ASSOCIATED PRESS:  President Barack Obama is beginning his latest bid to open a dialogue with the Muslim world by paying a call on Saudi King Abdullah, guardian of Islam’s sacred sites in Mecca and Medina. The monarch of Saudi Arabia plans to greet Obama at Riyadh’s main airport with coffee and ceremony when he arrives Wednesday after an overnight flight from Washington. Saudi Arabia is a stopover en route to Cairo, where Obama is to set deliver a speech that he’s been promising since last year’s election campaign — aiming to set a new tone in America’s often-strained dealings with […]

MTV: Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr took the stage at the Microsoft press conference to talk briefly about the game, made by “Rock Band” creators at MTV-owned Harmonix Music, which is slated for release on September 9 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the Wii. It will be released alongside replica Beatles instruments that connect to the game — and the long-awaited remastered Beatles catalog will be released on the same day. MORE

ASSOCIATED PRESS: A Philadelphia newspaper founded in 2004 with the goal of providing a conservative voice has suspended publication, the publisher said. The Bulletin couldn’t afford to operate any longer, Publisher Thomas Rice told employees. Rice wouldn’t go into detail Tuesday, but confirmed The Bulletin had “temporarily” suspended publication. Employees were called into a Monday afternoon meeting and told they were being laid off, said John Rossomando, managing editor. The group was told that even though advertising sales were showing some signs of recovery, the newspaper’s costs had proven insurmountable. Rice launched the newspaper with the historic Philadelphia name in […]

UPDATE: THIS SHOW IS SOLD OUT NEW YORK TIMES: Music moves; it can’t do anything else. Grizzly Bear’s songs rev without going anywhere. With broad vocal harmonies and harmonic motion built from unusual guitar tunings, the band gives you beauty until you can’t stand it. I found myself lost in a few bright, bursting moments of its show at Town Hall on Thursday. They felt like static pleasures, though. The concert sits in my memory like a slide show. There is a nearly suffocating fussiness in this band. It can’t be altered: it’s the life force of the music, which […]

LIFE: August 1950: A 24-year-old Marilyn, wearing a simple button-down shirt monogrammed with her initials, leans against a tree in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park for LIFE photographer Ed Clark. The negatives for these photos were recently discovered during our ongoing effort to digitize LIFE’s immense and storied photo archive, including outtakes and entire shoots that never saw the light of day. Click through to see more stunning shots of Marilyn, plus the reason why they may never have been published. MORE

DAILY NEWS: A former altar boy for the late Cardinal John Krol filed a lawsuit yesterday alleging that he was sexually abused by two priests in the 1970s. The lawsuit makes no allegation of sexual misconduct by the Philadelphia archbishop, who died in 1996, but does contend that Krol blithely ignored the accusations. Lawyers for Steven B. Souder, 47, of Philadelphia, filed the suit in Asheville, N.C., against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the diocese of Charlotte, N.C., and a now-retired Philadelphia priest. According to the lawsuit, which seeks damages for emotional and physical abuse, Souder was a student at Roman […]

133 N 3rd St Philadelphia, PA 19106 (215) 928-1311 BY LAURA YACOE As much as I love browsing in the boutiques of Second and Third Street, that $350 dress on sale for $250 won’t be owned by me anytime soon. The customary lap around the store before slipping out is second nature because, I know from experience, my minimal post-undergrad funds are in danger of extinction if I step into the dressing room. But at Lost + Found, my nest egg actually stand a chance and I don’t have to mentally slap my wrist with every item I pick up. […]

ASSOCIATED PRESS: In character as flamboyant fashion reporter “Bruno,” Baron Cohen flew in above Sunday’s award show audience on a wire — and in a pair of feathery white wings and his rear end mostly exposed. But the comedian crashed into an overhead obstacle, and he was lowered into the audience — right into Eminem’s lap, his bare hindquarters in the rapper’s face. Eminem seemed visibly upset at the mishap. Or was it a joke he was in on? The rapper stormed out with his entourage in tow — and cameras rolling. MORE UPDATE: The head writer for the MTV […]

At The Barbary tonight!

FRESH AIR Iggy Pop: He’s the Godfather of Punk, the former lead singer of The Stooges, famous for his explosive bare-chested performances and for the verbal abuse he hurls at his audiences. Also for his self-mutilation and heroin addiction. But last year the artist once known as James Jewell Osterburg Jr. turned 60, and his newest work reflects the changes that have come with age. His album Preliminaires, in fact, takes inspiration from sources that may surprise some: Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and French novelist Michel Houellebecq. It features standards like “Autumn Leaves” and “How Insensitive.” The result? Iggy […]

NEW YORK TIMES: Perhaps more than anyone else in the business, Galifianakis embodies the rebellion against the outmoded Comedy Club circuit — the exposed brick, the two-drink minimum, the indifferent audience, the “regular guy with an attitude” routine — which has come to be labeled the “indie comedy” movement. […] The Internet, with its steady appetite for eccentric and off-the-cuff content, has been crucial to Galifianakis’s growing prominence, and to the rise of indie comedy as a whole. “College kids these days have an appreciation for randomness — just completely bizarre stuff,” Galifianakis told me, “and they didn’t get that […]

BLOOMBERG: General Motors Corp., the world’s largest automaker for 77 years, will file for bankruptcy today, and emerge with majority ownership by taxpayers and liabilities reduced by more than 50 percent, the U.S. government said. The “new GM” will get $30.1 billion in bankruptcy financing from the government, and the Treasury “does not anticipate providing any additional assistance” after that, the Obama administration said yesterday in a statement. The federal government will have a 60 percent equity stake in the retooled automaker, and 12 percent will be held by the Canadian government, which is lending $9.5 billion to the company. […]