Haim

From "Tootsie" all the way back to Shakespeare's Arden Forest, cross-dressing has a long history of enriching comedy. The warm, diverting, easy-going comedy "Just One of the Girls" (at 8 tonight on Fox, Channels 11 and 6) gives the protagonist-in-drag a newfound freshness on TV. Only certain comic actors can pull off this transformation, and Corey Haim, whose performance as a high school co-ed is winningly low-key, is certainly one of them.

Power Rangers, meet the monkeys. Haim Saban, who became a television tycoon by bringing the "Power Rangers" series to the U.S., has bought Paul Frank Industries Inc., a Southern California design, licensing and retail operation that began nearly 15 years ago in a Huntington Beach garage. Its trademark Julius the monkey icon — a whimsical twist on the old-school sock monkey — adorns a line of apparel and accessories, including baby bibs, canvas bags, bike helmets and Lip Smackers brand lip balm.

One of the most popular — and reviled — icons of 1990s children's television is back in the hands of the man who launched it. Media mogul Haim Saban has bought back the rights to "Power Rangers," the hit television show that fueled his dominance of children's television in the 1990s, from Walt Disney Co., which took control of the property in 2001. Saban has also signed a deal with Nickelodeon, Disney's primary rival in the children's TV business, to air 20 new episodes of "Power Rangers" that he will produce, along with a catalog of more than 700 episodes.

Some big names are returning to Saturday morning television: Haim Saban and a colorful cadre of professional wrestlers. In two weeks, the Los Angeles billionaire's company, Saban Brands, will launch a five-hour block of original children's programming called Vortexx. Aimed at young boys, the slate of shows will air on the CW television network and be anchored by "WWE Saturday Morning Slam," a new program produced by World Wrestling Entertainment. The half-hour show, which debuts Aug. 25, marks the return of WWE to Saturday morning children's television after an 11-year absence.

Irene Gut Opdyke, who risked her life in World War II by hiding Jews in a cellar beneath a German major's villa -- a story of courage that decades later would make her an internationally known speaker -- has died. She was 85. Opdyke was 25 and working as the major's housekeeper when, in 1943, she overheard that the Gestapo was about to sweep through a local Jewish ghetto in Poland.

In the weeks before his death from a suspected accidental overdose, actor Corey Haim went "doctor shopping" and obtained at least 553 pills of powerful prescription medications from seven doctors and as many different pharmacies, California's attorney general said Tuesday. Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said Haim visited physicians at offices, urgent-care facilities and emergency rooms to obtain the potential deadly collection of pills and on one occasion used an alias. He said Haim's case illustrates how prescription drugs can be just as dangerous as street drugs, and that doctor-shopping can be deadly.

Haim Cohen, a former Israeli Supreme Court justice and a human rights advocate, died Wednesday in Jerusalem. He was 91. Cohen was the first president of the Assn. of Civil Rights in Israel, one of the nation's leading human rights organizations, a position he assumed after retiring in 1981 after 21 years as a Supreme Court justice. Many of his most notable decisions as a justice were minority opinions on human rights issues.

Polishing off a late breakfast in the dining room of a Newport Beach hotel, New York artist Haim Steinbach looks over at a trio of small, white porcelain objects with floral relief designs that are clustered on the tablecloth. "I don't quite understand what this salt and pepper shaker are doing next to this little vase with a carnation on it," he says. "It's totally absurd and strange. Of course I know what they're supposed to do. But this combination!

Mimi Ginott Kaough recalled that when she was 14, her stepfather hired her to type his nationally syndicated parenting columns. But as she typed, she edited the manuscripts to please herself. "My mother was shocked. She'd say, 'How can you change Haim Ginott's work?' He'd look it over and say, 'You know, this is great. I really like it a lot better.' "My mother didn't tell me until recently that he had explained to her, 'Alice, I've got an editor. Whatever they don't like, they'll change anyway.'

On the 20th anniversary of the Six-Day War and the subsequent Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Israeli writer David Grossman was commissioned by the Hebrew weekly Koteret Rashit to write a series of articles about the Palestinians from the occupied territories. "The Yellow Wind" comprises these 17 pieces of journalism and one short story. Grossman, a fluent speaker of the Arabic language, spent a month visiting refugee camps, divided Arab villages, Jewish settlements such as Gush Emunim, Israeli military courts that try alleged Palestinian terrorists and kindergartens (where Palestinian boys "shoot" at him with imaginary guns)