In yet another discouraging development for accused murderer/avowed bitch-hater Phil Spector, lead defense attorney Bruce Cutler—who so famously got things started with a bang by hammering the phrase "murder on their minds" approximately 17,000 times into the jurors' skulls, then became a rarer and rarer courtroom presence as he attended to his daytime-TV-starring commitments—has officially stepped down from the case as of today. From the AP report:

In a stunning turn of Hollywood events, John Singleton was totally sober and waited responsibly at the scene after he accidentally struck and killed a jaywalker with his car in Jefferson Park on Thursday night, leading authorities to find the director completely without fault. [E! Online]

Figures. Just when the Jolie-Pitt Army of Uber-Moppets had us convinced we could kill time on a slow Monday by cheerfully hand-picking any adorable foreign-born tyke we want and raising it as our own, Madonna has to come along and rain on our parade. Apparently, the good people of Malawi can't decide if she's a wicked, rapacious hellion or a serious(ly rich) potential parent for Malawian quasi-orphan David Banda; finally, per Reuters, they've apparently chosen Door No. 2, but not without totally removing the possibility of more thrilling, head-shaking indecision:

Somebody in the child welfare business just got that Us Weekly subscription approved: After weeks of tabloid stories implying that skinny-dipping with a random college co-ed in Vegas, allegedly drinking in front of the kids, and reportedly shoving a bodyguard who is holding your son are somehow inappropriate acts, America's poster child for staying in school (not this one; the other one) is rumored to be under investigation by L.A. County officials for something potentially a lot worse than trying to Brite Smile her kids' choppers:

If you're anything like us, you slept terribly last night, waking up precisely every 82 minutes in subconscious protest of the bizarrely harsh prison term nonviolent, wrong-way driver Nicole Richie was forced to serve between 3:15 p.m. and 4:17 p.m. early yesterday afternoon. Doing its civic responsibility, the LAT made the Sheriff's Department defend its decision to subject the famous inmate to an intolerable 82 minutes of cruelty, getting a spokesman on the record to claim that anyone in the same circumstance would get similarly brutal treatment:

Actor Austin Nichols, who recently rose to prominence playing the titular, gibberish-talking drifter in HBO's recently canceled spiritual surfing allegory (we think?) John From Cincinnati, was stopped early this morning on suspicion of driving under the influence near his family's vacation home in Michigan. From the Jackson Citizen Patriot report:

Eight months after she was arrested for a painkiller-and-reefer-fueled westbound joyride on the 134 East, mom-to-be Nicole Richie quietly did what needed to be done, and checked herself into the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood at 3:15 p.m. today.

TMZ is the bearer of breaking good news for any troubled, three-time rehabber who, while in the thrall of the SUV-jacking demons of Addiction, suddenly finds his or herself wearing someone else's coke-pants in a parking lot full of Santa Monica cops: Lindsay Lohan will not be charged with any felonies in conjunction with her DUI/cocaine possession arrest and Memorial Day meltdown, as a surprisingly compassionate DA has decided to file a mere seven misdemeanor charges against the sometime actress. A source explains to TMZ:

While we've always envisioned Sweden as an idyllic place where American actors can go to play a few rounds of golf, throw back some cocktails at the 19th Hole, and then take a leisurely, low-speed joyride through the city without being hassled by The Människa, the news that Bill Murray was pulled over in downtown Stockholm on Sunday for suspicion of drunken golf-cart driving has shattered our cherished illusions about the permissiveness of the Scandinavian nation. A spokesman for the Swedish fuzz remarked on Murray's refusal to take a Breathalyzer and about the unknown origin of his slow-moving electric vehicle:

Part-time actress and luxury rehabilitation facility quality-control inspector Lindsay Lohan, you may recall, was recently involved in a high-speed chase through Santa Monica that ended with a DUI arrest, accusations of hostage-taking, and considerable confusion as to the owner of the coke-pants that the troubled starlet was wearing at the time. As if the Denali Three's Today show testimony about that evening's events weren't terrifying enough, a lawsuit filed by a passenger in the car Lohan was pursuing has now added details unmentioned by the trio of still-traumatized captives. From TMZ:

