Deadline founder and veteran journalist Nikki Finke dead at 68

Madonna has shared a string of snaps of herself completely topless in what could possibly be her raciest Instagram post to date.

Mario Oliver, one of the kings of the Los Angeles nightlife scene when he ran the clubs Vertigo and The Gate and elegant restaurants like Tryst, Le Petit Four, and Linq, has died at age 71.

EXCLUSIVE: George Gallo (The Comeback Trail) is teaming with Green Book Oscar winner Nick Vallelonga to produce The Accidental Gangster, a new thriller based on reformed gangster Orlando ‘Ori’ Spado’s bestselling autobiography of the same name. The former will also direct from a script by the author’s son Anthony Spado and David Steenhoek.

Former NFL player Antonio Dennard has been taken before his time.

As Hurricane Ian roared through Florida last week, I was thinking of Nikki Finke, who had moved to the state four years ago but now was living under hospice care in Boca Raton, the result of a long and involved illness that finally took her life in the early hours of Sunday at the age of 68.

Penske Media Corp. purchased Deadline for a reported $14 million, with her remaining editor-in-chief and continuing her reporting and commentary.Finke was legendary in her day, writing scoops on her Deadline blog that often proclaimed “Toldja!” when something she’d reported turned out to be true.But although she was required daily reading in Hollywood, Finke was also feared and hated by many, as she became notorious for threatening sources and trading one piece of information to get another more damaging piece of information.Among the targets of her often personal-seeming grievances were then-NBC chief Ben Silverman, the former head of the William Morris agency and many other Hollywood power players of the early oughts.She suffered from lifelong diabetes and was notoriously reclusive because of her discomfort over being overweight, having been a society debutante as a young woman.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer Nikki Finke, a tenacious journalist who revolutionized entertainment reporting with what became the Hollywood trade website Deadline, died Sunday morning in Boca Raton, Flor. after a prolonged illness. She was 68. After spending the beginning of her career reporting on everything from Moscow (for the Associated Press) to Washington, D.C. (for Newsweek), in 2002, Finke started a column for L.A. Weekly called Deadline Hollywood, which she took online in March 2006 as Deadline Hollywood Daily in an effort to better cover up-to-the-minute news. Rather than focus on celebrity or content, Finke placed a singularly unforgiving spotlight on the studio executives and high-powered agents who make the industry run. She was unafraid to call out what she believed to be ill-conceived or substandard decision-making in the bluntest possible terms, and her take-no-prisoners approach made her site a must-read in a media ecosystem Finke saw as excessively fawning and credulous.

Nick Jonas has opened a new rooftop restaurant and bar!

The Walking Dead is airing its final episodes on AMC and the show made a final appearance at New York Comic Con. The network unveiled the Dead City spinoff and also dropped the opening minutes of Episode 1118, which you can preview in the video above. Additionally, the cable network shared preview photos of Episode 1119, which you can see at the end of this article.

Weeks before The Walking Dead reaches its series finale, AMC’s zombie apocalypse series today offered a glimpse and a sort of premiere date for its forthcoming Lauren Cohan and Jeffery Dean Morgan-starring, New York-set spinoff at New York Comic Con.

Al Roker had a reason to celebrate this weekend as his son Nick returned home to New York from college."Nick is home for the long #indigenouspeoplesday weekend and Pepper is happy to see him," Al captioned the picture, showing their pet dog Pepper standing next to Nick as he gives her tickles.WATCH: Al Roker's son receives incredible news and his dad couldn't be more proudFans were eager to hear how Nick was transitioning to college life, with one writing how "grown up" Nick looked already and another sharing how "happy" they were to see Nick and Pepper together.Al is incredibly proud of Nick and shared the moment in 2021 his son found out he had been accepted to college.

Niecy Nash and her wife, Jessica Betts. In a joint appearance on this week, the couple revealed that they have matching tattoos, not of each other's names, but of the name «Cora.» Betts explained that the pair had a lapse in communication during the start of their relationship, when she asked Niecy about her real name. «She said Carol, but I heard her say Cora,» Betts said. «I was calling her Cora for almost two years,» Betts continued«One day, she said, 'Why do you call me Cora?' And I was like, 'That's your name!'»«No, it's not!» Nash responded.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter HBO Max has given a straight-to-series order to a new comedy series from Chuck Lorre and Nick Bakay with Sebastian Maniscalco set for the lead role, Variety has learned. The single-camera show is titled “How to Be a Bookie.” HBO Max has given it an eight-episode order. Per the official logline, “A veteran bookie (Maniscalco) struggles to survive the impending legalization of sports gambling, increasingly unstable clients, family, co-workers, and a lifestyle that bounces him around every corner of Los Angeles, high and low.” Lorre and Bakay serve as co-writers and executive producers on the show. Maniscalco will executive produce in addition to starring, with Judi Marmel also executive producing. Warner Bros. Television is the studio. Chuck Lorre productions is currently under an overall deal at WBTV. The show marks Lorre’s first series at HBO Max.

Ready for baby! Caila Quinn and husband Nick Burrello are expecting their first child, Us Weekly can exclusively reveal.

Nick Cave has spoken openly on his fan Q&A website The Red Hand Files about his recent decision to resume doing interviews.The musician has used the site in the past few years as his main communication outlet, where he responds to fan questions on a number of topics.Cave, however, recently gave a rare interview to The New York Times in which he discussed his new book Faith, Hope and Carnage.Asked on The Red Hand Files by Jeroen from Ghent, Belgium about why he’d decided to start doing interviews again, Cave explained: “A little while after [Cave’s son] Arthur died, I did an interview for a mainstream newspaper, but I felt so bad about it, so unsettled by what I said, that I vowed never to do one again. I felt completely unequipped to talk about anything, least of all the death of my son.

Dr. Frank Rubio traveled to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large ABC and Vice tied with the most wins, at 8 each, on night one as the news portion of the 43rd Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards were handed out at the Palladium Times Square in New York City. Judy Woodruff, anchor and managing editor of “PBS NewsHour” was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award.  The award was presented by Robert MacNeil, co-creator and former co-anchor of the NewsHour. “Tonight’s Emmy winners exemplify broadcast journalism at its best, reporting that values fact over fiction, accountability over advocacy, and that champions the advance of truth in the interest of the communities we all serve”, said Terry O’Reilly, Chairman, NATAS. “America has never needed its journalists more than today. We congratulate tonight’s honorees and thank them for the indispensable service they provide to our nation.”

Sam Smith has delivered a sweeping rendition of Sam Fender’s ‘Seventeen Going Under’.Performed for BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge programme, Smith’s cover is a slick take on Fender’s gritty anthem. The cover replaces the original’s jangly guitars with an elegant piano, while a wash of rising guitar leads take the place of the original’s bombastic horns, as Smith glides above the support of a 17-piece choir.Watch Smith’s cover of Fender’s iconic anthem here:Both artists are admirers of one another’s work: on his appearance on the same BBC programme in 2019, Fender delivered an indie-rock flavoured cover of Smith’s ‘Dancing With A Stranger’.Earlier this March on this year’s BandLab NME Awards, Sam Fender took home Best Album In The World and Best Album By A UK Artist with his second record, ‘Seventeen Going Under’, beating out records by Halsey, Little Simz and Tyler, the Creator.The album, released last year, followed his 2019 debut effort, ‘Hypersonic Missiles’, and was named by NME as the best album of 2021.