Comedian Joan Rivers dead at 81

By LYNN ELBER

Joan Rivers, the raucous, acid-tongued comedian who crashed the male-dominated realm of late-night talk shows and turned Hollywood red carpets into danger zones for badly dressed celebrities, died Thursday. She was 81.

Rivers was hospitalized last week after she went into cardiac arrest at a Manhattan doctor's office following a routine procedure. Daughter Melissa Rivers said she died at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, surrounded by family and close friends.

"My mother's greatest joy in life was to make people laugh," Melissa Rivers said. "Although that is difficult to do right now, I know her final wish would be that we return to laughing soon."

Rivers - who made "Can we talk?" a trademark of her routines - never mellowed during her half-century-long career. She had insults ready for all races, genders and creeds. She moved from longtime targets such as the weight problems of Elizabeth Taylor, of whom she said "her favorite food is seconds," to newer foes such as Miley Cyrus, and continued to appear on stage and on TV into her 80s.

Comedy was not only her calling, but her therapy, as she turned her life inside out for laughs, mocking everything from her proclaimed lack of sex appeal ("My best birth control now is just to leave the lights on") to even her own mortality.

"I have never wanted to be a day less than I am," she insisted in a 2013 interview with The Associated Press. "People say, `I wish I were 30 again.' Nahhh! I'm very happy HERE. It's great. It gets better and better. And then, of course, we die," she quipped.

With her red-carpet query "Who are you wearing?", the raspy-voiced blonde with the brash New York accent also helped patent pre-awards commentary - and the snarky criticism that often accompanies it, like cracking that Adele's Grammy wardrobe made the singer look like she was sitting on a teapot. Rivers slammed actors at the Oscars, Emmys and Golden Globes for E! Entertainment. In 2007, Rivers and her partner-in-slime, daughter Melissa, were dropped by their new employer, the TV Guide Channel, and replaced by actress Lisa Rinna. But they found new success on E! with "Fashion Police," which Rivers hosted and her daughter produced.

No performer worked harder, was more resilient or tenacious. She never stopped writing, testing and fine-tuning her jokes.

"The trouble with me is, I make jokes too often," she told the AP in 2013, just days after the death of her older sister. "I was making jokes yesterday at the funeral home. That's how I get through life. Life is SO difficult - everybody's been through something! But you laugh at it, it becomes smaller."

She had faced true crisis in the mid-1980s. Edgar Rosenberg, her husband of 23 years, committed suicide in 1987 after she was fired from her Fox talk show, which he produced. The show's failure was a major factor, Rivers said. Rosenberg's suicide also temporarily derailed her career.

"Nobody wants to see someone whose husband has killed himself do comedy four weeks later," she told The New York Times in 1990.
Rivers had originally entered show business with the dream of being an actress, but comedy was a way to pay the bills while she auditioned for dramatic roles. "Somebody said, `You can make six dollars standing up in a club,'" she told the AP, "and I said, `Here I go!' It was better than typing all day."

In the early 1960s, comedy was a man's game and the only women comics she could look to were Totie Fields and Phyllis Diller. But she worked her way up from local clubs in New York until, in 1965, she landed her big break on "The Tonight Show" after numerous rejections. "God, you're funny. You're going to be a star," host Johnny Carson told her after she had rocked the audience with laughter.

Her nightclub career prospered and by late that year she had recorded her first comedy album, "Joan Rivers Presents Mr. Phyllis and Other Funny Stories." Her personal life picked up as well: She met British producer Rosenberg and they married after a four-day courtship.

Rivers hosted a morning talk show on NBC in 1968 and, the next year, made her Las Vegas debut with female comedians still a relative rarity.

"To control an audience is a very masculine thing," Rivers told the Los Angeles Times in 1977. "The minute a lady is in any form of power, they (the public) totally strip away your femininity - which isn't so. Catherine the Great had a great time"

In 1978, she wrote, directed and co-starred in the movie "Rabbit Test." It had an intriguing premise - Billy Crystal as a man who gets pregnant - but was poorly received. In 1983, though, she scored a coup when she was named permanent guest host for Carson on "Tonight."

