While reporting on a gruesome murder in the Mid-Wilshire area of LA, a KTLA news reporter managed to seem cheery and excited, and conducted a charming little interview with a neighborhood eccentric.

Pete Postlethwaite—who played street toughs, priests, and other beleaguered men in In the Name of the Father, Amistad, and most recently The Town—passed away in England yesterday. Steven Spielberg once called Postlethwaite "the best actor in the world."

The Cherry Lane Theater, once the stomping grounds of writers like O'Neill, Odets, and Beckett, is shutting down. The owner bemoans the current theater need to "hav[e] a film star in...productions... I don't want to do theater like that."

Britain's Daily Mail begins holiday heartbreak story with the quote, "We'll sell our toys to pay for daddy's funeral," and the Dickensian drama just builds from there: Mounting debts; the looming prospect of home eviction; and little details like these:

A&E has canceled David Hasselhoff's brand new reality show, The Hasselhoffs, after only about 500,000 people tuned into the second episode this past Sunday.

An elderly man lost all $126,000 of life savings because he left it in a bag on top of his car, the Daily Mail reports.

Today's sad news is that nine of the businesses on the Coney Island boardwalk lost their licenses, including Shoot the Freak, the game where anyone could shoot paintballs at a living human for $5. Life will never be the same.

An eight-year-old Florida boy donated his turtle, Tomalina, to an aquarium. While he was there, an alligator ate it. The boy screamed "Oh no alligator, let it go," while it crunched on the shell. He'll never donate to charity again.

In a junket interview promoting the new movie Baby Boom 2: James Spader's Revenge, an intrepid reporter asked the reviled actress about her "image problem", which was discussed in a recent New York Times profile. Heigl responded: "Yeah, I know."

What seems most befuddling about the suicide of Tyler Clementi, the gay teen whose roommate broadcast him having sex, is how this one incident lead to his death. It's because being a gay teen can be akin to prolonged torture.

35-year-old Somerville, MA resident Mitchell Heisman shot himself in Harvard Yard last Saturday in front of a tour group. Turns out he left a sprawling, deeply-researched suicide note, conveniently located at suicidenote.info

A diplomat at the Saudi consulate in LA is seeking asylum, saying he fears his countrymen "will kill me openly in broad daylight" should he return. Why? Because they found out that he's gay, and friends with a Jew. [via]

Remember Ronnie Brown, the model who lost an ear to a drag queen in a vicious bar brawl three weeks ago? Doctors initially reattached Brown's ear following the incident. But the procedure didn't work and his ear fell off again.

It's true. There's a surprise ending. Did people like it? Find out for yourself. People did definitely like a film about people taking things called Takers, and people still feel pretty good about Julia Roberts too.

The no-female-guests-allowed Lynx Lodge opens in November and it's billing itself as the ultimate "mancation" spot. Yes, we're gonna get our gay on in New South Wales! Wait, it's staffed entirely by female models? Ugh, it's like a live-in Hooters!

Liam Derbyshire, an 11-year-old British lad, has a rare condition that causes him to stop breathing when he sleeps. His parents plug him into life support every night. He's also in remission from cancer. And you think your life's tough!

The story: A Paramount exec sent an email to a coworker, it was intercepted by Sharon Waxman's Nikke Finke voodoo doll The Wrap, and now everyone has it. Basically it lays out their upcoming slate of movies, and it's bleak.

Ha, poor M. Night. In a trailer for the upcoming horror movie Devil, a title card reads, ridiculously, "From the mind of M. Night Shyamalan." Ten years ago, that phrase meant something. Now the audience just groans and laughs. Wah-wahhh.