gold since the beginning of recorded history.

LBN-MUSIC INSIDER:   ***Spurred on by her recent estimated $30 million contract extension with Sony Music, Barbra Streisand has been approached by label execs to record an album of duets with young, hip artists, including Adele and Rihanna.

LBN-BOOK NEWS:   ***Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the educational and trade publisher in Boston, has agreed with most of its creditors to eliminate $3.1 billion of debt and enter a prearranged Chapter 11 bankruptcy process. The publisher has struggled financially for years, laden with debt.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER:   ***CBS said “CSI: Miami” won’t return to the network’s broadcast schedule next season. The crime drama will continue to be sold as reruns to other networks and will become available through CBS’s digital distribution deals, which include streaming on Netflix.

LBN-SEE IT: Kerry Washington stars as a political fixer—and former mistress to the President—in ABC’s “Scandal.”

L.A. OVERSPENDS BY $27,378 AN HOUR; TWO KEY PERKS: FREE GAS AND CARS: Visit the LBN *agenda* Blog – click here.

LBN-COMMENTARY By PAUL KRUGMAN: One of the characters in the classic 1939 film “Stagecoach” is a banker named Gatewood who lectures his captive audience on the evils of big government, especially bank regulation — “As if we bankers don’t know how to run our own banks!” he exclaims. As the film progresses, we learn that Gatewood is in fact skipping town with a satchel full of embezzled cash.  As far as we know, Jamie Dimon, the chairman and C.E.O. of JPMorgan Chase, isn’t planning anything similar. He has, however, been fond of giving Gatewood-like speeches about how he and his colleagues know what they’re doing, and don’t need the government looking over their shoulders. So there’s a large heap of poetic justice — and a major policy lesson — in JPMorgan’s shock announcement that it somehow managed to lose $2 billion in a failed bit of financial wheeling-dealing.

LBN-COMMENTARY By THOMAS B. EDSALL: As the American political classes become more polarized, with faction pitted against faction, there is a consolidating force at work in the $6 billion-a-year influence-peddling industry. Once a free-wheeling, if ethically challenged, crowd of men (and almost no women), who swapped stories about their clients over Jack Daniels, these expert manipulators of the legislative process and of public opinion have become corporate employees. Slowly but surely, WPP, an immense international holding company based in London — with a workforce of 158,000 in 107 countries and 2011 billings of $72.3 billion — has been buying up Washington’s top lobbying, public relations, advertising and political strategy firms.

LBN-COMMENTARY By DAVID FRUM (Contributor, Newsweek/Daily Beast): Barack Obama is foreign. Oh yeah? Mitt Romney is a bully. Think the U.S. presidential election will be about the economy? Think again.

LBN-COMMENTARY By TONY BLAIR (Former Prime Minister of Britain): I can, without reducing my Christian commitment, surely accept that someone else, brought up in a different tradition, holds a different set of beliefs, holds them as strongly as I hold mine, and I can respect that person and his/her right to believe as he/she does.

I, LBN: Nurse Roberta A., an LBN E-Lert reader from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

LBN-NOTICED:   ***Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet and designer Jason Wu dancing with Theory designer Olivier Theyskens at new Chelsea rooftop hot spot La Piscine in NYC.   ***Bono, Sting, Robert De Niro and Stephen Sondheim at the Broadway musical “Once,” nominated for 11 Tonys.

LBN-OVERHEARD:   ***Sarah Hyland is young, beautiful and on a hit TV show – but the Modern Family actress has been quietly battling a serious illness. Hyland, 21, has had a lifelong battle with kidney dysplasia and underwent a kidney transplant on April 13, 2012.   ***Morgan Spurlock — who famously consumed only McDonald’s food for one month for his breakout “Super Size Me” — has never met a promotional stunt he didn’t like. At the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of his latest film, “Mansome,” on men’s grooming, he had shaved off his trademark red mustache.   ***Guards rushed to save O.J. Simpson’s life as he collapsed with stroke-like symptoms at Nevada’s Love­lock Correctional Center recently. The frightening incident left the fall­en football legend badly shaken, and he’s vowing to take better care of his health from now on, say sources.

DISGRACE – CALIFORNIA FACES $16B SHORTFALL: Taxes will have to increase or cuts will be made to fill the $16 billion hole in California’s budget, Gov. Jerry Brown said Saturday. “This means we will have to go much farther and make cuts far greater than I asked for at the beginning of the year,” Brown said, as the state struggles to make up shortfalls in taxed income. In the online video, the governor appealed directly to the state’s taxpayers, saying that “we can’t fill this hole with cuts alone without doing severe damage to our schools.” Republican state lawmakers argued against the governor’s plan, saying that the state would be better served by leaving taxpayers alone and allowing the economy to grow.

NO NEED FOR WAR TO ‘DESTROY’ ISRAEL: AHMADINEJAD: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that war was not essential to achieve the destruction of Israel, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported. “The destruction of the Zionist regime does not necessitate making war,” he said in a speech during a tour of northeast Iran. “If countries of the region cut ties with the Zionists and give them dirty looks, it will spell the end of this puppet regime,” said the hardline Iranian leader. Ahmadinejad, who is known for making fiery speeches against Iran’s archfoe Israel, has dubbed the Jewish state a “cancerous tumor” which is destined to be eliminated from the region.

JAMIE DIMON ON MEET THE PRESS: WE WERE ‘DEAD WRONG’ TO DIMISS TRADING CONCERNS:  The CEO of JPMorgan Chase, which disclosed a $2 billion loss last week, said he was “dead wrong” when he dismissed concerns about the bank’s trading last month. CEO Jamie Dimon said he did not know the extent of the problem when he said in April that the concerns were a “tempest in a teapot.” After the bank reported the trading loss, investors shaved almost 10 percent off the bank’s stock price.

AFGHAN PEACEMAKER KILLED IN KABUL: A onetime Taliban leader who defected to work for peace was shot dead Sunday in what seems to have been a drive-by shooting in the capital of Kabul. The Taliban has denied involvement in the killing of Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, a senior member of the country’s High Peace Council who police said was sitting in traffic when gunmen drove up alongside him and opened fire. Rahmani, who was appointed to his position on the council by President Hamid Karzai, was traveling to a meeting in the capital’s high-security diplomatic center when he was killed. No one had been arrested Sunday in the shooting.

DID YOU KNOW? Did you know that nine (9) leading executives of the Lipton Tea Company read the LBN E-Lert daily?

U.S. MAY SCRAP COSTLY EFFORTS TO TRAIN IRAQI POLICE:  In the face of spiraling costs and Iraqi officials who say they never wanted it in the first place, the State Department has slashed — and may jettison entirely by the end of the year — a multibillion-dollar police training program that was to have been the centerpiece of a hugely expanded civilian mission here.  What was originally envisioned as a training cadre of about 350 American law enforcement officers was quickly scaled back to 190 and then to 100. The latest restructuring calls for 50 advisers, but most experts and even some State Department officials say even they may be withdrawn by the end of this year

GREEK PRESIDENT HOLDS FINAL TALKS: Matters may be out of Karolos Papoulias’s hands. The Greek president will meet with the leaders of other political parties Sunday in a last-ditch bid to form a unity government in the country where voters are outraged by austerity measures. “Things in Greece are quite difficult,” Papoulias told the press Sunday.

SEARCH ON FOR ROGUE FBI AGENT: The search is on in Southern California for FBI Special Agent Stephen Ivens, who is said to be despondent and may be suicidal, according to law enforcement. More than 150 FBI agents, rescuers, and other officers were engaged in the search late Saturday for Ivens, who is said to be a recreational hiker. The 35-year-old has been missing since he left his home in Burbank Thursday, and it is feared that Ivens may be emotionally disturbed and armed with a handgun. The former Los Angeles police officer has worked with the FBI for three years in the bureau’s national-security division and is married with a 1-year-old child.

SPANIARDS RALLY AGAINST AUSTERITY: Spanish protesters took to the streets Saturday to protest the cuts politicians have made in trying to right Europe’s teetering economy. In Madrid, thousands of protesters gathered in a plaza and aimed to settle in for the night, but were greeted by riot police. As many as 20,000 people are estimated to have demonstrated in Barcelona alone.

WARNING SHOT GETS FL WOMAN 20 YEARS: In a ruling that seems to have little ground on which to stand, Marissa Alexander of Jacksonville, Fla., was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot to frighten her bullying husband. Alexander tried to defend herself using Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which came to national attention after a neighborhood watchman shot Florida teen Trayvon Martin in February. The case was prosecuted by Angela Corey, the same Florida prosecutor who is handling the case against Martin’s shooter. Congresswoman Corrine Brown accosted Corey after the sentencing, telling the state attorney, “There is no justification for 20 years. All the community was asking for was mercy and justice.”