Although she drew good ratings, NBC hesitated in renewing her contract three years later. Fledgling network Fox jumped in with an offer of her own late-night show.

She launched "The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers" on Fox in 1986, but the venture lasted just a season and came at a heavy price: Carson cut ties with her when she surprised him by becoming a competitor.

Carson kept publicly silent about her defection but referred obliquely to his new rival in his monologue on the day her show debuted.

"There are a lot of big confrontations this week," Carson said as the audience giggled expectantly. "Reagan and Gorbachev, the Mets versus the Astros, and me versus `The Honeymooners' lost episodes."

Her show was gone in a year and she would declare that she had been "raped" by Fox; Three months later, her husband was found dead.

It took two years to get her career going again, and then she didn't stop. Rivers appeared at clubs and on TV shows including "Hollywood Squares." She appeared on Broadway and released more comedy albums and books, most recently "Diary of a Mad Diva."

Rivers once joked that there was not "one female comic who was beautiful as a little girl." She was born Joan Molinsky in Brooklyn to Russian immigrants Meyer Molinsky, a doctor, and Beatrice. Rivers had a privileged upbringing but struggled with weight - she was a self-proclaimed "fatty" as a child - and recalled using make-believe as an escape. After graduating from Barnard College in 1954, she went to work as a department store fashion coordinator before she turned to comedy clubs. She had a six-month marriage to Jimmy Sanger.

In recent years, Rivers was a familiar face on TV shopping channel QVC, hawking her line of jewelry, and won the reality show "Celebrity Apprentice" by beating out her bitter adversary, poker champ Annie Duke. In 2010, she was featured in the documentary "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work."

She never let age, or anything, make her sentimental. Earlier in 2014, she got inked: a half-inch-tall tattoo, "6M," on the inside of her arm representing 6 million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust. In 2013, she brashly pledged to work "forever."

"You never relax and say, 'Well, here I am!'" she declared. "You always think, `Is this gonna be OK?' I have never taken anything for granted."

Survivors include daughter Melissa and a grandson, Cooper.
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No gray area: Beliefs shape view of Brown killing

