Suddenly the Universe is a very cold and empty place.

• Apparently we are not a nation of people waiting for Amanda Woodward to return to Melrose Place. Heather Locklear's trip back to the series did little to ease its struggles, lifting its gruesome ratings by a mere 15 percent to a 0.8 rating in the 18 - 45 demo. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Meanwhile, just as the world was sending its mocking obituaries to the printers, guess who's having a good week? Jay Leno is up five percent this week, "matching its highest ratings in six weeks." [Hollywood Reporter]

• With two and a half months to go, the Super Bowl's ad space is almost sold out. CBS reports a 90 percent sell-out rate thus far, meaning only six slots are still available. Like everything else these days, Super Bowl ad sales are being viewed as a barometer of the nation's economic health. [Ad Age]

• A Writers Guild report of diversity among its ranks finds "little if any improvement" for the prospects of women and minority writers. Variety writes that the report "found that women scribes remain stuck at 28% of TV employment and 18% in features while the minority share has been frozen at 6% since 1999." [Variety]

• Jennifer Hudson will play Winnie Mandela, the ex-wife of the ex-South African President Nelson Mandela in Winnie, a biopic to be directed by Darrell J. Roodt, maker of Cry the Beloved Country. [Variety]

• Roger Ebert may be off the airwaves, but his influence lives on, remarkably, as the online buzz king. A survey by Nielsen of which critics dominate the internet reveals that Ebert remains a goliath online, crushing all the competition combined. [thehotblog]

• Making 2012's grosses look like the change fallen under the cushions of your sofa, the video game Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2 reported sales of more than $550 million in the first week of its release. The LA Times puts production costs on the game in the $40 - $50 million range (a fraction of 2012 or Avatar), putting its total budget including marketing somewhere around $200 million. Who's in the wrong business now, movie people? [LA Times]

• Lovely Bones director Peter Jackson told a reporter that, despite his PG-13 rating he had upped the violence in his upcoming film after early test screening audiences "were simply not satisfied" with the depiction of a character's death. [Hitfix]

• Nikki Finke reports that investor Carl Icahn has been snatching up MGM bonds like "A bat out of hell." [Deadline]

• The LA Times reports further on Disney's heroic decision to pull the plug on McG's attempt to America's memories of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with his remake. The paper writes that execs saw the project, scripted by novelist Michael Chabon as "too dark" and that they will take another stab at it somewhere down the line. [LA Times]

In fact, we can confidently say the singer turned in the best-ever performance by a nine-months-pregnant artist waddling around stage in a bumble bee costume. You try doing that next to Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil' Wayne and TI.

MIA's off-stage outfit also got good reviews. Complaining about too many "tasteful gowns" at the awards ceremony, the LA Times' Monica Corcoran wrote approvingly that MIA "looked like a rock 'n' roll mother-to-be instead of a mother-of-the-bride."

Another key moment: Jennifer Hudson accepting the prize for best R&B album and thanking her "family in heaven."

It's all in the clip above.

Full list of winners

• "Mercury" poisoned actor Jeremy Piven first called in sick while holed up with his new model-waitress girlfriend. He supposedly gathered women's phone numbers and sent a mass text reading, "Come to my room - whoever responds first gets me for the night." Quite the courter! [Gatecrasher]
• Here's a fully bearded Marc Jacobs making out with his boyfriend on the beach. [X17]
• Not only is Angelina Jolie not pregnant, she may be incapable of having any more babies at all. At least not for a long time. But only if you trust OK! more than Springfield movie-theater-line gossip.
• Ad jerk Donny Deutsch is for some reason kissing the stepmother of the guy whose wife he's screwing. Or maybe Page Six means "mother-in-law" instead of "stepmother?" So bizarre. [P6]
• Jennifer Hudson might sing the national anthem at Obama's inauguration. [P6]
• Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony went to Puerto Rico to prove they're not getting divorced. At least not before Valentine's Day. [E!]

In the former case, Hudson's brother-in-law William Balfour was formally indicted on murder and home invasion charges in Chicago. Balfour continues to proclaim his innocence.

TMZ also reports that an arrest is imminent in the shooting death of Scott Ruffalo, though their sources declined to reveal who is being targeted by the police. However, the report can't be good news for Shaha Mishaal Adham, the "Saudi princess" who was present during the shooting and claimed it was the result of a misbegotten game of Russian Roulette. As TMZ says, "the L.A. County Coroner begs to differ."

• Indictment Handed Down in Hudson Murder Case [E!]