DALAI LAMA FEARS SHARK ATTACK: Being reincarnated as a shark is one thing—being eaten by one is another. “Long flights, those I really feared, but now I’m used to them,” Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, revealed in a new profile in The Telegraph. “The fear now is that I never learnt to swim so if the plane crashes on water, I would immediately go deep under the sea and be enjoyed by a shark.” The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists and until recently head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, the Dalai Lama has continued to be a gadfly to the Chinese government since being driven out of his home country in 1959.

F.A.A. CHIEF WHO QUIT IS CLEARED OF CHARGES: A judge in Virginia has cleared the former chief of the Federal Aviation Administration of the drunken driving charges that cost him his job at the agency.  Judge Ian M. O’Flaherty of Fairfax County General District Court dismissed the charges against J. Randolph Babbitt, the former F.A.A. administrator, who resigned in December after he was arrested and accused of driving while intoxicated and driving the wrong way on a highway in Northern Virginia.

WITHOUT LBN, YOUR LIFE IS IN THE TOILET:

WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? Film producer Adam Christing along with 474,000 other “influencers” in all 50 states and 11 separate time zones.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: There were 10 million singles mothers living with children younger than 18 in 2011, up from 3.4 million in 1970.

LBN-THINK AGAIN:

LBN-MUSIC INSIDER:   ***Lil Wayne buried the hatchet with another disgruntled producer this week … this time settling a $1.5 million dollar lawsuit over the track “Love Me or Hate Me.” The producer in question — David Kirkwood — sued Lil Wayne, Cash Money Records and Young Money Entertainment in 2011 … claiming they owed him royalties on “Love me or Hate Me” from “The Carter III” album. Lil Wayne initially fought back, asking a judge to dismiss the case. But then the rapper, along with CM and YME, decided to settle out of court with Kirkwood for an undisclosed amount.   ***Two people have been charged with extortion after police detectives say they arrested the pair for trying to sell what they said was embarrassing information about Stevie Wonder. The duo, Alpha Lorenzo Walker and his girlfriend Tamara Eileen Diaz, have been jailed since their arrest on May 2. Both have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to appear in court on May 16 for a hearing in which a judge will decide whether there is enough evidence for them to stand trial.

LBN-SPORTS INSIDER:   ***Metta comes back from suspension, plays more than 40 minutes, frustrates the Nuggets on defense and sinks 15 points. “He changed the game,” Kobe says. Pau Gasol led the Lakers with 23 points. The Lakers survive game 7, 96-87, and will open the next round Monday in Oklahoma City.

I, LBN: Comedy writer Mark Miller, an LBN E-Lert reader from Los Angeles, California.

LBN-COMMENTARY By ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: As I follow the modern Greek tragedy unfolding in Europe, I flash back to the 18 years I spent in Athens, walking to school in Plaka (the old part of the city), on the same streets that have recently been filled with protesters and violent clashes.  When I was growing up, my family was a tiny microcosm of the current Greek economy. We were heavily in debt; my father’s repeated attempts to own a newspaper ended in failure and bankruptcy. Eventually, my mother took my sister and me and left him. We all lived in Athens and we continued to see my father, though we had our own one-bedroom apartment. (It wasn’t the bankruptcy that got to my mom in the end, but the philandering; “I don’t want you interfering in my private life,” my father had told her when she complained.)

LBN-NOTICED:   ***Scarlett Johansson enjoyed a girls’ night out without boyfriend Nate Naylor Thursday night at Hotel Americano in NYC. “The Avengers” actress joined socialite Pippa Cohen at Cohen’s birthday party at La Piscine on the rooftop.   ***A newly slimmed down Janet Jackson had no fears about going to dinner with a candy queen. The singer, the new face of NutriSystem, was spotted dining with Dylan Lauren, the founder of Dylan’s Candy Bar, at Sushi Seki on First Avenue in NYC Thursday night.   ***Chelsea Clinton and husband Marc Mezvinsky got a gastronomic tour of one hot spot with the celeb chef of another food mecca last week. The couple was seen dining at Acme on Great Jones Street in NYC Wednesday night with Momofuku mastermind David Chang.

LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

LBN-OVERHEARD:   ***A sex tape which is said to feature male supermodel Tyson Beckford is being shopped around the adult entertainment community. Sources say the seller insists the 45-minute tape shows the former Polo model pleasuring himself during a recent Internet video chat with a female model.   ***Less than 24 hours after William Balfour was found guilty of murdering her mother, brother and nephew … Jennifer Hudson and her husband David Otunga hit up a Six Flags Great America in Chicago. After three days of deliberations, Balfour was convicted of 1st degree murder in the deaths of Darnell Donerson, Jason Hudson, and Julian King. Balfour was also convicted of home invasion and residential burglary.

JP MORGAN FOUGHT FOR LOOPHOLE: The first rule of gambling is to know when to fold ’em. But after the creation of the Volcker Rule, a regulatory law meant to prevent overly risky trading, JPMorgan Chase sent lobbyist to Washington to argue for loopholes that would allow for trades much like those that led to a $2 billion loss announced by the bank on Friday. Bank chief executive Jamie Dimon and other members of upper management paid regular visits to lawmakers to argue that, while they thought some parts of the rule were useful, others would hurt the bank’s ability to hedge against risk. The result, said Senator Carl Levin, was a “big enough loophole that a Mack truck could drive right through it.

ANTI-BAILOUT GREEK PARTY LEADS POLL: Chaos is, after all, is derived from Greek. And the political landscape of the country continued to shift this week as SYRIZA, a hard-left party led polls, but seemed to be losing support to more moderate parties that support the country’s bailout. In a vote last Sunday that was widely seen as a referendum against the unpopular international bailout, voters kept any one party from forming a majority, effectively stalling the next stage of aid.

A SIMPLE QUESTION?: Do you have the GUTS to forward this LBN E-Lert to your friends, family and associates? Do you? Do you?

DOW SUFFERS WORST WEEK THIS YEAR: The Down Jones Industrial Average closed its worst week this year Friday, falling 1.7 percent overall, the worst decline since January. Much of that activity—83 percent of it, in fact—was attributable to a drop in JPMorgan Chase stock after the bank announced it had lost $2 billion in a series of trades. JPMorgan’s stock fell $3.78. The Standard & Poor’s 500 dipped 4.6 points, while the Nasdaq lifted slightly. JPMorgan has said that it could suffer as much as $1 billion in additional second quarter losses. Analysts said that the bad news for the Dow may be more a blip than anything else, as the market looked strong overall in the first quarter.

IRAN PRESSES FOR OFFICIAL TO BE NEXT LEADER OF SHIITES: As the top spiritual leader in the Shiite Muslim world, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has instructed his followers on what to eat and how to wash, how to marry and to bury their dead. As a temporal guide, he has championed Iraqi democracy, insisting on direct elections from the earliest days of the occupation, and warned against Iranian-style clerical rule.  Frail at 81, he still greets visitors each morning at his home on a narrow and sooty side street here, only steps from the glimmering gold dome of the Imam Ali Shrine. But the jockeying to succeed him has quietly begun, and Iran is positioning its own candidate for the post, a hard-line cleric who would give Tehran a direct line of influence over the Iraqi people, heightening fears that Iran’s long-term goal is to transplant its Islamic Revolution to Iraq.  The succession, a lengthy and opaque process in which the outcome is by no means assured, could shape the interplay of Islam and democracy not only in Iraq, where Shiites are the majority, but also across a Shiite Muslim world that stretches from India to Iran, Lebanon and beyond. The ayatollah’s prescriptions for daily living are imbued with the force of law among the majority of the world’s 200 million or so Shiites who follow him, his religious teachings are sacrosanct and his political sway is powerful.

MILITANTS CLAIM SUICIDE BOMBINGS: A militant group calling itself the Al-Nusra Front claimed responsibility on Friday for suicide attacks earlier in the week that took 55 lives. The bombings in Damasus were in retaliation for attacks on civilian areas by President Bashar al-Assad and his forces, the militants said in the video. “We fulfilled our promise to respond with strikes and explosions,” a speaker in the video said. Western officials have become increasingly worried about the presence of extremist groups and Islamic militant in the evermore destabilized country.

DON’T SETTLE, GO DEEPER: Visit the LBN *agenda* Blog – click here.

‘SONIC WEAPON’ DEPLOYED FOR GAMES: As officials in London continue to beef up security in preparation for the Olympic Games in the city this summer, the Ministry of Defense confirmed that it will be deploying a Long Range Acoustic Device, a weapon that can emit ear-splitting beams of sound up to 150 decibels. The device can also be put to more peaceful purposes, including being used as a sort of super-megaphone to broadcast verbal messages. The US Army has used the device in Iraq to issue instructions to large crowds.