BY JESSE WASHINGTON
ST. LOUIS (AP) - Lamont Jones and Keith Stephens stood 60 feet from each other, separated by four lanes of pavement and a thousand miles of perception.
Stephens was wearing a T-shirt printed with a police shield bearing the phrase "OFFICER DARREN WILSON I STAND BY YOU," as part of a rally supporting the white policeman who killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was unarmed. Jones was across the street, holding up a sign that said, in blood-red letters: "Darren Wilson is a Murderer."
There was no overlap in the facts as seen by Jones and Stephens at the demonstrations staged a few miles from suburban Ferguson, where Brown was killed. Like many who have closely followed the case, which sparked riots and yet another national racial conflagration, Jones and Stephens had made up their minds.
Like uncounted numbers of Americans, they saw no gray area in the killing of Michael Brown.
Many are convinced there was no justification for Wilson to kill Brown because he was unarmed. Many others are certain it was justifiable because they believe Brown threatened Wilson.
Not everyone is so sure. In a CBS News/New York Times poll, 64 percent of respondents said they didn't know enough to say whether the shooting was justified. Only about half of respondents said they had paid "a lot" of attention to the case.
But the national furor over Ferguson is fueled by those with strong opinions. They are the people still marching, or calling Brown a thug, or demanding that Wilson be convicted, or implying that Brown deserved his death.
Such strong opinions can often be influenced by "confirmation bias," psychologists say. A large body of research shows that people search for evidence to support their preexisting viewpoints - and then interpret that information in a way that reinforces their beliefs.
"It's the tendency to seek out and give greater weight to information that confirms what we think rather than contradicts it," said Scott Plous, a psychology professor at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.
Confirmation bias seemed to be running rampant at the dueling demonstrations.
About 100 Wilson backers, nearly all of them white, gathered outside of Barney's Sports Pub in St. Louis late last month, brandishing signs like "Heroes Have A Right To Protect Themselves." A multiracial group of about a dozen Brown supporters stood across the street. Passing drivers honked in support of one side or the other, screamed obscenities, or raised middle fingers out of windows.
Jones stalked the sidewalk with a silent, smoldering gaze. Asked why his sign called Wilson a murderer, he said Brown was unarmed and was shot with his hands up.
What about the police statement that Brown tried to grab Wilson's weapon?
"Where his witnesses at?" Jones demanded. "(Brown) ran away. He was unarmed."
"Use a stun gun. Taser," Jones added. "The facts are, Darren Wilson fired a multitude of six shots into an 18-year-old, who was unarmed . two shots in the arm, the rest in the head and upper torso."
An autopsy by the Brown family said Brown was hit with four shots in the arm and two in the head.
Might any information emerge that could change Jones' mind?
"No," Jones said, gaze steady. "Not at all."
His parting shot: "Unarmed!"
Across the street, questions about the case were met with a different selection of facts.
People at the Wilson rally brought up the arrest record of Dorian Johnson, the first witness, who said Brown was shot in the back (autopsies indicate the bullets hit him from the front) and with his hands up.
They were quick to mention two unverified accounts that provided support for those who argue Brown rushed toward the officer.
No mention was made of the other three witnesses - Tiffany Mitchell, Piaget Crenshaw and James McKnight - who also said they saw Brown's hands up. None of those witnesses described Brown rushing toward the officer.
Wilson's supporters mentioned that Brown stole a box of cigars from a store and roughly shoved the clerk minutes before he encountered Wilson.
"That'd say something about your character, right? And then you might start a fight with a cop?" said a plumber who gave his name as James Edwards.
Edwards mentioned a report, based on anonymous sources, that Wilson's orbital eye socket was fractured. But what about another anonymously sourced report that there was no fracture?
"I don't know if it's true or not. It makes no difference. He had facial wounds when he was hit. He was 100 percent right to shoot," Edwards said, as a passing driver honked in solidarity.
Stephens, one of many people wearing the Wilson badge T-shirts selling for $20, said that if Brown grabbed Wilson's weapon and assaulted him, "that gives him every right to shoot him."
At first Stephens said he could see a gray area in the case because there was so much unconfirmed information circulating. Then he said, "If we assume this officer's account is accurate, there is no gray area in the state of Missouri," meaning he believed what Wilson did was legal under state law.
Did he assume Wilson's account was accurate?
"Yeah, I do," Stephens said.
Several witnesses described Brown breaking away from Wilson and running away. They recalled the officer firing shots at the fleeing Brown, and then Brown stopping.
The crucial question is what happened next.
The rallying cry of "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" has become a powerful symbol of Brown's death. But could "Hands Up" be more myth than fact?
Alternatively, could Wilson, facing possible criminal charges over his decision to shoot, have exaggerated Brown's aggression, shading his statement of facts about what happened?
With so much incomplete and sometimes conflicting information, some confirmation bias is bound to occur.
"If one were to view a police officer pointing a gun at someone, and they also view police negatively, they may very well ignore whatever events precipitated the officer drawing his/her weapon, even though that action may have been entirely justifiable," Lou Manza, chair of the psychology department at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania, said in an email.
"On the other side," he said, "if one has a favorable view of police, they're going to ignore the alleged assailant's behavior, and simply assume that the police officer is correct, despite the fact that the officer may very well be wrong and unjustified in their actions."
"Confirmation bias is a subtle but strong effect," Manza said, "and once a belief is established, it can be VERY difficult to change it."
This helps to explain why Brown's killing, currently being considered by a Missouri grand jury, has revived a dynamic seen in racial controversy after controversy, from O.J. Simpson to Rodney King to Trayvon Martin: People look at the same information and come to very different conclusions.
In this particular case, with little unambiguous evidence, "people are actually acting very reasonably," said Plous, the Wesleyan professor.
"There is a void, and into that void, people will bring whatever they regard as the most reasonable evidence," he said. "People are trying to make sense of this tragedy using the most compelling evidence they have available."
Such as their own perspectives and experiences.
"We're forced to reconstruct, to remember, to imagine what could have taken place," Plous said, "and those are precisely the conditions when we're likely to see bias."

