Tamara Taylor

AFTER a month-plus on hiatus, Tamara Taylor and the rest of Fox's "Bones" brigade return with new episodes beginning Wednesday night at 8. This is her first season with the hit second-year show, but she's a veteran of episodic TV, breaking through a decade ago in "Party of Five." Now there's "Bones," a new house in Hollywood and a newly minted fiance. Life is good. Weekends too. Almost like in Paris On a Friday evening I'd start with a nice little posse of five or six people.

AFTER a month-plus on hiatus, Tamara Taylor and the rest of Fox's "Bones" brigade return with new episodes beginning Wednesday night at 8. This is her first season with the hit second-year show, but she's a veteran of episodic TV, breaking through a decade ago in "Party of Five." Now there's "Bones," a new house in Hollywood and a newly minted fiance. Life is good. Weekends too. Almost like in Paris On a Friday evening I'd start with a nice little posse of five or six people.

Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith rocked out, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner got the word out and a constellation of celebrities took their wallets out -- to the tune of $830,000 -- at a charity event and mini-concert organized by John Varvatos and funding a program helping child victims of sexual assault. That brings the total raised by the annual event over the last decade to $3.53 million, with funds going to the Stuart House , a program created by the Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center to serve the special needs of sexually abused children.  While the silent auction and a spirited live auction helped the event easily outstrip last year's $700,000 fundraiser , honorary co-chairs Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck underscored the benefit's other goal of shining a light on the topic of childhood sexual abuse -- and programs that deal with it. "When I first visited Stuart House eight or nine years ago, I was so impressed with how safe it felt," Garner told the crowd.  In his comments, Affleck explained that he got involved because his wife had hosted an earlier incarnation of the event.

LandSource Communities Development, the land development company that owns Newhall Land & Farming Co., has defaulted on a $1.1-billion loan but is working with lenders to restructure the terms, a company spokeswoman said Friday. LandSource declined to disclose the amount of default, but a bankruptcy filing could put building plans for the massive 21,000-home Newhall Ranch community near Santa Clarita in jeopardy. "LandSource is still in discussion with the lenders on trying to find a way that they mutually can agree on how to restructure the loan," said Tamara Taylor, a spokeswoman for LandSource.

Republican Jon Grunseth dropped out of the Minnesota governor's race Sunday, after publication of a woman's claim that she had an affair with him while he was married and other reports that he tried to get teen-age girls to swim nude with him in 1981. "There are three things that are extremely important to me--my wife, my family, first and foremost; the Republican Party, the people of Minnesota," Grunseth said from his home 20 miles east of Minneapolis.

The new UPN nighttime soap "Sex, Love & Secrets" opens in Silver Lake, but then suddenly you're being whisked back to the dawn of time. The screen goes all National Geographic as a narrator who sounds suspiciously like the narrator of "Desperate Housewives" is all " ... yet unlike other animals, the forming of human groups spawns unique human behaviors ... " and "one such behavior is the keeping of secrets."

As Season 1 of the Fox drama "Bones" concluded last spring, forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel) discovered that her long-missing parents were not who she believed they were; that her name was actually Joy Keenan; that her brother, Russ (Loren Dean), had long kept painful secrets; that her mother was, in fact, dead; and that her father was, in fact, not. As if all this weren't tangled enough, Season 2, which premieres at 8 p.m.

A California real estate partnership that the California Public Employees' Retirement System poured about $1 billion into has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. LandSource Communities Development's assets include 15,000 acres of undeveloped land in the Santa Clarita Valley, among the largest land deals to falter amid the national housing glut. The land was appraised at $2.6 billion at the time of the CalPERS investment, but has dropped considerably in value since then.

"Senseless" is a terrific showcase for Marlon Wayans, a master at mugging and physical comedy. But it's lots more than that. It's a laff riot that also contains a torrent of scathing social satire that couldn't be more timely in light of the dismantling of affirmative action.

Those two fixtures in countless stage and TV sketches--the office water cooler and the therapist's couch--underscore the romantic comedy "I Must Be Dreaming" at the Knightsbridge Theater in Pasadena's Old Town. Knightsbridge co-founders and artistic directors Joseph and Barbara Stachura promised a mix of classical and original works when they unfurled their ambitious plans in late June.

Television takes the spotlight starting Monday at the upfronts in New York City, when most networks will announce which shows live and die. Many decisions will hinge on issues of substance — ratings and cost and critical acclaim. But no one should discount the role that style plays in a successful show. A lot has been written about fashion on Fox's "Glee," the CW's "Gossip Girl" and AMC's "Mad Men" — and, in truth, many of us tune in to see just what Blair Waldorf and Joan Holloway are wearing.