HUDSON JURY IGNORES STAR STATUS: The jury that found 31-year-old William Balfour guilty in the murder of singer Jennifer Hudson’s mother, brother and nephew said that they weren’t swayed by Hudson’s star power. “This wasn’t about her,” Jacinta Gholston, a juror in the case, told reporters Friday after Balfour was convicted on three counts of murder in the first degree. The former gang member will face Illinois’ stiffest penalty, a mandatory life sentence. Hudson, who cried as the verdict against her mother’s killer was read, issued a statement with her sister Friday that extended their sympathy to Balfour’s family, saying “we have all suffered terrible loss in this tragedy.”

“SOCIAL JET LAG” WIDENING WAISTLINES: Following a different sleep schedule on weekdays and weekends disrupts circadian rhythms and could lead to weight gain. A recent study found that people with different weekday and weekend sleep schedules were significantly more likely to be overweight. There was also a correlation between the magnitude of sleep schedule discrepancy and body mass index. Sleep researchers are calling the discrepancy between the demands of one’s social schedule and the desires of the body’s internal clock “social jet lag” and compare the effects of irregular weekend sleep patterns to flying from Paris to New York on Friday nights only to make the return trip on Monday mornings

ATTORNEY DROPS FIRST TRAVOLTA ACCUSER: Oops!  An anonymous masseur who said John Travolta groped him during a Beverly Hills massage now claims he got the date of the randy rubdown wrong — and his lawyer is cutting him loose. The massage therapist, known only as “John Doe 1,” says he “miscalculated” the time frame and that Travolta’s alleged sex assault occurred before Jan. 16, the date he initially claimed in a $2 million federal lawsuit against the “Pulp Fiction” star. The admission came two days after Travolta’s legal team put out evidence — including flight information and a dinner receipt — that showed the actor was in New York, and not LA, the day of the alleged incident.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: A dolphin’s ’sonar’ or echo-location is rare in nature and is far superior to either the bat’s sonar or human-made sonar.

I, LBN: Actress Lindsay Lohan, an LBN E-Lert reader from Venice, California.

WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? Nine (9) leading executives of the Starbucks Corporation along with 474,000 other “influencers” in all 50 states and 11 separate time zones.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: The oldest piece of paper in the world was found in China and dates back to the second or first century B.C. Paper was so durable, it was sometimes used for clothing and even light body armor.

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: South Africa is just one of the 25 foreign countries with daily LBN E-Lert readers.

LBN-SEE IT: Jockey Chantal Sutherland

LBN-BOOK NEWS:   ***Proceeds from the sequel to Mario Puzo’s novel “The Godfather” published this week will be put in escrow while Paramount Pictures and the late novelist’s estate pursue litigation over the publishing rights.  “An interim agreement allows publication of the novel to go forward, pending resolution of this matter,” Richard Kendall, a lawyer for Los Angeles-based Paramount, said at a hearing today in Manhattan federal court.

LBN-NOTICED:   ***Sean Penn and former flame Petra Nemcova seem to have officially rekindled their romance after being spotted together on a series of dates, sources say. They were spotted together at Thursday night’s star-packed birthday bash for U2 front man Bono at The Spotted Pig in the West Village of New York City.   ***Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Jon Perlman having yogurt last night at Malibu Yogurt in Westwood.   ***Newly single Sofia Vergara continued to prove she isn’t missing her ex Nick Loeb as she partied with girlfriends including Jessica Alba, and Samantha and Charlotte Ronson. Vergara and her group of girls headed to Nur Khan’s Electric Room at the Dream Downtown in NYC on Thursday night, then around 1 a.m. ***Rita Wilson played Joe’s Pub Thursday night in NYC to showcase her debut album “AM/FM” days after its release, and crowd of A-listers — including Renée Zellweger, Michael Kors, Glenda Bailey, Jann Wenner and Gayle King — came out to catch the sultry set. Songwriter J. D. Souther joined Wilson onstage for his tune “Faithless Love,” and hit-maker Jimmy Webb made a guest appearance. ***Jane Friedman — the onetime HarperCollins head who launched digital publisher Open Road Media — hosted a bash at her Upper East Side home Tuesday to toast Jamaica’s literary festival Calabash. Guests included professor Kwame Dawes, who was recently awarded the 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship for Poetry, the New York Public Library’s Paul Holdengraber and the National Book Foundation’s Harold Augenbraum.   ***Popular Rant columnist Ericka T. Bass leaving Canter’s Deli around 2 a.m this morning with friends singing “Young, Gifted and Black”.

LBN-COMMENTARY By ALLEN FRANCES: At its annual meeting this week, the American Psychiatric Association did two wonderful things: it rejected one reckless proposal that would have exposed nonpsychotic children to unnecessary and dangerous antipsychotic medication and another that would have turned the existential worries and sadness of everyday life into an alleged mental disorder.  But the association is still proceeding with other suggestions that could potentially expand the boundaries of psychiatry to define as mentally ill tens of millions of people now considered normal. The proposals are part of a major undertaking: revisions to what is often called the “bible of psychiatry” — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or D.S.M. The fifth edition of the manual is scheduled for publication next May.

LBN-COMMENTARY By GAIL COLLINS: Today, let’s do a favor for Mitt Romney.  Not on your to-do list?  Indulge me.  You have undoubtedly heard the story about a bullying episode during Romney’s high school years. The Washington Post quoted former classmates who said that Mitt had led an attack on a kid who had bleached blond hair that he wore over one eye. While the others held the boy down, Romney cut off the offending tresses.  Let me say right off the bat that stuff politicians did when they were in high school shouldn’t count. And while this appears to be a particularly mean, and possibly homophobic, incident, it is really a good idea to stick to that rule. Otherwise, we would have to go back to the question of whether Barack Obama ate dog meat in Indonesia and we will never move on to health care reform.

LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW: Author Malcolm Gladwell

LBN-OVERHEARD:   ***Whitney Houston’s mother is telling friends … she fully supports the idea of a family reality show because she believes the exposure will be GREAT for Bobbi Kristina’s singing career. As we previously reported, the family just inked a TV deal with Lifetime to star in a reality show that will follow Whitney’s relatives in the wake of the singer’s untimely death.   ***Reese Witherspoon showed up in court Friday addressing her father’s alleged illegal second marriage and mental incapacity … asking a Tennessee judge to place him under a conservatorship STAT. Reese’s mother filed a lawsuit earlier this week … claiming the Oscar-winner’s father illegally married ANOTHER woman earlier this year, but was not mentally stable enough to remember … citing his major drinking problems and on-set dementia in the suit.

ROMNEY BEATING THE PRESIDENT: The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows Mitt Romney earning 50% of the vote and President Obama attracting 43% support. Four percent (4%) would vote for a third party candidate, while another three percent (3%) are undecided.

ARRESTED: Police have arrested three more people in connection with the kidnappings of Tennessee mother Jo Ann Bain and her daughters, a law enforcement source said today. The arrests include allegations of making a false statement to authorities and illegal possession of a firearm, the source said. Bain and her oldest daughter were found dead several days ago. Two other daughters were found alive Thursday night. Their alleged abductor, Adam Mayes, shot and killed himself as authorities closed in, the FBI said.

MIDNIGHT WAS MOVIE HOUR, NAP TIME IN NEW YORK AIR TOWER: When midnight rolled around and flight traffic thinned out, air-traffic controllers guiding planes in the busiest U.S. corridor whipped out laptops to watch movies, play games or gamble online.  Controllers on break inflated air mattresses and napped on the floor. Some left before their shifts were over. They cursed at managers, refused to train new controllers, and flouted rules requiring them to pass on weather advisories to pilots.

PLASTIC IN PACIFIC INCREASED 100-FOLD: Over the past 40 years, the quantity of plastic waste floating in the northeastern Pacific has increased 100-fold, affecting marine life in myriad ways. One issue that has received much attention is the ingestion of tiny, broken down plastic particles by marine organisms. However, researchers also recently uncovered another consequence of the increased presence of plastic—it is making it easier for certain marine insects to reproduce. Halobates sericeus requires a hard surface on which to lay its eggs, and the hundreds of millions of plastic particles now floating in the Pacific Ocean are providing them with ample breeding ground.

LBN ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: In addition to being read in all 50 of the United States, the LBN E-Lert is read daily in 25 foreign countries including: Brazil, China, India, Russia, England, Australia, Germany, Japan, Iraq, Canada, Korea, France, South Africa, Mexico, Greece, Spain, Israel, Norway, Sweden among others.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: 65 Interesting Facts About Google: Visit the LBN *agenda* Blog – click here.

