Reading

Leslie Moonves has had the same morning routine for decades. "The first thing I do after getting out of the shower is pick up Daily Variety and have a cup of coffee," the CBS Corp. chief executive said. "It's a 30-year habit. " That habit is ending for Moonves and lots of other Hollywood power players, movie and television stars, producers and publicists and thousands of wannabes: Daily Variety is ceasing as a print publication after almost 80 years. Tuesday's edition is its last.

Former pop singer Pat Boone appeared on Fox Business News and called President Obama a Marxist -- and he didn't mean it as a compliment. Now 78, Boone was the second-biggest chart-topper of the 1950s, behind Elvis Presley. Since then, he's been a vocal conservative, often speaking up about politics. Which is what he did Wednesday night, voicing his ideas about Obama's views. "He is following his playbook, which is Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals,' " Boone said . "This is the guy that trained him to be a community organizer, a Marxist, a socialist, a progressive, who wrote the rules for doing what Mr. Obama is doing.

Philip Anschutz, the billionaire chairman of AEG, announced Thursday that the sale of the behemoth entertainment company would be halted. Anschutz Entertainment Group Inc. owns L.A. Live, Staples Center and the Los Angeles Kings, among other holdings. AEG: A look back Here is the full text of the statement the company released Thursday: "The Anschutz Company announced today that it will retain ownership of Anschutz Entertainment Group, Inc. and terminate the sales process for AEG. Philip F. Anschutz, as Chairman of AEG, will resume a more active role in the Company, with a particular focus on the Company's world-wide strategy and operations.

Here are six books (and book events) to which I'm especially looking forward: a preview of the writes of spring. April 2 "The Flamethrowers" by Rachel Kushner Scribner Rachel Kushner's first novel, "Telex From Cuba," was a sensation: Set in the years before the Cuban revolution, it was a national bestseller and a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award. Her follow-up, "The Flamethrowers," operates in the space between creativity and politics, the saga of an artist who travels from Lower Manhattan in the late 1970s to become immersed in the white hot center of Italian radical politics.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Duncan Rule discovered "The Hunger Games" shortly after the novel came out four years ago. He recommended it to Eddie Mansius, his best friend since seventh grade. Eddie urged Nick Rhyne and Maddie Moore to read it. Maddie devoured the book, which meshes a teenage coming-of-age story with reality TV and war, in three days. "It was like I never wanted it to end," said Maddie, who went to YouTube and was disappointed to find a movie hadn't been made. She and her three friends, high school sophomores at the time, decided to make their own. Maddie played Katniss, the 16-year-old heroine who is forced to fight other children to the death for the entertainment of a vapid futuristic society.

VATICAN CITY - Deep inside a safe in the papal apartment lies a top-secret report - for his holiness' eyes only - that has become the most talked-about document in Rome. Written by three elderly cardinals, the dossier delves into the most damaging security breach in the Vatican in living memory: the recent leak of private papers belonging to Pope Benedict XVI. The pontiff commissioned the senior prelates to find out how such a major lapse could have occurred and why. Where the fingers point - already a matter of fevered conjecture in the Italian press - could become a factor in the selection of the next pope after Benedict's retirement Thursday.

Students at 99th Street Elementary School near Watts caught a glimpse of what for most is a rare sight: fathers reading to them. Sitting in chairs built for bodies much smaller than their own, about 150 men participated in the school's fifth annual Donuts With Dads event Thursday. But they do more than tell stories, school officials said. "Having the men come in is motivating to the students," said Erica Jones, a third-grade teacher. "To have a dad feel it's important to be here and read translates the same message to the child.

If you read only one food story today (not that I'm advising that), you absolutely must read Andy Greenwald's brilliant piece on food television on Grantland . Not only is it a smart analysis of how the genre has devolved from Julia and Jacques to Rachael and Guy, but it's studded with enough laugh-out-loud lines to make any ordinary writer's year. Emeril Lagasse was “A lumbering, rump roast of a man who cooked like Paul Prudhomme but talked like the Gorton's Fisherman.” (Now he's “a Wookie in winter.”)

Oscar Pistorius appeared in a South African court on Tuesday facing charges that he shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentine's Day. Pistorius said that he thought Steenkamp was a burglar and he shot her under that assumption. Prosecutors say he knew it was Steenkamp, who was locked in a bathroom at the time of the shooting. Here, supplied by the Associated Press, are excerpts from the affidavit made by Pistorius and read in court during Pistorius' bail hearing by senior defense lawyer Barry Roux in a bail hearing Tuesday.

Here's the Lakers' statement on the death of owner Jerry Buss, who helped lead the team to 10 NBA championships since purchasing the franchise in 1979. Within the team's statement are comments from the Buss family. "Dr. Jerry Buss, longtime owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, passed away today at 5:55 a.m. after a long illness. He was 80 years old.  "'We not only have lost our cherished father, but a beloved man of our community and a person respected by the world basketball community,' a statement released on behalf of the Buss family said.