• Arrest in Ruffalo Case Imminent [TMZ]

• Fameball and celebrity spawn Peaches Geldof, 19, was shocked to learn her secret wedding to musician Chester French, 24, may not, in fact, "last forever." In fact it may not last 100 days, pending the results of yet another secret getaway. [Sun]
• Jennifer Aniston wore a tight top to lunch at the Ivy in Los Angeles to basically prove she's not pregnant with John Mayer's baby. Now the celebrity press is saying she's attention starved. Sigh.
• A supposedly gaunt and frail Madonna had a big coughing fit outside a Kabbalah meeting in LA. Alex Rodriguez is said to be thinking about following her on tour to South America.
• If you're going to send Lil' Kim Moet champagne, make damn sure it's the right type of Moet champagne, or she'll send that ish back. [R&M - third item]
• Former Times writer Sharon Waxman counts four affairs at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. [P6]
• It's not so much that Yale Club members mind their facility being rented for weddings so much as that the weddings are for people from Bronx, if you know what we mean. Oh heavens! [Post]
• Amy Winehouse is thinking on a divorce. [Showbiz Spy]
• Regis Philbin forgot the name of Saturday Night Live's Darrell Hammond as he was introducing him. Hammond is the longest-serving player on the show (not that it did him any good). [OK!]
• Samantha Ronson is being blamed for Lindsay Lohan's decision to pull out of a music awards show in Monte Carlo. Naturally, since a hot guy was involved, it must have been the lesbian. [Sun]
• Here are some pictures of Michael Douglas passed out on his wife. [LA Rag Mag]
• The plot thickened in the Jennifer Hudson family killings. [ET]

Despite the fact that her estranged husband is still the prime suspect in the murders (and may be free as soon as Monday), Julia has added new pictures that showcase her partying with friends, as well as a picture of her late brother captioned, "NOW THAT JASON'S GONE I'M THE PRETTIEST ONE." There's also this picture of Julia with American Idol's Fantasia Barrino:

NOT YOU. YOU ARE NOT A STAR. YOU ARE A STAR'S SISTER.

• Julia Hudson — "NOW I'M THE PRETTIEST ONE" [TMZ]

Us spoke with people who described the inciting incident, a fight between Hudson's brother and the man suspected of doing the killings. That story isn't really featured in any of the other five magazines we looked at, so I guess Us gets the points for that. People's is typically heavy on the personal interest, though surprisingly they didn't set aside a space for other celebrities to weigh in on the tragedy, as three others, Life & Style (they got fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama!), Us, and InTouch, did. They pretty much all have the same photos, especially the terribly cute and just, well, terribly sad photos of Hudson's seven-year-old nephew.

So, who wins? Us Weekly, we guess. Though, it also kind of feels like nobody won.

COULD A BEDSIDE SHOTGUN RACK HAVE SAVED JENNIFER HUDSON’S FAMILY FROM TRAGIC DEATH?

Tragedy strikes in a Chicago home leaving 3 people dead and an Oscar winner forced to identify the bodies of her family.

Jennifer Hudson’s mother and brother were gunned down in their home Friday. Could an invaluable device have saved their lives? It’s called The BackUp and it is a bedside shotgun rack. ...

Whether it is someone known or a stranger entering the home, too many people in this country are paying with their lives during these home invasions. The Hudson family is just one of far too many Americans gunned down in their own home.

What can be done? Law enforcement and the government aren’t solving the problem. So law-abiding citizens are now forced to take their safety, security, and life into their own hands.

It's true! Now you can handle the "people of interest" in your own life when they come knocking, kidnapping, shooting and/or intending general homicidal mischief in your own home. It's made in America, and it works — just ask company president John Peters, who is ready to receive your questions at (612) 605-3613 or press-info@the-backup.com. We're sure comments are welcome as well; send our coldest regards either way.

• COULD A BEDSIDE SHOTGUN RACK HAVE SAVED JENNIFER HUDSON’S FAMILY? [MMDN]

People, the longstanding classy version of the other tabloids, has a story (kinda far down the page, honestly) about Jennifer's bond with her mother, featuring recollections about Darnell Donerson from Jennifer's acting coach and from people in Donerson's Chicago neighborhood. It's the kind of sad human interest story that People has made their name doing. Expect sidebar reactions from American Idol judges (Hudson was a contestant on the show) and maybe one of the bigger gets, like Beyonce, Hudson's Dreamgirls costar.

Us Weekly reports at a more breathless, staccato clip, giving us gory details about the number of times Hudson's young nephew was shot and quoting from Hudson's sister's MySpace, in which she mourns her lost loved ones and imagines them as her guardian angels now. In your face awfulness.

InTouch, Life & Style, and OK! aren't giving the story as much prominence as Us (their older and more popular sibling). OK! does a small dissection of the dispute that lead to the whole tragedy InTouch covers Idol judge Randy Jackson's reaction to the sad news. And Life & Style has nothing about the incident on their sparsely updated site.