LBN-THINK AGAIN:

WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? The Mayor of London, England, Boris Johnson along with 474,000 other “influencers” in all 50 states and 11 separate time zones.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: The state of Wyoming is the deadliest state for drinking and driving, with just over 13 drunk-driving fatalities for every 100,000 people occurring each year. New York experiences the least amount of drunk-driving fatalities, with only 2.06 per 100,000 residents.

LBN-BOOK NEWS:   ***Steve Wasserman, the former longtime books editor at the Los Angeles Times (back in the years when the paper had a Sunday book review section), is giving up the agenting game to become a full-time editor at large for Yale University Press. His first acquisition for Yale is “an intimate history of rock ‘n’ roll” by Greil Marcus.   ***Best-selling author and attorney Lisa Bloom has signed with the award-winning P.R. firm LCO (www.LCOonline.com) for media representation.

I, LBN : Renaldo Peterson, an LBN E-Lert reader from Baltimore, Maryland.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: Stanford, which holds the patent to the PageRank algorithm Larry Page created, received 1.8 million shares of Google stock in exchange for long-term rights to the patent. Stanford’s profit was $336 million, most likely the most money any university has ever received from a single invention.

LBN-COMMENTARY By CHUCK OJEDA (Sports Enthusiast and Writer): Much like the word Communism during America’s Red Scare, the mere mention of participation in an NFL bounty is enough to find a player Blacklisted.  Whether the words are coming from an active player or retired, there are no benefits from expelling sentiments for or against pooling funds to reward the act of inflicting injuries. Example: ESPN’s Chris Carter volunteering details about placing a bounty on NFL Linebacker Bill Romanowski in response to Romanowski’s threat of a career-ending injury.  Nothing good can come out of discussing past Bounties even if preventative.  It feels uncomfortable enough writing on it now.

LBN-COMMENTARY By KATHY FRESTON (Health Activist and Author): Virtually all commercially-available chickens now have what many call the “obese gene,” which makes birds gain weight quickly to speed up production from birth to slaughter.

LBN-COMMENTARY By PAUL KRUGMAN: A few days ago, I read an authoritative-sounding paper in The American Economic Review, one of the leading journals in the field, arguing at length that the nation’s high unemployment rate had deep structural roots and wasn’t amenable to any quick solution. The author’s diagnosis was that the U.S. economy just wasn’t flexible enough to cope with rapid technological change. The paper was especially critical of programs like unemployment insurance, which it argued actually hurt workers because they reduced the incentive to adjust.  O.K., there’s something I didn’t tell you: The paper in question was published in June 1939. Just a few months later, World War II broke out, and the United States — though not yet at war itself — began a large military buildup, finally providing fiscal stimulus on a scale commensurate with the depth of the slump. And, in the two years after that article about the impossibility of rapid job creation was published, U.S. nonfarm employment rose 20 percent — the equivalent of creating 26 million jobs today.

OPEN YOUR EYES TO THE TRUTH – READ THE LBN E-LERT DAILY:

LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

LBN-OVERHEARD:   ***President Obama had the right crowd tonight in Studio City tonight to elaborate on his new same-sex marriage position. “It was a logical extension of what America is supposed to be,” he said of this week’s interview. “It grew directly out of this difference in visions. Are we a country that includes everybody and gives everybody a shot and treats everybody fairly and is that going to make us stronger? Are we welcoming to immigrants?”   ***”Teen Mom” star Amber Portwood is back in an Indiana jail cell … after prosecutors claimed she LIED about having a medical condition to get out of her weekly drug court appointment.  Law enforcement sources say … Portwood was a no-show at drug court last week … after telling officials she was on doctor-ordered bed rest following laparoscopic gallbladder surgery. Our sources say Amber’s attorney told the court she was ordered to remain in bed for 2-3 weeks.   ***Americans will be “f**ked” if Barack Obama gets re-elected … this according to Beach Boys singer Bruce Johnston.

LBN-TODAY’S BIRTHDAY: Dalí was a Spanish painter whose striking images and eccentric personality made him the world’s most recognized surrealist artist. Influenced by the theories and dream studies of Sigmund Freud, he painted nightmarishly absurd scenes in precise, realistic detail, creating worlds in which everyday objects are deformed or metamorphosed in strange ways.   ***For additional birthdays, visit the LBN *agenda* Blog – click here.

LBN-QUOTE: “Be as smart as you can, but remember that it is always better to be wise than to be smart.” – Alan Alda

OBAMA SAYS SAME-SEX MARRIAGE SHOULD BE LEGAL: Before President Obama left the White House on Tuesday morning to fly to an event in Albany, several aides intercepted him in the Oval Office. Within minutes it was decided: the president would endorse same-sex marriage on Wednesday, completing a wrenching personal transformation on the issue.  As described by several aides, that quick decision and his subsequent announcement in a hastily scheduled network television interview were thrust on the White House by 48 hours of frenzied will-he-or-won’t-he speculation after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. all but forced the president’s hand by embracing the idea of same-sex unions in a Sunday talk show interview.

PARENTS OF P.O.W. REVEAL U.S. TALKS ON TALIBAN SWAP: The parents of the only American soldier held captive by Afghan insurgents have broken a yearlong silence about the status of their son, abruptly making public that he is a focus of secret negotiations between the Obama administration and the Taliban over a proposed prisoner exchange.  The negotiations, currently stalled, involved a trade of five Taliban prisoners held at the American military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl of the Army, who is believed to be held by the militant Haqqani network in the tribal area of Pakistan’s northwest frontier, on the Afghan border. Sergeant Bergdahl was captured in Paktika Province in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009. His family has not heard from him in a year, since they saw him in a Taliban video, although they and the Pentagon believe that he is alive and well.

MERKEL: EU MUST HAVE AUSTERITY: German chancellor Angela Merkel insisted Thursday that the only option for the European Union is to implement the austerity measures passed last year, and growth can only come through debt reduction, not more borrowing. “Growth through debt would throw us back to the beginning of the crisis,” Merkel said at the Bundestag. While a Guardian poll shows that a majority of Brits think it’s inevitable Greece will leave the euro, French bank BNP Paribus calculated that a Greek exit from the euro will immediately wipe 20 percent out of Greek GDP and send inflation soaring 40 to 50 percent.

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ANGRY DEMS: MOVE CONVENTION!: Charlotte seemed like a good convention idea in 2010. Democrats, angry over the passage of the controversial anti-gay marriage “Amendment One,” have begun petitioning to move the 2012 convention from Charlotte, although Democratic officials insisted on Wednesday that there won’t be change in location. Nearly 20,000 people have signed a petition called “Move the Convention” from the New York-based Gay Marriage USA, calling for the convention to be in a “state that upholds equality and liberty, and treats ALL citizens equally.”

TWIN DAMASCUS BLASTS KILL 40: Twin explosions rocked Damascus on Thursday, killing at least 40 people and injuring 170, according to Syrian state television. The blasts occurred near an intelligence building for the security forces, and they ripped the façade off the building although the structure of the building remained intact.

WRECKAGE OF RUSSIAN PLANE FOUND: An Indonesian air force official has reportedly located the wreckage of a Russian plane that went missing Wednesday morning. The Sukhoi SuperJet-100, with 48 people on board, left Jarkata during a commercial exercise with reporters, potential buyers, and engineers. The plane was Russia’s newest commercial jetliner. Wreckage from the plane was located on the side of a cliff on Mount Salak in West Java province, where the elevation is around 5,000 feet. The plane fell off the radar 21 minutes after taking off, the pilot requesting to drop from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet, though inclement weather was not believed to be a factor.

BE AN LBN CORRESPONDENT: Send your celebrity sightings to us. E-mail: LBNELert@TimeWire.net.

VIDAL SASSOON, HAIRDRESSER AND TRENDSETTER, DIES AT 84: Vidal Sassoon, whose mother had a premonition that he would become a hairdresser and steered him to an apprenticeship in a London shop when he was 14, setting him on the path that led to his changing the way women wore and cared for their hair, died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 84.  A spokesman for the Los Angeles police, who were called to the home, on Mulholland Drive, confirmed the death, attributing it to natural causes. Mr. Sassoon was known to have leukemia.

CHEN: ‘REVENGE’ TAKEN ON FAMILY: Escaped Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng said Thursday that local officials are “going crazy with reprisals” against his family—and his sister-in-law and nephew have both been detained. “They’ve started taking revenge,” said Chen, who is being treated at a Beijing hospital for injuries suffered during his escaped. Chen said he has recently spoken with his elderly mother, but otherwise communication with his family has been unreliable. Meanwhile, the University of Washington offered a fellowship to Chen, as did New York University, as he awaits for approval to travel to the U.S. Chen, who is blind, escaped house arrest and sought refuge in the U.S. embassy, greatly embarrassing Chinese officials and possibly causing a diplomatic standoff between the U.S. and China.