Massachusetts Man Who Sparked ALS 'Ice Bucket Challenge' Now a Father

Pete Frates' father John Frates told SportsCenter 5's Mike Lynch that the birth was "the perfect ending to the miracle month of August."
Lucy Frates checked in at 7 pounds 8 ounces, and both mom and baby are doing well, the family told Lynch.
The Ice Bucket Challenge has raised millions of dollars since Pete Frates dared a few people to try it earlier this year, all in the name of raising awareness of the debilitating disease.

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Jimi Jamison, lead singer of Survivor, dies at 63

The music world and fans are mourning the death of Jimi Jamison.

The lead singer of the 1980s rock band Survivor passed away on August 31st of a heart attack at his home in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 63 years old.
Jamison joined Survivor in 1984 to record Vital Signs after then-lead singer Dave Bickler left due to vocal problems.

The band went on to make hits such as "Eye Of The Tiger" and "I Can't Hold Back."

He also wrote and sang the theme song for Baywatch. After also singing with Cobra and Target, Jamison went on to perform as a solo artist around the U.S., Europe and South America, according to his website.

The family is asking that in lieu of "demonstrations of sympathy" that donations be made to his favorite charity - St. Jude Children's hospital.

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Inquiries begin into nude celebrity photo leaks

BY ANTHONY MCCARTNEY
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The FBI said Monday it was addressing allegations that online accounts of several celebrities, including Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence, had been hacked, leading to the posting of their nude photographs online.
The agency did not say what actions it was taking to investigate who was responsible for posting naked photos of Lawrence and other stars. Apple said Monday it was looking into whether its online photo-sharing service had been hacked to obtain the intimate images.
Lawrence, a three-time Oscar nominee who won for her role in "Silver Linings Playbook," contacted authorities after the images began appearing Sunday.
Naked images purporting to be of other female stars were also posted, although the authenticity of many couldn't be confirmed. The source of the leak was unclear.
"This is a flagrant violation of privacy," Lawrence's publicist Liz Mahoney wrote in a statement. "The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence."
The FBI said it was "aware of the allegations concerning computer intrusions and the unlawful release of material involving high profile individuals, and is addressing the matter."
"Any further comment would be inappropriate at this time," spokeswoman Laura Eimiller wrote in a statement.
Apple Inc. spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said the company was investigating whether any iCloud accounts had been tampered with, but she did not give any further details.
"We take user privacy very seriously and are actively investigating this report," she said.
Actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead also confirmed that nude photos of her were posted online.
"To those of you looking at photos I took with my husband years ago in the privacy of our home, hope you feel great about yourselves," Winstead posted on Twitter. Winstead, who starred in "Final Destination 3" and "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," wrote that she thought the images had been destroyed.
"Knowing those photos were deleted long ago, I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this," Winstead wrote.
The FBI has investigated previous leaks of nude celebrity images, including leaks involving Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis, Christina Aguilera and footage of television sports reporter Erin Andrews in a Tennessee hotel room. Those cases resulted in convictions.
How widespread the hacking of celebrities photos was is not immediately clear. Some of the images were quickly denounced as fakes.
Some cybersecurity experts speculated that hackers may have obtained a cache of private celebrity images by exploiting weaknesses in an online image-storing platform.
"It is important for celebrities and the general public to remember that images and data no longer just reside on the device that captured it," security researcher Ken Westin wrote in a blog post Monday. "Once images and other data are uploaded to the cloud, it becomes much more difficult to control who has access to it, even if we think it is private."
Private information and images of celebrities are frequent targets for hackers. Last year, a site posted credit reports, Social Security numbers and other financial info on celebrities, including Jay Z and his wife Beyonce, Mel Gibson, Ashton Kutcher and many others.
Johansson, Kunis and Aguilera were hacked by a Florida man, Christopher Chaney, who used publicly available information to hack into the email accounts of more than 50 people in the entertainment industry.
"I have been truly humiliated and embarrassed," Johansson said in a tearful videotaped statement played in court at Chaney's sentencing in December 2012.
"That feeling of security can never be given back and there is no compensation that can restore the feeling one has from such a large invasion of privacy," Aguilera wrote in a statement before Chaney's sentencing.

How hotels are making billions off surcharges

A New York University professor revealed Monday hotels are expected to charge $2.25 billion in hotel fees this year, surcharges so devoid of customer value they often make the hotels a 90 percent profit.

And when we say devoid of value, we mean we're all getting screwed. The "Today" show's reporter had kinder words.

"The hotels have ripped a page right out of the playbook from the airline industry," NBC reporter Kerry Sanders said. "Twenty, $30, even $80 resort fees, hotel service fees."

Some examples? A hotel in Virginia charges guests for parking even if they don't bring their car. One Orlando hotel tacks on an extra $70 if you want to pick up a package from UPS or FedEx at the front desk.

In some cases, it's tough to tell what exactly you're being charged for. Some hotels in Vegas add a so-called "resort fee," whatever that means.

And it seems like everyone is repeating this same line:

"Well, when it comes to fees, hotels are becoming more like the airlines." one CBS anchor said.

That's likely because an Associated Press reporter who published one of the early stories on this study made the airline comparison in his first line. The comparisons aren't all that unfair, though. Because again, the fees are so common, some airlines champion it when they don't charge them.

"They're charging bag fees right out in the open. They're not even trying to hide it," a Southwest Airlines employee said.

However, for all the hate against airlines, the groups that might have us really hemorrhaging money are probably the ones handling our money.

In the world of processing fees and all the other complicated things banks and money lenders can stick to us, here are some of the worst.

Despite four in 10 prepaid banking card users saying they switched specifically to avoid overdrafts, those cards still incur heavy penalties for overdrafting. Salon reports they also have the standard fees for monthly maintenance, card activation and using them at ATMs.

The worst of all, though, goes after your life savings. MSN notes that the average total expense for small plan 401K's is 1.46 percent, and the outlet says even one percent is too high.

Here are a few tips to keep you from losing out to unnecessary fees when you're on the road:

Use a credit card and not debit card for travel purchases, assuming you can afford to pay off the entire balance. If someone doesn't give you notice they're going to charge fees, you can dispute the charge.

The International Business Times clued us into a travel site called The Suitest, a booking site that gives you information on resort fees, taxes and other fees before you get charged.

Finally, do your research. Ask a hotel in advance if they charge extra fees and read the agreement they give you before you book. The worst they can tell you is no if you ask for fees to be waived, and then you can always find another place to stay.

This video includes images from Getty Images, Nic McPhee / CC BY SA 2.0, Refracted Moments / CC BY 2.0.


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Prince to release new album in September

By MESFIN FEKADU

NEW YORK (AP) - Prince is releasing a new album on Sept. 30.
The pop icon announced Monday that he would release "Art Official Age" on Warner Bros. Records, the label Prince was signed to from 1978 to the mid-1990s, but later battled for the rights to his music.
He reached a deal with Warner in April, earning the rights to the music he recorded on the label.
Prince will also release the album "PlectrumElectrum" with his all-female band 3RDEYEGIRL on Sept. 30. Both albums are available for pre-order.
"Art Official Age" was described in a news release as a mix "of soul, R&B and funk." It's his first album since 2010's "20Ten."
Prince released key projects like "Purple Rain," ''1999," ''Diamonds and Pearls" and "Around the World in a Day" on Warner. The agreement with the label comes years after his relationship with Warner soured as he failed to gain possession of the music he recorded for the label. Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol and wrote the word "slave" on his cheek. He also vowed to rerecord the 17 albums he released on the label and sell them on his own.
After Warner, Prince began releasing music in 1996 over the Internet, and struck deals with Arista Records and Columbia Records, where he saw a comeback with the Grammy-winning "Musicology" in 2004.
His second upcoming album, "PlectrumElectrum," will feature 3RDEYEGIRL, the band that includes guitarist Donna Grantis, drummer Hannah Ford Welton and bassist Ida Nielsen.
Prince and the trio performed in Europe this year during their "Hit & Run" tour.