If the amount of money someone sues Sacha Baron Cohen for reflects how pissed off they are about him making them look stupid on camera, then this Palestinian is by far the most pissed off. He's suing for $110 million.

It wouldn't be a Sacha Baron Cohen movie without a lawsuit from a duped interview subject—this time it's from a Palestinian who claims he was wrongly identified as a terrorist. And the real terrorists are making vague threats.

Michael Jackson may have a secret child, Billy Joel gets a rebound girl, Ruth Madoff travels in ripped jeans and a baseball cap, Britney Spears' father pronounces his daughter completely sane and Sienna Miller goes off on an interviewer.

The latest creation in the Ass-Covering Studio Excuses R&D Dept. is the "Twitter Effect." Movies aren't making money, you see, because too many people are learning, 140 characters at a time, how bad they are.

Sure, sure, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince raked in a gazillion dollars this weekend. But who are these people who went to Ice Age? Our guess: creationist parents who wanted their kids to watch a nature documentary.

• News of Walter Cronkite's death on Friday evening didn't generate a Michael Jackson-like reaction, but the hour-long CBS News special honoring him on Sunday proved a ratings winner. In related news, the network will continue airing Cronkite's voice-over introducing the CBS Evening News. [NYT, NYT]
• Is Janice Min leaving Us Weekly? That's the rumor, at least. [P6]
• Fashion magazines are looking a little thin this fall, not surprisingly. [MW]
• Padma Lakshmi is in talks with NBC to star in a sitcom. [Variety]
• More changes are afoot at Interview: Evan Schindler is the troubled mag's new president. And Stephen Mooallem has been named editor-in-chief. [NYT]
• As expected, the new Harry Potter movie mopped up at the box office this weekend with $79.5 million in ticket sales. The big loser? Brüno, which fell to fourth place as sales plummeted 73 percent. [EW, Variety]

So Brüno dropped a perilous 73% in ticket sales this weekend, basically meaning that America has forgotten about Sacha Baron Cohen's Austrian fashion reporter (who's gay!!!!) alter ego. Well, one American hasn't. That brain-damaged lady is still suing.

• The Harry Potter frenzy kicked off last night when the latest installment debuted at midnight last night and raked in $22.2 million in the process. [THR]
• Jared Kushner's struggling Observer is still hunting for a new editor. [DF]
• Time Inc. has "assembled a high-level SWAT team" to revamp Fortune. [NYP]
• The most successful magazine at the moment? Fitness. Obviously! [Folio]
• Ukraine's Culture Ministry has banned Brüno because "it's immoral." [THR]
• A hacker accessed the computers of several Twitter employees, made off with a big bunch of documents, and is now leaking the info online. Technology! [TC]
• Is NBC's wacky, new terrorist-hunting reality show going to put war correspondents in danger's way? Guess we'll find out shortly, right? [NYO]

Ayman Abu Aita told right-wing website WorldNetDaily that he quit Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in 2003 and now represents its affiliated political party, Fatah, in the West Bank town of Beit Sahor. And rather than meeting Cohen at a "secret location," as Cohen told Letterman, he met him at a popular restaurant called Everest in the part of the West Bank under Israeli control. It would have been impossible, Aita said, for him to have a weapon as Cohen told Letterman he feared.

• Looking to buy a struggling business magazine that's losing advertisers right and left? You're in luck. McGraw-Hill has put BusinessWeek up for sale. [BN]
• The hottest interview in TV-land right now? Bernie Madoff, naturally. [B&C]
• Not such great news for the television biz: Most networks are experiencing a double-digit drop in summer ratings compared to last year. [USAT]
• MySpace is no longer a "place for friends." (That's what Facebook is for.) It's a Web site "for accessing entertainment and related information." [WSJ]
• Former Observer reporter Gabriel Sherman takes a look at Observer owner Jared Kushner in this week's issue of New York. Among other things, Kushner says he found the paper "unbearable" until he bought it. [NYM]
• Brüno's $30 million gross made it No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [THR]

If a gay Austrian falls in the middle of his opening weekend, and lots of people are around to see it, does it mean America hates gay people? Probably yes.

Yes, gay movie Brüno made 30 million gay dollars at the gay box office this weekend, and headline writers just couldn't wait to write snappy little things about sashaying and topping! Clearly the point of the movie was not missed.

During the release of Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen and Fox faced a bunch of lawsuits, most of them claiming the film's irreversible damage to reputations, none of which were even moderately successful. Now, Bruno's first litigation failures have arrived.

Finally Brüno comes out today, earning only middling praise from Borat-chuffed critics. And it makes us wonder: What if Brüno had come out first? Would Sacha Baron Cohen exist in the same way he does now?

Earlier in the week Sacha Baron Cohen shockingly appeared out of character on Letterman's show. Tonight he returned in character as "Bruno" to read the Top Ten—"Top Ten Reasons to See The New Movie Brüno."

Not that we minded, because the real guy is pretty charming and a great raconteur, but it was just curious because in the past the comedian, currently promoting Brüno, has been so committed to in-character appearances.

We knew that newsstands have been treating GQ's July cover, featuring a nude-but-not-all-hanging-out Sacha Baron Cohen is like porn. But a tipster at a Hudson News in Manhattan has noticed the decision has lead to some interesting juxtapositions.

[Join Jim Behrle's Kreepie Kats as they inquire as to how much less diabolikal America is now compared to last year, why Moneyball matters (or doesn't), and why Nick Denton isn't working on July 4th. Questions! Answers! Kreepie Cats!]

You might have thought that Los Angeles is a progressive city, but think again. All it takes is one little wink-wink ass-fucking photo shoot with a movie star and high school students to get parents all upset.

Anna Kournikova viciously brawls with another woman in a Vegas club, Leighton Meester sings and acts in a video for Cobra Starship, Michael Jackson looked frail on stage at his concert rehearsals and Chris Brown gets shut down by Jay-Z.