KIDNAP SUSPECT THOUGHT GIRLS WERE HIS: A man who is suspected to have killed a Tennessee woman and her eldest daughter before kidnapping her two younger daughters apparently believed the younger sisters were his daughters, a relative said on Thursday. Adam Mayes, last seen two weeks ago, and his wife, Teresa, have been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Jo Ann Bains, 31, and her daughter, Adrienne, 14, whose bodies were found outside Mayes’s home in Guntown, Mississippi. Mayes’s wife told investigators that he killed Jo Ann and Adrienne so he could kidnap Alexandria, 12, and Kyliyah, 8, who are still missing.

THE TRUTH, THE LIGHT, THE WAY: Visit the LBN *agenda* Blog – click here.

RIHANNA HOSPITALIZED AFTER MET GALA: Pop star Rihanna was reportedly rushed to the hospital early Wednesday morning following the Met Gala in New York. The star was treated for “exhaustion” and “dehydration,” which have been known to be Hollywood-speak for something far more serious. The singer was reportedly released after a short stay and cleared to fly home to Los Angeles Wednesday afternoon. Rihanna had said she wasn’t feeling well a few weeks ago, when she hosted Saturday Night Live, though others worry her partying might be getting out of control. Usually an active Twitter user, Rihanna didn’t post for much of Wednesday before tweeting out an image of her arm hooked up to an IV to her followers confirming she had been hospitalized.

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER:   ***Third Point, Yahoo’s largest outside shareholder, said the Internet company should make CFO Tim Morse or media chief Ross Levinsohn the interim chief executive because of the controversy surrounding CEO Scott Thompson’s educational background.    ***Facebook said that usage of its social networking service is growing faster than its ad deliveries, reflecting a shift toward mobile devices and away from computers. Facebook has not been able to monetize mobile use as effectively as desktop use of the website.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER:   ***”In a strange way,” said Disney CEO Bob Iger, “I am the brand manager of Disney.” Last October, Iger announced that he would step down as CEO in 2015. No decisions have been made yet about his successor. According to observers, the job is “Tom Staggs‘ to lose.”

WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? Prominent celebrity hair stylist Janis Bueller along with 474,000 “influencers” in all 50 states and 11 separate time zones.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: Buying ice cream on Sundays was illegal in Ohio because it was thought to be frivolous and “luxurious.” Consequently, ice cream vendors would put fruit on top of the ice cream to make it more nutritious, creating the ice cream sundae.

LBN-HEALTH WATCH:   ***In an unusual move that may prompt millions of women to rethink their use of popular bone-building drugs, the Food and Drug Administration published an analysis that suggested caution about long-term use of the drugs, but fell short of issuing specific recommendations. The F.D.A. review, published in The New England Journal of Medicine online on Wednesday, was prompted by a growing debate over how long women should continue using the drugs, known as bisphosphonates, which are sold as generic versions of brands like Fosamax and Boniva, as well as Novartis’s Reclast.

LBN-BOOK NEWS:   ***Sara Nelson, book editor for O, The Oprah Magazine, is moving to Amazon where she will be editorial director of Amazon.com Books. Nelson was editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly before joining O. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity,” said Nelson.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER:   ***Britney Spears has signed a contract to join Simon Cowell as a judge on “The X Factor.” The pop star will be paid $15 million for one season’s worth of work. Cowell hopes the addition of Spears will help boost the talent show’s second-season ratings.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: eHarmony.com boasts that 236 of its members marry each day, accounting for 2% of U.S. marriage.

I, LBN: Tommi E., an LBN E-Lert reader from Trenton, New Jersey.

LBN-NOTICED:   ***Prominent business broker George Hicks having dinner last night at the Depot in Torrance, California.   ***Best-selling author and attorney Lisa Bloom having lunch yesterday with LCO (www.LCOonline.com) President Liam Collopy.   ***Sofia Vergara isn’t letting a reported split from longtime beau Nick Loeb totally get her down. The Modern Family star was in good spirits on Wednesday at the Einstein College of Medicine’s Annual Spirit of Achievement Awards at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.   ***Topher Grace brought out an impressive crowd Monday when he made his professional stage debut during opening night of Paul Weitz’s comedic Off-Broadway play Lonely, I’m Not at Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theatre in New York City. Grace’s The Wedding costar Robert DeNiro came out to see the show, along with Susan Sarandon and Veep actress Anna Chlumsky.    ***Keeping a low profile since her January hospitalization, Heather Locklear stepped out with a friend for lunch at popular Mexican eatery Casa Vega in Sherman Oaks, Calif.    ***Pink and hubby Carey Hart had a late night out, mingling with friends and fans and spending time with each other in Las Vegas. The motorcross star was awarded the Industry Leader award by the Legends & Heroes Motocross Tour earlier in the night – then headed over to XS Nightclub inside the Wynn Las Vegas & Encore Resort with his wife. The happy couple arrived after 1 a.m. to take in a deejay set by Tiesto.   ***Blake Lively enjoyed a big family meal with boyfriend Ryan Reynolds over the weekend in his hometown of Vancouver.   ***Sunday is the new Thursday for Lindsay Lohan. After partying until 4 a.m. at Goldbar 10 days ago, Lohan headed to SoHo’s Sway Lounge at 1:30 a.m. Monday morning with four male friends.  Witnesses said she took over the DJ booth and “shook up the crowd” by playing unreleased tracks from Goth rocker Marilyn Manson from her iPod. Lohan later led the crowd in a dance-off and at the end of the night tipped the Sway bouncers $100 for standing guard over her.

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: Japan is just one of the 25 foreign countries with daily LBN E-Lert readers.

LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

LBN-OVERHEARD:   ***Barbra Streisand has brought Bill Clinton onboard as a special guest for a benefit she’s planning at her Malibu home with James Brolin, June 14. The event — dubbed “Follow Your Heart” — will benefit the Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai, and Streisand will perform at the bash along with Josh Groban, David Foster and other “surprise performances,” sources tell us.   ***Reese Witherspoon’s father accused of bigamy charges by her mother, according to legal docs. While Reese, 36 is ready to be a mom with hubby/agent Jim Toth, her mother Betty Witherspoon has sued husband John Witherspoon in Tennessee — accusing him of bigamy. Betty Witherspoon claims John can’t be married to Tricianne Taylor, whose wedding to John was announced in the local Tennessee media last month because John is still legally married to her.

LBN-TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (John Wilkes Booth, 1838): Born into a family of famous actors, Booth made his acting debut at the age of 17. Touring widely, he soon became a wealthy celebrity, earning acclaim for his Shakespearean roles. However, he harbored deep Confederate sympathies and viewed President Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant. In April of 1865, he assassinated Lincoln at Ford’s Theater, where Lincoln had previously watched him perform. Twelve days later, Booth was shot and killed by a Union soldier.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: The New York City’s 911 system fielded nearly four million accidental calls in 2010, which exceeded the number of times officers were dispatched to real emergencies, a consultant’s report commissioned by the mayor’s office found. The inadvertent — or “butt dial” — calls accounted for nearly 40 percent of the 10.4 million 911 calls received in 2010. Police cars were dispatched to 3.5 million of the calls received.

MORE UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN CROSSING US-MEXICO BORDER ILLEGALLY: South Texas is seeing a rise in children from Central America who have slipped across the border unaccompanied into the US from Mexico after that country began deporting fewer kids who arrived without visas, some experts say. The influx across the US border is causing a political outcry in the state, where the federal government has set up five temporary shelters to deal with the growing numbers of young immigrants.

HOW UNPOPULAR CAN OBAMA GET? TEXAS INMATE GETS 40 PER CENT OF VOTES AGAINST PRESIDENT IN WEST VIRGINIA PRIMARY: Just how unpopular is President Obama in some parts of the country? Enough that a man in a Texas prison received four out of 10 votes in West Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary. Inmate Keith Judd, 53, is serving 17 years for extortion at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution. He was sentenced in 1999 for making threats against the University of New Mexico and is due to be released on June 24 next year. With 93 per cent of precincts reporting, Obama was receiving just under 60 per cent of the vote to Judd’s 40 per cent.

PSYCHOPATHS’ BRAINS ABNORMAL: Brain scans of men convicted of violent assault, rape, and murder reveal that psychopaths’ brains differ structurally from those of regular people as well as those of non-psychopathic violent offenders. Specifically, psychopaths were found to have less grey matter—a type of brain tissue—in areas of the brain connected with empathy. This suggests that there is a physiological basis for the lack of empathy characteristic in psychopathy, which perhaps necessitates a specifically tailored treatment approach. Furthermore, the findings raise questions about whether such offenders may be deemed criminally insane.

