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Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Mar 18, 2013
March 18, 2013
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Guilty Pleasures:
No winner in Saturday night's drawing for the Powerball Lottery. That means Wednesday night's drawing is valued at $260 million ($161.1 million cash value). Powerball is played in 44 states, Washington, DC and the U-S Virgin Islands. Chances of winning the grand prize (all five numbers plus the powerball) are 1 in 175.2 million.
Sucking the life out of the wire services:
LINDSAY LOHAN – who's supposed to show up in court this morning--reportedly missed a flight to Los Angeles so she could keep partying in New York City. Linds apparently kept clubbing when she was supposed to be flying back to face charges she lied to law enforcement officials following a car accident last summer. If she doesn't show in time for the 8:30 West-Coast-time hearing, TMZ says a bench warrant will be issued for her arrest. (Bartha)
On, off and way-off Broadway:
A Broadway musical featuring the songs of CAROLE KING is a no-brainer, right? Well, the New York Times says it's happening. "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical" will open in the spring of 2014. DOUGLAS McGRATH will write the book, and since music publisher Sony/ATV is one of the producers, there will be no problem choosing tunes from Carole's entire catalog. (Marino)
Grace notes:
LIL WAYNE is ok. TMZ reported that the rapper was in "critical condition" and "near death" in a medically induced coma on Friday, and that he was being treated at a hospital in Los Angeles. Lil Wayne Tweeted, "I'm good everybody. Thx for the prayers and love." His publicist said he's (quote), "recovering," but did not say what was wrong with him. Rapper MACK MAINE was with Lil Wayne and Tweeted that fans should not (quote), "believe the nonsense about comas and tubes to breathe." On Wednesday, TMZ said Lil Wayne suffered a seizue and was taken to Cedars-Sinai, then released. Later that day, the website reported that the rapper was back in the hospital after he was found unconscious at his hotel. (Marino)
TONE LOC collapsed on stage in Iowa Saturday night. The Des Moines Register says the rapper had just finished a song when he keeled over. Paramedics checked him out and a few minutes later, the audience was told that the show was over. As of last night, there's no word on how Tone Loc is doing, or even if he's in the hospital. Back in 2009, he collapsed during a concert in Pensacola, Florida.
FYI: Tone Loc scored two big hits in 1989, "Wild Thing," and "Funky Cold Medina." Because both songs used samples of rock tunes, many rock stations played both songs. (Marino)MORRISSEY is in a lot worse shape than we thought. The former SMITHS frontman has canceled the rest of his North American tour. The official statement says (quote), "medical reasons" are why 22 dates across the U.S. have been scrapped. Morrissey has been dealing with serious health issues over the last few months, including a bleeding ulcer and double pneumonia. He seemed to be earlier this month when he did sold-out gigs at the Staples Center and Hollywood High in Los Angeles. Get refunds where you bought the tickets. (Marino)
Going Geek-dot-com /Caught in the Web:
New research out of Holland has determined that about half of all spam email originates from just 20 Internet Service Providers (ISPs), most of them concentrated in India, Vietnam, Brazil and of course, Nigeria.
The research surveyed more than 42-thousand ISPs. (FYI: Major IP address blocks by country.)
The study noted that malicious traffic coming from any one particular network doesn't necessarily reveal its ultimate source since cybercriminals typically route spam and other traffic through hijacked PCs or send it across compromised corporate networks that join the net via an ISP.
Among the worst offenders: Spectranet in Nigeria, where 62 percent of all the addresses controlled by that ISP were sending out spam. (Maiman) -
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