So, once again, it looks as though Us Weekly leads the pack toward getting the scoop, though their hand at the necessary quiet, soft-touch pieces is not as nimble as People's. Us ought to get the early lead while People follows up in the coming weeks with a punch-in-the-gut Hudson interview.

Or not. Maybe we'll get surprised with a big Exclusive. It could happen.

COULD A BEDSIDE SHOTGUN RACK HAVE SAVED JENNIFER HUDSON’S FAMILY FROM TRAGIC DEATH?

Chicago, IL (MMD Newswire) October 28, 2008 — Tragedy strikes in a Chicago home leaving 3 people dead and an Oscar winner forced to identify the bodies of her family.

Jennifer Hudson’s mother and brother were gunned down in their home Friday. Could an invaluable device have saved their lives?

No. [MMD Newswire]

• SNL [NBC]

The Sun-Times reported in the last hour that police were summoned to S. Kolin Ave., where the body of a black male child was spotted in a white Suburban SUV. The cops aren't yet commenting, and an Amber Alert remains in effect for Julian, whose mother discussed the shootings and suspected kidnapping at a press conference Saturday in Chicago. Her plea for his return came as FBI investigators joined Chicago police in the hunt — a clue that authorities suspected the boy may have been taken across state lines, though local detectives said Sunday that the search would concentrate on "the immediate vicinity" of the home.

Meanwhile, Julia Hudson's estranged husband William Balfour (right), 27, remains in custody as a "person of interest" in the shootings and the disappearance of Julian King. Balfour, whom police say they are holding on parole violations related to his conviction of attempted murder in 2006. He has not been charged in any cases related to the Hudson tragedy, and so far has been reported to not be cooperating with investigators.

The Hudsons have received a surge of public support since Friday; Jennifer Hudson yesterday thanked the fans who flooded her MySpace page with prayers and condolences, and Barack Obama — a fellow Chicagoan upon whose request Hudson sang the national anthem before his speech at this year's Democratic National Convention — issued a statement of his own on Saturday. The American Idol contingent came out not long afterward, and Hudson herself stepped up Sunday with a $100,000 reward for details leading to Julian King's return. Developing...

UPDATE: (12:41 p.m.) From the AP: "While the body has not been positively identified, FBI Deputy Director John S. Pistole said authorities believe it to be that of Julian King, who also lived in the home."

• Body of child found on West Side may be Julian King [Chicago Sun-Times]

• Fashion student Andrea Feick, 19, met U2 singer Bono in a club on the French Rivieria, met up with him later in St. Tropez, walked on the beach with him, posed for a picture in a bikini from his lap and rode on his yacht. She can't believe anyone would insinuate they might be more than friends. He's "much older than I am!" Think that will work on Bono's wife? [Mail]
• Madonna was said to be in "full meltdown mode" amid her pending divorce from Guy Ritchie but still planning a trip to Malawi with alleged lover Alex Rodriguez and still attending Kabbalah meetings with her kids.
• There's talk of a biopic about Britney Spears' meltdown of a year. [Showbiz Spy]
• Jennifer Aniston was seen having dinner with Anna Wintour crush Gerard Butler. Same place where she rekindled with John Mayer. [P6]
• Someone is shameless rifling the trash of Greenwich Village celebrities. That's what you get for leaving it where Graydon Carter can find it. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan's publicity-hound father is sorry he said her girlfriend Samantha Ronson was "hideous," "disgusting," etc. He has learned that "family matters should be kept private," which is why he told New York all about his recent communication with Lindsay. [New York]

The New York Goes To Hollywood star says she's skeptical about the Dreamgirls actress' engagement to Harvard Law School grad David, who competed for Tiffany's affections on I Love New York 2 under the name Punk. "He's really loving being Mr. Jennifer Hudson. I think he's loving the lavish things she brings to his life, he's seeing the world due to Jennifer's success," Tiffany tells In Touch. "[But] can you love this person if they lose all of this tomorrow? She needs to find out. I just hope people are marrying each other for the right reasons."

Then, New York broke out the Star Jones/Al Reynolds comparisons and catty body image slams:

New York’s not optimistic about the couple’s future. “It’s a mixed match, it won’t work,” she says. “He’ll be in her shadow like Al Reynolds was to Star Jones, like Stedman Graham is to Oprah.” There’s also a good reason David wasn’t the right match for Tiffany on I Love New York 2. “When we were in Miami together, he didn’t even try anything [on me]!” she says. “Maybe I wasn’t his type, maybe I wasn’t big enough for him.”

New York, save your misapplied aggression for the crafts-services table. As Oscar and American Idol royalty, Jennifer Hudson is not to be messed with — she's got the gays (mostly) and the U.N. at her disposal!

• In Touch Weekly