SAUDI LIKELY CREATED UNDERWEAR BOMB: A Saudi bomb maker is believed to be responsible for creating the “underwear bomb” that was a central part of an al Qaeda plot foiled by a CIA double agent, security experts and officials told Reuters. Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who survived a drone strike last year, has been described as one of the most dangerous militants in al Qaeda. He reportedly had created a new, sophisticated, nonmetallic underwear bomb, but U.S. officials said Tuesday that the would-be bomber of a foiled attack planned for the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s killing was a CIA double agent. Asiri is suspected of being the culprit behind three other plots against the U.S., including the 2009 Christmas Day attempt to take over a Detroit airliner.

RUSSIAN JET DISAPPEARS: Russia’s newest commercial airliner disappeared Wednesday during a commercial exercise near Jakarta, with 44 passengers on board, Russian state media reported. The plane reportedly went missing around 2 p.m., after the pilot asked permission to descend from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet. The plane then began making its descent but vanished near a mountainous area. By the time it was due to return, it would have burned up all its fuel.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: The majors with the best pay include Engineering, Economics, and Physics. Typically, the worst paying majors are Social Work, Theology, Elementary Education, Music, Spanish, Horticulture, Education, Fine Arts, Hospitality/Tourism, and Drama.

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER:   ***Rich Buhler, a former news hand at KFWB, moved into the Christian broadcasting side of radio in 1980. He did his final “Talk From the Heart” show on KBRT/740 AM in Costa Mesa last Sept. 16 due to advancing cancer of the pancreas. He died Monday in an Orange County hospital.   ***The online newspaper WeHo News apparently shut down March 1 and now has returned. The hiatus was due to founder and editor Ryan Gierach checking himself into residential rehab to quit drinking.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER:   ***JPMorgan Chase wants it all, catering to everyone from the richest customers who provide hefty returns on deposits to the poorest who are willing to pay fees for a la carte financial services. On Tuesday, the bank announced that it would launch its own reloadable prepaid card this summer called Chase Liquid. The card will cost $4.95 per month and will be available to any customer over age 18. Chase Liquid customers do not have to have to open an account at the bank, but must make an initial $25 deposit onto the card. “Chase Liquid is a low-cost alternative to traditional checking accounts,” said Ryan McInerney, CEO of consumer banking at Chase. By comparison a Chase Total Checking account costs $144 per year.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER:   ***ICM has signed Anna Popplewell, best known for her role in the “Chronicles of Narnia” franchise. She is also repped by Luber Roklin Entertainment.   ***Mads Matthiesen has signed with Paradigm for representation in all areas. His debut pic, “Teddy Bear,” preemed at Sundance this year.    ***UTA has inked Toby Hemingway. His credits include “Black Swan.” He is repped by 3 Arts Entertainment.    ***Tyler Spindel has signed with New Wave Entertainment. Spindel was a recurring director on Nick Swardson’s ‘Pretend Time’ on Comedy Central. He is repped by APA.   ***CAA has promoted 14 staffers to agent or exec status.  The promotions involve staffers from various agency departments. On the rise at the percentery are: Jon Cassir, Marissa Edler, Ryan Fitzjohn, Charlie Jennings, Meredith Jones, Bobby Kenner, Franklin Latt, Alex Mebed, Tess O’Sullivan, Chelsea Reed, Elan Ruspoli, Angie Sun, Jin Wang and Luna Xu.  The elevations follow the agency’s retreat at the Ojai Valley Inn last week.

LBN-SPORTS INSIDER:   ***Kobe Bryant almost single-handedly brought the Lakers back from a big deficit in the final minutes of tonight’s game at Staples Center, sinking three-pointers one after another. But Denver hung on to win 102-99 and stay alive in the best-of-seven playoff series.   ***Minutes after the Los Angeles Lakers went down in Denver … Metta World Peace’s evening was just beginning … at a fancy Hollywood nightclub.  MWP — who’s still suspended for elbowing OKC player James Harden — rolled up to Avalon nightclub around 10:30 PM last night … right around the same time the rest of his Lakers teammates were hitting the showers.

LBN-NOTICED:   ***Prominent New York entertainment attorney Bill Randolph having lunch at the popular Trattoria Dell’Arte.   ***Music publisher Michael Sigman having lunch at the South Beverly Grill in Beverly Hills.

LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

LBN-OVERHEARD:   ***The lawyer for the 2 masseurs suing John Travolta for sexual assault says other masseurs have come forward with similar stories and some of them will join the lawsuit. Okorie Okorocha, who reps John Doe #1 and John Doe #2 (he says he’s kept their true identities secret because they’re victims of sex crimes) claims he tried settling the case involving Doe #1 discretely, telling Travolta’s lawyers they could go to a private judge and keep everything confidential, but he says they shut him down. Okorocha also says Travolta’s lawyer, Marty Singer, is off base when he says Travolta was not in L.A. on January 16 — the date the first incident allegedly occurred. Okorocha says during their initial discussions, Travolta’s lawyers conceded the actor was in L.A. on the date in question.

LBN-THIS DAY IN HISTORY: On this day in 1950, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1911-1986) publishes Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. With this book, Hubbard introduced a branch of self-help psychology called Dianetics, which quickly caught fire and, over time, morphed into a belief system boasting millions of subscribers: Scientology.

LBN-QUOTE: “The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground.” – Buddha

HUNDREDS PROTEST PUTIN INAUGURATION: Hundreds of Russians took to the streets Monday to protest Vladimir Putin’s inauguration, and authorities detained two of the country’s highest-profile opposition leaders. Putin retook his position as president after spending four years as prime minister, and former president Dmitry Medvedev will be confirmed as the new prime minister on Tuesday. The swap had many Russians saying the elections were a sham, and some of the largest riots since the days of the Soviet Union were held. On Sunday police clashed with protesters and arrested more than 400, and another 300 were arrested on Monday as authorities tried to clear the streets for Putin’s elaborate inauguration.

SANTORUM ENDORSES ROMNEY: Rick Santorum threw his support behind presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney Monday, sending out an email to his supporters in which he endorsed the former Massachusetts governor. “Governor Romney will be that nominee and he has my endorsement and support to win this the most critical election of our lifetime,” Santorum wrote. The endorsement comes after the two former rivals sat down for a one-on-one meeting in Pittsburgh last week where Santorum said he shared with Romney “the issues most important to conservatives.” Santorum added, “I strongly encouraged Romney that he add more conservative leaders as an integral part of his team.” Santorum dropped out of the Republican primary in early April, revealing that his campaign had run up against the money and power of Romney’s well-oiled machine.

LBN-R.I.P.: Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83 and lived in Ridgefield, Conn.  The cause was complications from a recent stroke, said Michael di Capua, his longtime editor.

CLINTON: ‘TERRORISTS KEEP TRYING’: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday that the recent foiled bomb plot by suspected extremists in Yemen is proof that “terrorists keep trying” to kill Americans and all the more reason the U.S. has to “remain vigilant.” U.S. counterterrorism officials said on Monday that the FBI is analyzing the explosive device, which is similar to the so-called underwear bomb that a man attempted to use to blow up a Detroit airliner. U.S. officials said the plot was busted by an “insider” who managed to “infiltrate” al Qaeda. U.S. Rep. Peter King alleged the suspected plot is linked to an al Qaeda leader killed in Yemen on Saturday, but Yemeni leaders said they have no information on this particular plot.

DIPLOMATS FEARED CHEN HAD CANCER: A senior U.S. official told Foreign Policy Monday that personnel at the American Embassy in Beijing were worried that blind dissident Chen Guangcheng had advanced colon cancer when he arrived. Concerns about his health were so severe that officials sped up the timeline for Chen to leave the embassy and enter a Chinese hospital, the U.S. official said. Chen was found to be “bleeding profusely from his rectum,” the official said, and an embassy doctor’s diagnosis that Chen may have cancer “gave us a lot of anxiety.” According to the official, the Chinese would not allow medical equipment into the embassy where Chen took shelter after fleeing house arrest on April 22. It was reported Sunday that Chen has gastroenteritis.

ZIMMERMAN TO BE ARRAIGNED: George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood-watch leader who’s charged with second-degree murder of Trayvon Martin, is being formally arraigned and will not attend a Tuesday hearing, according to his lawyer, Mark O’Mara. O’Mara filed a not-guilty written plea at Tuesday’s arraignment in Sanford, Fla. Zimmerman, 28, remains free after posting $150,000 bail.