As Michael Jackson seeks the perfect patch of Virginia real estate upon which to mount his dream theme-park residence, Colonial Neverlandsburg, his recent past has already come back to haunt him: The Bahraini Prince who sponsored Jackson during his gender-confused time living in the Middle East is now suing Jackson. From Fox411:

In their ongoing efforts to elicit sworn statements from the innermost elements of Britney Spears's entourage, K-Fed's lawyers have now followed up their subpoena of assistant Alli Sims—who for the past two days has been spotted around town waving a pair of tightly clenched fists and insisting to bewildered passersby how she "still hasn't touched it!"—with one served last night to her Director of Fumbled-Baby-Catching Services. From the People.com report:

Poised on the precipice of his own breakout moment, Jonah Hill (née Jonah Hill Feldstein) may seem at first to merely be the latest manifestation of Hollywood's current love affair with doughy and nonthreatening Semitic writer/actor/comedians. Leave it to the stack-delving snoops at The Smoking Gun, then, to uncover Hill's checkered past, as it turns out the Superbad star was arrested last year for relieving himself just a urine's-stream away from the Jimmy Kimmel Live studios:

Jurors in the Phil Spector trial are soon expected to hear testimony from Devra Robitaille, the fifth witness who'll testify that Spector had held them at gunpoint when they threatened to leave his Alhambra mansion—sort of like the Playboy Mansion, but with fewer big parties, more acts of violence against women, and about an equal amount of obscenely rich, eccentric, and horny old proprietors wandering around. Earlier today, the jurors got a look at the crime scene itself. From the AP report:

We're having trouble remembering the punchline to that old joke that goes: "How many women must a crackpot music producer threaten with a loaded firearm before jurors finally discount his highly unlikely story that a failed actress was so depressed, she followed him home to his mansion one night to kill herself?" (We're pretty sure that in every iteration, however, the answer was five or less.)

Like Snoop Dogg before him, actor Ed Harris is the latest American celebrity to cause a ruckus at London's Heathrow Airport. While officials should have rightly waived the actor through the sounding metal detectors on the strength of his transcendent supporting work in The Hours alone, the actor's mini-tantrum and the ensuing discovery of a knife in his pocket instead resulted in Harris being taken into police custody and missing his flight to L.A. The Mirror reports:

Anna Nicole Smith's methadone-infused light may have been snuffed much too soon, but her memory will live on in a steady barrage of endlessly exploitable audio-visual materials. For example, a Texas plastic surgeon has been attempting to sell a videotape he made of a routine gazonga-insertion procedure she underwent back in 1994. Now, creepy lurking legal presence Howard K. Stern, still hanging around in her afterlife, has overseen a temporary restraining order against the doctor:

The producers of My Big Fat Greek Wedding—the 2002 indie comedy which struck a chord with audiences the world over who simply couldn't get enough of the many Windex-salving idiosyncrasies of an extended Greco-American family—are suing Gold Circle Films, the film's production company, for withholding profits. From THR Esq.:

It looks like the sluggish fist of justice is finally inching closer to coming down on R. Kelly. Proceedings about those five-year old child-pornography charges, the filing of which prompted this deeply sensitive, profound artiste to release a single entitled "Heaven I Need A Hug," at last have a start date:

Today brings potentially bad news for Transformers director Michael Bay, who last week was so memorably dragged into the legal clusterfuck that is the Phil Spector trial by a star witness named after a popular seasonal dessert. Apparently, Bay's previous telephone testimony won't be enough, and he'll soon be forced to take the witness stand to explain how he never blew off Lana Clarkson at a party, sending her into a depressive spiral that caused her to take her own life. Reports Court TV's Spector trial blog: