Paul Caron
CNN

How do you say good-bye to a broadcasting legend, who had impacted millions for almost 50 years? Over 41,000 people made up baseball fans, current and ex-players, coaches and other officials will probably have a collective cry together tonight, at Detroit’s Comerica Park, when the Detroit Tigers will honor baseball Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell, who announced recently he has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer.

Like many native Detroiters, Ernie Harwell was the voice I grew up with listening to Tiger baseball games on the radio, for decades. Not only was he on my own radio, but anywhere you went at times, you heard him. He was on radios playing at the beach, on a radio on your neighbor’s front porch, or on a car radio during a road trip. His voice was of course smuggled under the bed sheets at night, for those late starting West Coast games, via my transistor radio.

And his voice would be heard from beyond your neighborhood. For most of those years, the Tiger’s flagship radio station was WJR-AM, that had a 50,000 watt clear-channel signal, that could be picked up in the evening as far as St. Louis in one direction, north Florida in another direction, and as far away as Bermuda. Tiger fans could always get their ‘fix” almost anywhere, and it was Ernie’s voice behind that.

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Matt Mitovich
TV Guide

Octo-Mom Nadya Suleman has inked deals for each of her 14 children to appear on a reality TV series.

Contracts signed and filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday net the collective brood about $250,000 over three years — or $250-a-day per kid, says The Associated Press.

The contracts, which now require a judge's approval, call for the kids to collect $125,000 for 36 days of shooting in the first year, $75,000 for 21 days in the second year, and $50,000 for 14 days in the third year.

If the workload seems a bit "light" — at least in comparison to what Jon, Kate and their brood take on — that's by design. Suleman's attorney has said that her "quasi-reality" series will focus on select milestones in the children's lives, as part of a concerted effort to be less intrusive and to deviate from Jon & Kate Plus 8's everyday-living style.

The Suleman series will likely air first in Britain before playing in the United States, it was previously reported.

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Michael Jackson, shown in 2008, was one of the biggest pop stars in history.

Neal Preston
Time

Early shots capture the future King of Pop at play.

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Andy Segal
CNN Senior Producer

In 1985, with famine ravaging parts of Africa, MJ and Lionel Richie teamed up to write a charity song for relief efforts. It was done on a tight deadline, with the biggest names in pop music adding their voices to what would inevitably be a hit single. But even before dealing with logistics, egos, and the technical challenges of making a record, Jackson and Richie first needed a song. And neither one could write or read music! So how did they do it? Lionel Richie explains.

About 2,000 items owned by the King of Pop are being taken off the auction block.

The contents of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch were going to be up for sale at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills later this month.

But late today the auction organizer told CNN the sale is called off. Jackson sued the auction company claiming he did not authorize the sale of items removed from Neverland after he sold the property.

The auction house tells us they're “very happy with the settlement.” Fans who still want to see Jackson's goods in person can check out the exhibit in Beverly Hills through April 25th and then the items are returned to Jackson.

Check out what's off the auction block here.

Meghan Daum
Chicago Tribune

Amid the ceaseless reminders that the economy is in a persistent vegetative state, it's easy to forget that some industries and products are thriving. U.S. News & World Report, which recently released its list of "10 winners in the recession," says Hershey's chocolate increased earnings by more than 50 percent last quarter and the Burpee seed company has said it expects sales to increase by 25 percent this year (and this was before the first lady's organic-gardening initiative). McDonald's same-store sales were up 6.8 percent last month (thanks, no doubt, to value meal menus that can provide an entire day's worth of calories for a few dollars). Career development Web sites saw their traffic jump 20 percent from last year to this year, and résumé editors are apparently doing a brisk business, especially when it comes to the health-care, tourism and restaurant industries (finance, not so much).

But the most intriguing entry was the third item on U.S. News' list: bodice-ripper novels. Harlequin, still the biggest name in serial romances, saw a $3 million gain, year to year, in North American sales in the fourth quarter of 2008 (by contrast, book sales in the general marketplace are down slightly). It's so easy to poke fun at contemporary romance novels that there's really no sport in it. The plots, by definition, are formulaic; the prose manages to be at once overwrought and underdeveloped; the covers, well, they're where that famous, flaxen-haired slab of manhood named Fabio got his start. But romances have long dominated sales of mass-market paperbacks (which, in turn, dominate sales of books in general).

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Chris Campion
The Observer

In April, an extraordinary auction will provide an unprecedented look into the private world of Michael Jackson. More than 2,000 items, ranging from personal effects and costumes to pieces from Jackson's private art collection as well as fittings and furnishings from his Neverland ranch, will be up for sale at a four-day public auction at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles.

Given the continuing fascination that the self-styled King of Pop exerts over the public imagination, Darren Julien, the affable Los Angeles-based auctioneer of celebrity merchandise who is directing the sale, expects a media circus to descend on the hotel as well as tribes of devoted Jackson fans from all corners of the globe. Select lots are to be sent on a touring exhibition that will arrive in Dublin and London in March before a full-scale exhibition opens for one week in Beverly Hills prior to the sale.

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Fairey stands next to his famous depiction of Obama at the National Portrait Gallery.

Randy Kennedy
The New York Times

In a pre-emptive strike, the street artist Shepard Fairey filed a lawsuit on Monday against The Associated Press, asking a federal judge to declare that he is protected from copyright infringement claims in his use of a news photograph as the basis for a now ubiquitous campaign poster image of President Obama.

The suit was filed in federal court in Manhattan after The Associated Press said it had determined that it owned the image, which Mr. Fairey used for posters and stickers distributed grass-roots style last year during the election campaign. The photo, showing Mr. Obama at the National Press Club in April 2006, was taken for The A.P. by a freelance photographer, Mannie Garcia.

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