Afternoon Briefing:
Not a good thing: Martha Stewart's syndicated show will be suspended after it finishes the 2004 season this September, according to Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Stewart said, "I am deeply sorry that it has become necessary for the show to go on hiatus until my personal legal situation is resolved." (Reuters)
Fidel forever?If Fidel Castro is sick, his physician, Dr. Eugenio Selman Housein, is not admitting it. In fact, the doctor says Castro could live till the extremely ripe old age of 140. "I am not exaggerating," he says. (AP)
Royal bells? German writer and royal expert Norbert Loh is predicting that Prince Charles and longtime lover Camilla Parker Bowles will wed this September in Scotland. (AFP)
Eminem mad at Apple: Rapper Eminem is suing Apple Computers for using his song "Lose Yourself" in a TV ad for iPod. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the copyright case could go forward. Eminem says he has never endorsed a product but that if he did he'd ask for more than $10 million. (CNET)
-- Karen Croft
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Turn On:
Producer Loni Ding's "Ancestors in the Americas" documentary series continues Tuesday night with "Asian Indians in America" (PBS; check local listings). Also, "Judging Amy" (10 p.m. ET; CBS) has its season finale; Amy finds herself in the middle of a three-ring media circus after sending a teenager to anger management instead of prison, and the ringleader is none other than Bill O'Reilly, playing himself.
-- Scott Lamb
Morning Briefing:
Moore's standing O: Michael Moore screened his film "Fahrenheit 9/11" at Cannes on Monday for an audience including Mick Jagger and Daryl Hannah. And? It got a 15- to 20-minute standing ovation. "It was the longest standing ovation I've seen in over 25 years," said Harvey Weinstein, whose Miramax Film funded the film and who is hoping to distribute it through his Lions Gate productions. Focus Features, Newmarket Films and ThinkFilm are also reportedly vying to distribute the film. "Things are being worked out. It will be announced shortly," Weinstein said. (Hollywood Reporter)
Terminating ties? People are apparently speculating that there could be certain philosophical differences behind Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's notable silence on the subject of President Bush during this election year. "All Arnold would have to do is say the president is doing a fantastic job and he would swing a whole bunch of voters," said Michael Blitz, who wrote a book about the governor's influence called "Why Arnold Matters." "The fact that he hasn't done that is fascinating." (L.A. Times)
NBC up first at "up-fronts": Having bid goodbye to "Friends" and "Frasier," NBC presented its fall lineup to advertisers in New York on Monday in an annual ritual known in the industry as the "up-fronts." Its roster of new shows will include "LAX" (starring Heather Locklear as an airport chief), "Hawaii," Mark Burnett and Sylvester Stallone's boxing reality show "The Contender," and "Friends" spinoff "Joey." (Associated Press) The advance word on "Joey," an episode of which was screened in its entirety at the network's presentation, is that it's good. "Matt LeBlanc, whose Joey is transplanted to Hollywood to pursue his acting dream, finds himself surrounded by a core of solid players," notes the New York Daily News. "Sopranos" star Drea De Matteo as Joey's sister "is so good -- so 'Friends'-worthy - that she makes this spinoff twice as much fun." (N.Y. Daily News)
The other side of the Tim Russert/Colin Powell interview snafu? Russert went way over his agreed-upon five minutes with the secretary of state during a very tightly scheduled sequence of interviews and his network didn't respond to Powell press aide Emily Miller's calls to wrap things up. Lloyd Grove reports, "In the end, a very unhappy Lebanese television correspondent, Rania Tadieddine, who had flown all the way from Paris for her 10 minutes with Powell, had to make do with five minutes." Very sad. (Lloyd Grove's Lowdown)
So cold: Rock 'n' roll progeny Elizabeth Jagger and Sean Lennon have split up after a scant two months together, even though Jagger's mother, Jerry Hall, recently gushed that the two were "so in love." Said one friend, "The romance turned out to be more in Jerry's imagination than in Elizabeth's heart." (Rush and Molloy)
Stuff it? Jessica "Baby Jessica" McClure, so memorably rescued from a well in 1987 at age 18 months, is now 18 years old and is hopping mad at the editors of Stuff after the magazine ran a "spoof" where are they now that portrayed her as a scantily clad pinup. "She was just so hurt," says her mother, Cissy McClure. "We're all just really upset." (Rush and Molloy)
-- Amy Reiter
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