THE SUN: The examination showed the 5ft 10in star — once famed for his on-stage athleticism — had: PLUNGED to a “severely emaciated” [112 lbs.] It is understood anorexic Jackson had been eating just one meagre meal a day. Pathologists found his stomach empty aside from partially-dissolved pills he took before the painkiller injection which stopped his heart. Samples were sent for toxicology tests. LOST virtually all his hair. The pop pin-up was wearing a wig when he died and pathologists said little more than “peach fuzz” covered his scalp. A scarred section of skin above his left ear was […]

INQUIRER: Josh Kopelman doesn’t seem to agree. A book titled The Richest Man in Town calls the young enterpreneur/venture capitalist the wealthiest self-made person in Philadelphia. But Kopelman hated the title, said author W. Randall Jones, who traveled to 100 U.S. cities and towns to compile the collection of business wisdom, published last month by Hatchett Book Group. “He was very upset with me,” said Jones. Perhaps the reason was that others, like Richard Hayne, founder of Urban Outfitters, have better claim to the title. Hayne has been on Forbes’ billionaire list several times, but was one of dozens who […]

Sonic Youth is like a chronic girlfriend we keep breaking up with, if only because the make-up sex is so good. We’ve been on board — and occasionally off — ever since Bad Moon Rising, ever since we heard that mesmerizing wall of abstract expressionist guitars graffiti’d  with the immortal words: “A genius and a sex maniac, taking lots of drugs and fucking all day.” Man, nice work if you can get it! The just-out The Eternal is a remarkable late-period return to form from a band we’ve written off more times than we care to admit. Anyway, if you’ve […]

REUTERS: The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of a tight U.S. Senate race over Republican Norm Coleman, which should give Democrats the 60-seat majority they need to overcome procedural obstacles and push through their agenda. Coleman has said in published reports he is unlikely to appeal the state court’s decision to the federal courts. Under state law, the court’s decision gives Franken the right to occupy the seat, which has been up for grabs since last November’s election.MORE Minnesota Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty has said he will certify the election winner based on what […]

[“Butterfly Suicide II” by DoNotAttempt] BY DAVE ALLEN News of “Infinite Summer,” the just-launched group-read of David Foster Wallace’s massive and masterful tome Infinite Jest in just over three months — or roughly 75 pages a week — spread at a near-viral pace, at least in the literary world. The initiative, sort of an invisible national book club, launched on June 21st with both an official site and Facebook group recruiting “endurance bibliophiles.” If that sounds like you, get a move on because according to the web site: Infinite Summer is 9% complete. I’m not participating, in part because I […]

BY ADAM BONANNI Last week, Jimmy Fallon earned his late night smack-talk stripes by beating Tiger Woods at his own game. More specifically, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 for the Wii. Although Tiger won a re-match on the Late Show, ensuring that the next edition of the game won’t be titled Jimmy Fallon’s PGA TOUR 11, but the damage was already done. Fallon’s humiliating victory over Woods was all over television, and innumerable clips of it currently reside on the Internet (you can watch a YouTube of it below). And consider that Gamespot’s review of the game called it “as […]

DAILY NEWS: Kidnapped and robbed by drug dealers in 2004, party planner Rian Thal turned mum after her release, refusing to identify her captors. The 34-year-old blonde’s silence spurred her rise “from hanger-on to one of the players,” a law-enforcement source said. She became a “big-time drug dealer,” supplying heavy quantities of her specialty, powder cocaine, to other dealers, and at least once sold Ketamine, an animal tranquilizer known as “Special K,” another source said. The revelations about her secret life emerged yesterday during Daily News interviews with law-enforcement and other sources familiar with her drug dealing and other activities.Homicide […]

CNN: Saying it had completed an investigation into alleged voter irregularities, Iran’s election authority on Monday stood by its findings that gave hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad an overwhelming victory and sparked more than two weeks of chaos in the streets. There was “no tangible irregularity,” Guardian Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei told government-run Press TV after reporting that a recount of some 10 percent of the votes found no significant differences. “After this, the file will be closed and from today on in the presidential election, the file has been closed.” MORE

BY BARRY GUTMAN Twenty-nine years into their career, Australian quartet The Church – singer/bassist Steve Kilbey, guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper, and, for the past 15 years, drummer Tim Powles – are back with a new album, Untitled #23. Don’t take that number literally – it’s much higher when you figure in B-sides and EP collections, re-mixes, jam albums, soundtracks and best-ofs, not to mention countless solo and side projects. The band that hit with “The Unguarded Moment” in Australia in 1980 and “Under the Milky Way” worldwide in 1988 is not going for the easy nostalgia buck. When they […]

WALL STREET JOURNAL: In sentencing convicted swindler Bernard Madoff to 150 years, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin said he wanted to send a symbolic message. That sentence was the number of years the prosecutors asked for and the statutory maximum for the 11 counts Madoff pleaded guilty to in March. “Here the message must be sent that Mr. Madoff’s crimes were extraordinary evil,” Judge Chin said. MORE BLOOMBERG NEWS: Ruth Madoff’s lawyer, Peter Chavkin, issued a statement moments after Bernard Madoff was sentenced today to 150 years in prison. No Madoff family members appeared at the sentencing. “From the moment […]