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER:   ***Al-Jazeera’s sole English-language reporter in China has been expelled, the pan-Arab news network said Tuesday. It’s the first time since 1998 that Beijing has kicked out an accredited foreign journalist. Melissa Chan’s expulsion is seen as a hardening of China’s attitude toward international media it views as a threat to the authoritarian government’s authority and global image. The move “seems to be taking China’s anti-media policies to a new level,” Bob Dietz, the Asia coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER:   ***The man who brought you Too Big To Fail has had just about enough of everybody blaming him for big banks failing. In an interview with Fortune’s Nin-Hai Tseng, Sandy Weill, the former CEO of Citigroup, said his lumbering beast of a bank, and other lumbering beasts like it, aren’t to blame for the crisis. Weill was the CEO of Citigroup until late 2003, during the key “becoming a monstrous disaster waiting to happen” phase of its existence. He lobbied, tirelessly and successfully, to break down Depression-era regulations against banks becoming too big. He even has a plaque in his office that boasts “The Shatterer of Glass-Steagall,” according to a New York Times report.

LBN-QUESTION: How would you live your life if you had one week to live?

DEBBIE GIBSON (Pop Icon/Songwriter): The same way I’m living it now!

DR. JON PERLMAN (Associate Clinical Professor of Plastic Surgery at UCLA Medical School): I would spend my last week with my family and friends celebrating the past and not fearing the future. I would not spend a moment on Facebook or Twitter…

WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? Vice Chair/Deputy Dean Yale University School of Medicine Brian Leaderer, PhD, MPH along with 474,000 other “influencers” in all 50 states and 11 separate time zones.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: During 2008-2009, colleges were expected to award 731,000 associate’s degrees, 1,603,000 bachelor’s degrees, 649,000 master’s degrees, and 61,7000 doctorate degrees.

LBN-MUSIC INSIDER:   ***The final night of competition in “The Voice” boiled down to three performances each of the final four contestants. They had a solo song, a duet with their coach and a song originated by their mentors to be used as a “Thank you” for guiding them through the competition series that began nine months ago. And, of course, one song caused sniping between Christina Aguilera and Adam Levine. The song was Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” that Tony Lucca sang without using the word “bitch.” Aguilera, who has rarely had anything nice to say about the former Mouseketeer, took offense at the song by saying it’s anti-women; Levine defended it, saying the rap hit was a metaphor.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER:   *** Mila Kunis just pulled a Patrick Dempsey and may have saved a man’s life. A 50-year-old man — who works in Mila’s house — collapsed Saturday in her L.A. home.  He suffered a violent seizure … choking, coughing up blood and vomiting. He had bitten through his tongue. A person on scene tells us … Mila came running, had her friend call 911, then rushed to the man’s side.

LBN-SPORTS INSIDER:   *** Thomas Robinson is projected to be a top 5 pick in the upcoming NBA Draft which means he’s going to be RICH … and he’s already got an investment strategy — DIAMONDS. The former Kansas Jayhawks superstar was outside of Katsuya with a group of buddies … a group that included Syracuse superstar Scoop Jardine … who’s ALSO expected to be drafted.

I, LBN: Office manager Sharon Spiro, an LBN E-lert reader from Beverly Hills, California.

LBN-COMMENTARY By CHUCK OJEDA (Sports Enthusiast and Writer): A five-game suspension handed down by the commissioner is pretty severe in the NFL or NBA, but it’s the lightest tap on the wrist for an MLB rotation pitcher.  When Phillies starter Cole Hamels chose to welcome 19-year old Bryce Harper to the big leagues by slinging a fastball into his back, admitting that it was intentional made Hamels Public Enemy Number One in Washington.  Naturally the Nationals retaliated by throwing back at Hamel, but this will certainly not end there.  If anything, this ridiculous suspension will only fuel the fire for the next time these teams match up.

LBN-COMMENTARY By MICHAEL LEVINE (Media expert and author): I couldn’t help but notice that on the front page of the New York Times on Sunday, May  6th, 2012 there was a reference to 9/11 monster Khalid Shaikh Mohammed “fingering his long, henna-dyed beard”. Let me see if I get this straight: the U.S. government, funded by the U.S. taxpayer, is now supplying henna dye to unapologetic terrorists.

LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

LBN-OVERHEARD:   ***”Wedding Crashers” babe Isla Fisher showed she has her husband Sacha Baron Cohen’s back … by wearing a t-shirt of his new movie on her front. The 36-year-old rocked “The Dictator” swag while in Central Park with her daughter on Monday. Isla proves you don’t have to dump ashes on Ryan Seacrest to promote this flick.   *** You can’t accuse Sheryl Crow of lip-synching, but you can say her memory sucks — because she flat out forgot the lyrics to one of her biggest hits during a concert. Sheryl’s epic flub went down during her Saturday night gig in St. Petersburg, FL. Crow was bringing down the house with “Soak Up the Sun” … when she suddenly brain farted. In the video … Crow trips over the lyrics, but like a pro, she keeps going and asks the crowd … “Oh, what’s the words?” Then adds, “It’s live! Nothing on tape here!”

LBN-TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (Harry S. Truman, 1884): In 1945, when US president Franklin D. Roosevelt died—just 82 days into his fourth term—Truman, his vice president, assumed the office. Presiding over the end of World War II and the transition to peacetime, he made unexpectedly bold decisions. He dropped the first atomic bombs on Japan, proposed the “Truman Doctrine” of Communist containment, authorized the Berlin Airlift, and initiated US involvement in the Korean War.

AL QAEDA VIDEO SHOWS U.S. HOSTAGE: A video showing Warren Weinstein, a 70-year-old American citizen who was kidnapped in Pakistan last year, surfaced on Islamist websites Sunday. “My life is in your hands, Mr. President,” the al Qaeda captive said in the video, addressing President Obama. “If you accept the demands, I live. If you don’t accept the demands, I die.” A development consultant who was kidnapped in the city of Lahore, Weinstein referenced his children and Obama’s daughters in the three-minute impassioned plea for help, asking that the president fulfill a list of eight demands laid out by terrorist leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The demands include the release of any person charged with belonging to al Qaeda and the Taliban and an end to strikes in Pakistan.

HOLLANDE OUSTS SARKOZY IN FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: François Hollande defeated President Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday, becoming the first Socialist elected president of France since François Mitterrand. Mr. Hollande campaigned on a gentler and more inclusive France, but his victory will also be seen as a challenge to the German-dominated vision of economic austerity as a way out of the euro crisis.  Mr. Sarkozy became the latest European leader to lose his post amid economic upheaval and the first French incumbent to be rejected since 1981.

U.S. FREES INSURGENTS FOR PLEDGES: The United States has engaged for several years in a secret program to release captured high-level militants from a prison in Afghanistan as part of a bid to calm violence in some provinces, The Washington Post reports. The “strategic release” program is risky, U.S. officials have acknowledged, but they have come to see it as a necessary bargaining chip in regions where violence has shown little sign of abating. “Everyone agrees that these are bad guys,” one U.S. official told The Post. “But the benefits outweigh the risks.” The militants are asked to pledge not to engage in violence against U.S. or Afghan troops again or risk further detainment.

400 ARRESTED AS PUTIN RETURNS: Hundreds of opposition protesters were detained in Russia Monday as Vladimir Putin was sworn in as president after serving four years as prime minister. Putin took his oath of office in a glittering former throne room in the Kremlin that included a blessing from the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Outside, however, 20,000 people rallied in a demonstration against the former KGB spy that turned violent when protesters and police fought with batons and flagpoles

MCCAIN: OBAMA BLEW FOREIGN POLICY: President Obama has mishandled foreign policy in the Middle East, Republican Sen. John McCain said Sunday. In particular, the United States should be putting weapons in the hands of forces opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, McCain said. The senator dismissed the idea that rebels may then use those same weapons in attacks against friendly nations, calling the Syrian opposition a “direct repudiation of al Qaeda” that tried first to achieve regime change peacefully. “How could we not stand up for these people?”

NO DEAL: The German government on Monday ruled out reworking the European Union’s fiscal pact despite calls to do so by French president-elect Francois Hollande. “It is not possible to renegotiate the fiscal pact,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert told a regular news conference.

LBN-MEET: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

WH RESPONDS TO GAY-MARRIAGE QUOTE: Vice President Joe Biden sent White House staffers into a PR tizzy Sunday after saying on Meet the Press that he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage. Biden is known for going off the script, and staffers said that the veep was speaking for himself and not for President Obama. Calculations in the Oval Office on the issue of gay marriage have been slower than many advocates for a more-liberal national policy would like; Obama has said that his views on same-sex marriage are “evolving.” Biden’s candid remarks made him the highest-ranking member of the executive branch to publicly express support for gay marriage.

POLLS OPEN IN SYRIAN ELECTIONS: Syria held elections Monday as violence continued in the country, where more than 9,000 people have died since a popular uprising began more than a year ago. The vote for seats in the country’s 250-seat Parliament was a sham, members of the opposition against President Bashar al-Assad said. A total of 7,195 candidates from seven political parties are competing for the seats. Bashar al-Haraki, a member opposition coalition the Syrian National Council, said the election was “a farce which can be added to the regime’s masquerade.”

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

ILLINOIS PONZI-SCHEME COUPLE NABBED: An Illinois couple who fled after getting caught running a Ponzi scheme on their friends, family, and the elderly were caught after 12 years on the run, authorities said Monday. U.S. marshals said Nelson Grant Hallahan and Janet Hallahan took off through the Southwest and lived under aliases, but were finally caught after an episode of America’s Most Wanted led someone to phone in a tip. The couple’s scheme, to which they pleaded guilty before skipping out on sentencing and going on the run, brought them millions of dollars, according to the marshals.

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER:   ***Wenner Media’s Rolling Stone magazine will return to its former size of 10 by 11 3/4 inches for its special “Big Issue” celebrating top names in popular culture. The issue will include advertising exclusively by the Turner Broadcasting networks TNT and TBS.   ***Yet Lock, the executive vice president of City News Service, came to the local wire service from the mayor’s office. Mayor Sam Yorty — in 1972. This makes him “possibly the longest-serving news executive in Southern California,” CNS says in a release. He is  retiring from City News Service after 40 years.

LBN-THINK AGAIN:

WHO READS THE LBN E-LERT? Ice cream vendor Sarah Bruno along with 474,000 other “influencers” in all 50 states and 11 separate time zones.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: The U.S. schools with the highest rates of students who graduate in four years are St. Francis Medical Center College of Nursing in Peoria, IL (100%); Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA (94%); Davidson College in Davidson, NC (92%); College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA (92%); and Haverford College in Haverford, PA (91%).

I, LBN: Koko R. an LBN E-Lert reader from Tokoyo, Japan.

LBN-R.I.P.: George Lindsey who starred on “Hee Haw” and “The Andy Griffith Show” dead at 83 in Nashville, Tenn. Lindsey replaced Jim Nabors as his cousin “Goober” Pyle on “The Andy Griffith Show” from 1964 to 1968 and its successor, “Mayberry RFD,” from 1968 to 1971.  He played the very same character on “Hee Haw” from 1971 until 1993.

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER:   ***Hedge fund Third Point has continued its attack on Yahoo, calling for the termination of CEO Scott Thompson amid admitted inaccuracies in his academic credentials. “We urge the board to drop its resistance to placing Third Point nominees on the board.”   ***Oprah Winfrey said it might take until late 2013 before her struggling cable TV network “finds a vein. I’m in the middle of this journey.” But it is unclear exactly how much time partner Discovery will give the venture. Some analysts are skeptical of a turnaround.   ***Groupon has lost half its value since a November initial public offering amid concern over its ability to translate growth into profit while rectifying accounting missteps. The biggest online coupon company has slumped 50% since its stock-market debut.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER:   ***”The Avengers” crushed U.S. box-office records with $200.3 million in ticket sales, opening the summer movie season with a huge win for Disney following the mega-flop “John Carter.” The movie surpassed the previous best opening weekend set by “Harry Potter” last year.   ***CBS doesn’t intend on saying goodbye to Leslie Moonves anytime soon. Les Moonves Says CBS Doing ‘Extremely Well’ – But Will Unions Benefit? In an SEC filing Friday, the company confirmed it has secured his services as president and CEO until Feb. 22, 2015, and revealed that it will provide him incentives to enter into a production agreement and provide other services until early 2019.

LBN-BOOK NEWS:   ***Roger Ailes is the subject of three books in the works, two of which appear to be “pre-emptive strikes” by the Fox News chairman himself. Zev Chafets is racing to finish an Ailes biography with the cooperation of the subject. Also, Ailes plans to write his own memoir.   ***Anderson Cooper hosted a book party for Bravo executive and “Watch What Happens Live” host Andy Cohen, at Cooper’s famously rehabbed firehouse home in Greenwich Village, Saturday night. Guests at the bash for Cohen’s “Most Talkative: Stories From the Front Lines of Pop Culture,” included Jimmy Fallon, Kelly Ripa, Gayle King and Harry Smith, spies said. Sarah Jessica Parker arrived solo while her husband Matthew Broderick performed in “Nice Work If You Can Get It” on Broadway.

LBN-SPORTS INSIDER:   ***A nation of pubescent girls just went out and bought Raging Bull on Blu-ray. Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber accompanied Floyd Mayweather Jr. to the ring Saturday, and now TMZ reports that the “Baby” singer has become friendly with the hard-knuckled champion ever since he saw Bieber in Never Say Never. According to TMZ’s sources, Bieber thinks of Mayweather as a mentor who’s really just a “hardworking and clean-cut guy”—even though Mayweather’s about to spend a three-month stint in prison on domestic-violence charges. Bieber carried two of the super welterweight’s title belts to the ring when Mayweather took on Miguel Cotto Saturday.

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: Australia is one of the 25 foreign countries with daily LBN E-Lert readers.

LBN-COMMENTARY By MICHAEL LEVINE (Media expert and author): Facts are stubborn things. Despite his populist posturing, President Obama has failed to pin a single top finance exec on criminal charges since the economic collapse. Are the banks too big to fail or jail? Think about that for a moment. What signal does that send to the citizens of a nation?

LBN-COMMENTARY By PAUL KRUGMAN: The French are revolting. The Greeks, too. And it’s about time.  Both countries held elections Sunday that were in effect referendums on the current European economic strategy, and in both countries voters turned two thumbs down. It’s far from clear how soon the votes will lead to changes in actual policy, but time is clearly running out for the strategy of recovery through austerity — and that’s a good thing.  Needless to say, that’s not what you heard from the usual suspects in the run-up to the elections. It was actually kind of funny to see the apostles of orthodoxy trying to portray the cautious, mild-mannered François Hollande as a figure of menace. He is “rather dangerous,” declared The Economist, which observed that he “genuinely believes in the need to create a fairer society.” Quelle horreur!

LBN-COMMENTARY BY PEGGY NOONAN: The most recent polls suggest Dick Lugar, the senior U.S. senator from Indiana, first elected in 1976, is on track to lose his primary on Tuesday. I hope he doesn’t for a number of reasons but one big one: the Senate needs grown-ups. The entire American government needs grown-ups, from Capitol Hill to the White House to the executive agencies. This is no time to lose one.

LBN-COMMENTARY By MOHAMED A. EL-ERIAN (CEO and co-CIO, PIMCO): Europe’s election results sound an alarm for European integration and, consequently, the wellbeing of both the region and the global economy. Let us hope that the inevitable short-term volatility is a precursor to a more decisive effort to deal with the continent’s festering problems.

LBN-COMMENTARY By ROBERT REICH (Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley; Author, ‘Beyond Outrage’): We don’t need socialism. We need a capitalism that works for the vast majority. The productivity revolution should be making our lives better — not poorer and more insecure. And it will do that when we have the political will to spread its benefits.

LBN-NOTICED:   ***Alicia Keys laughed and giggled the night away with pal La La Anthony at the annual Bronx Charter School for the Arts auction. The ladies were joined by their husbands – Carmelo Anthony and Swizz Beatz – and an onlooker tells us, “Alicia and Swizz looked more in love than ever, gazing into each other’s eyes and kissing like no one was watching.” But their affectionate demeanor didn’t stop the duo, who attended with 6-year-old song Kaseem Jr. (from Swizz’s previous marriage), from bidding against each other for a guitar signed by the Rolling Stones during the Ciroc Vodka-sponsored event.   ***“Million Dollar Listing” star Michael Lorber, Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Melanie Lazenby, Katie Lee, Sabrina Soto, Donald and Melania Trump and Amanda Hearst, among others at the 10th annual Operation Smile at Cipriani Wall Street.   ***Keith Richards and Andy Garcia lunching at Harry Cipriani in NYC on Wednesday.   ***“Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Brandi Glanville and chef Guy Fieri at the Style Icon Suites at the Kentucky Derby.   ***Ross Matthews (aka Ross the Intern from “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno”) at Lexington Brass restaurant in NYC.

LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

LBN-OVERHEARD:   ***When it comes to basketball, it’s not just a game for Maria Menounos. “I’m such a die-hard fan,” the Dancing with the Stars contestant, who recently earned a perfect score, said: I get violent when I watch Celtics games.”   ***Troubled society heiress Samantha Kluge is being sued by her ex-boyfriend Jayme Rosenthal, who claims she abruptly threw him out of her life. Art dealer Rosenthal says he supported Kluge — a former style editor of Glamour and the daughter of the late Metromedia baron John Kluge, the one-time richest man in America worth up to $12 billion — during a troubled four-year affair, and then she suddenly dumped him. Rosenthal says he took care of thrice- divorced Kluge — once a key member of New York’s young social set — and her young son, Jack, for years before she abruptly demanded last month he move out of her home in Encino, Calif., built on part of John Wayne’s old estate.