Howard Stern

A Los Angeles County jury Thursday convicted Anna Nicole Smith's longtime companion and a psychiatrist of conspiring to provide powerful prescription drugs to the model for several years before her fatal overdose in 2007. The jury acquitted a third defendant ? one of Smith's doctors ? of all charges. The panel deliberated for more than two weeks before convicting Howard K. Stern and Dr. Khristine Eroshevich on two counts each of conspiring to obtain controlled substances by fraud and by providing false names.

Robert Schimmel, a critically acclaimed comedian who made audiences squirm and then laugh with X-rated explorations of sexuality and vulnerability usually drawn from his own life, has died. He was 60. Schimmel died Friday at a Phoenix hospice from injuries sustained in an Aug. 26 car accident, said his brother, Jeff Schimmel. He had suffered serious head and internal injuries whose treatment was complicated by liver disease. The Scottsdale resident was waiting for a liver transplant at the time of his death, his brother said.

More than 2 1/2 years after Anna Nicole Smith overdosed on a cocktail of powerful medications in a Florida hotel room, a judge Friday ordered two Los Angeles physicians and her boyfriend to stand trial for illegally providing her with prescription drugs. The ruling by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry came after a 13-day preliminary hearing that saw the final years of the Playboy playmate's life chronicled through the testimony of witnesses, including a former lover and a bodyguard, and in hundreds of pages of records from pharmacies, doctors' offices and hospitals.

Anna Nicole Smith's boyfriend was urged to send her away for drug treatment but dismissed the advice, saying rehab "would kill her," the late model's onetime bodyguard testified Thursday. Smith overdosed on prescription medication months after a conversation recounted by bodyguard Maurice Brighthaupt at an ongoing preliminary hearing to determine whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to try Howard K. Stern and two physicians for illegally furnishing the Playboy playmate with sedatives, opiates and other drugs.

Outside the courthouse where Anna Nicole Smith's former companion and attorney is facing charges of illegally furnishing her with thousands of prescription pills, a defense lawyer ripped the California attorney general Tuesday for pursuing the case in what he described as "a blatant attempt to advance his own political career." Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown "doesn't care about Anna Nicole Smith," attorney Steven Sadow told a crowd of reporters gathered for the arraignment of his client, Howard K.

It's been more than a decade since Chris Rock and a shapely blond model struck up a conversation over Sunday brunch at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. The relationship that followed was brief -- two dinner dates -- but there seems to be no end to the fallout from the liaison.

Howard Stern, the self-proclaimed King of All Media, has lost his crown. The shock jock's syndicated morning radio show once drew a national audience of 12 million, but since jumping to satellite radio three years ago, his listeners have dwindled to a fraction of that.

RE "The Right Man to Grab the Mike" (June 17, 2007) by Cristy Lytal: I was disappointed that Ms. Lytal chose to invoke the name Howard Stern in her puff piece on Don Cheadle but then failed to mention that the shock-jock played a pivotal role in the career of the man (Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene) whom Mr. Cheadle is portraying in the biopic "Talk to Me." It may interest Ms. Lytal -- and perhaps even the filmmakers themselves -- to know that Mr. Stern appeared on Petey Greene's Washington, D.C., television program in 1980 in blackface and fright wig carrying a boom box. To see a tape of this broadcast is to understand the true genius of Mr. Greene.

Poor Howard Stern -- what's he going to rail against now that it's bye-bye-ah Sanjaya? At least the longshot "American Idol" wannabe Sanjaya Malakar went out Wednesday night with flair, flair, flair, tweaking a line in his teary-eyed farewell version of "Something to Talk About" as a parting shot to Stern and the rest of the Sanjaya-naysayers, crooning that they'll now have "something to talk about, besides hair, hair, hair."

A judge said Tuesday that Anna Nicole Smith's boyfriend at the time of her death might be forced to give DNA for a test to determine the father of her 6-month-old daughter, according to lawyers at the hearing. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert A. Schnider denied a motion by Smith's former boyfriend Larry Birkhead asking that Smith's companion, Howard K.