Sarah Ball

UConn's decision to strip cheerleaders of their gymnastics routines illustrates the strange role of cheering in college athletics.

It's the last week of summer at the movies, and thanks to late assists from The Final Destination and Inglourious Basterds, 2009 will be the biggest summer ever at the box office.

After 26 years, LeVar Burton has turned his last page for Reading Rainbow. According to NPR, "no one—not the station, not PBS, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—will put up the several hundred thousand dollars needed to renew the show's broadcast rights." This on the heels of news that classroom fixture The Weekly Reader and its parent company (Reader's Digest Association, Inc.) have filed for bankruptcy.  What childhood institutions are left unscathed?

Tickets to midnight showings of James Cameron's Avatar are already selling on movie sites─that's four months in advance, or nearly three times the industry standard of 45 days for presale tickets, reps for the sites confirm.

The View loves manufactured controversy like static cling loves a cheap pantsuit. So it's no big surprise that the show has announced a slew of guest hosts designed to stir the pot while regular Elisabeth Hasselbeck is out on maternity leave.

Plax explains it all: Excerpt from ESPN's E:60 exclusive interview with former Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress, whose plea deal for possession of a criminal weapon calls for two years in prison. (He will be sentenced Sept. 22).  The interview airs tonight.

In her reserved and unprecedented appearance on David Letterman's Late Show last night, Vogue editor Anna Wintour finally answers a burning question: if your fashion budget has been slashed down to a measly "20 dollars," as Dave posits, what can one actually afford to look Vogue-approved?Anna pauses thoughtfully: "You could buy a lipstick."Click above to view full chat.

—— is confirming that Michael Jackson's cause of death was a homicide via lethal overdose of propofol, a sedative hypnotic that is typically used for surgical sedation.

The just-released trailer for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, a Terry Gilliam film that hits theaters Oct. 16 and costars Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farrell, and Christopher Plummer. What do you think? Will you see it?

We've already discussed traditional country music's murky future in Steve Tuttle's hilarious essay and the attendant photo gallery. By Steve's lights, "something gritty and real has been lost. [Today's hits] borrow the vernacular ofcountry music, the genuineness and masculinity of that hard-knock life,but they morph it into something that's barely recognizable.

Forget the guise of feminism—you stay just how you are, sweetie!—that was en vogue few months ago. Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle finally succumbed to her first glossy fashion photo shoot for September's Harper's Bazaar, and now the video of the shoot is online.

John Hughes helmed just eight films, in the process defining for a generation what it meant to be a teen in the '80s, but he wrote many, many more. Not only Chevy Chase and John Candy have Hughes to thank for iconic roles (Clark W.

John Hughes, the beloved writer and director of 1980s teen classics like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, died today in New York City of a sudden heart attack.

Zombieland—Oct. 9, 2009 (This is part of our recurring series in which we dish on newly released trailers,then solicit your feedback. Tell us if you'll see the movie below, in the comments!) THE LOOK: The trailer for the upcoming horror-camp-fest Zombieland has been out since June, but this Wednesday, Columbia Pictures released the film's much juicier, much funnier red-band trailer. (Warning!

 Gaggle contributor Daniel Stone has a fun think-piece comparing The Recent Resignations That Have Rocked The Earth to Its Core: Paula Abdul's American Idol departure, and the Palin family's Alaskan exeunt. Check it out here!

Julia Child, the world's most-beloved chef, made it look so easy. But as I learned, it's hard to master the art of French cooking.

The first fresh-baked batch of Terrell Owens' honey-oat cereal, officially unveiled in Buffalo yesterday, is an all-pro seller. "By next week, the initial wave—we have two truckloads—will be gone," Ty Ballou, president and CEO of the cereal's producer, PLB Sports, told NEWSWEEK this morning.

A Serious Man—Oct. 2, 2009 (Ed: This is part of a recurring series, in which we dish on newly released trailers—then solicit your feedback. Tell us if you'll see the movie below, in the comments!) THE LOOK: Top-notch production values—the film promises to be absolutely gorgeous to watch, with sleek, quirky shots and retro tones.

It's pretty much impossible these days to go to the movies and not see a trailer for an upcoming 3-D release—that is, if you're not seeing a 3-D movie to begin with.

"Master thespian" William Shatner took a break from shilling for Priceline last night to do a dramatic poetry reading on The Tonight Show.  But the verse in question wasn't Keats or Auden—it was Palin. Beaucoup snaps from this corner of the coffeehouse.

Over the weekend, guinea pig activists (they exist!) raised our collective furry hackles by declaring Disney's latest animated offering, G-Force, to be the next 101 Dalmations.

As NBC must come to admit today, what looks good on 50 percent linen résumé paper can turn out to be kinda crappy in real life. Ben Silverman, the network's co-chair for entertainment, has scooted out the door after two years and uncountable missteps.

You might not know the name "Sam Worthington" now, but given that you can already preorder a collectible figurine of him here, you might want to learn it.

The Grey's Anatomy star was supposed to be America's new sweetheart. Now we've all turned on her. Is it her fault, or ours?

In honor of 15 years elapsing since the creation of Friends—that seminal show that made it OK to be lost and loveless as a young adult—Ramin Setoodeh writes that 20-something coupledom is still nowhere to be found in movies and television. Plenty of screentime goes to tweenage puppy love (Juno) and to grappling with committment in your 30s (Funny People, ). What's keeping us from exploring the decade between? Check the story out here.

Brüno is falling faster at the box office than a lead anvil aimed at Wile E. Coyote. After winning last weekend with a $30.4 million take—seemingly solid, but upon closer inspection, a highly tepid $11,040 per theater—Brüno has dropped nearly daily, from first place on Friday to fourth by the middle of this week. The Sacha Baron Cohen comedy clung to second place in daily domestic grosses for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, behind 3-D family film Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

An open thread for you to sound off.  Here are the lucky contenders, announced this morning: Drama SeriesBig LoveBreaking BadDamagesDexterHouseLostMad MenLead Actress, DramaGlenn Close, DamagesSally Field, Brothers and SistersHolly Hunter, Saving GraceJanuary Jones, Mad MenMariska Hargitay, Law & Order: SVUKyra Sedgwick, The CloserLead Actress, ComedyChristina Applegate, Samantha WhoToni Collette, United States of TaraTina Fey, 30 RockSarah Silverman, The Sarah Silverman ProgramJulia...

Armed with but an outstretched twig and smudged glasses, Harry Potter has managed to rob his heat-packing fellow Brit, James Bond. And here's how he did it: At 12:01 a.m.

Ron Weasley's love interest in gives us the scoop on Hogwarts heartache.

Is Sacha Baron Cohen's new movie as staged as his MTV Awards brawl with Eminem? An exclusive look at a small Southern town presented as a hotbed of homophobia in the film.