FIRST LOOK: The News in Brief, January 24, 2006

JOINING FORCES: CBS and Warner Bros. Entertainment announcing today plans to merge UPN and the WB into a new, fifth broadcast network called the CW that will launch in the fall of 2006. Both companies will have a 50 percent stake in the new net, which will feature the best programs from the WB and UPN, including Gilmore Gilrs and America's Next Top Model.

DONE DEAL: The Walt Disney Co. announcing that it has acquired Pixar Animation Studios for $7.4 billion. Pixar's Steve Jobs will now join Disney's board.

REMEMBERED: Chris Penn, star of Reservoir Dogs and brother to Sean and Michael, found dead in his Santa Monica home at age 43. Cause of death is being investigated, but police say there are no signs of foul play.

SUING MAD: Donald Trump filing a $5 billion lawsuit against Warner Books and author Timothy O'Brien for allegedly including defamatory statements in the latter's book, TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.

IDOL SMACKDOWN: A judge rejecting a bail request for Daniel Robert Young, a 59-year-old California man charged with stalking former American Idol finalist Jessica Sierra.

NOT SO IDYLLIC: GLAAD responding to remarks made by Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson on American Idol, stating that the judges' quips, which included asking a male contestant if he was a girl, were offensive to the gay community.

DO I LOOK LIKE A CLOWN TO YOU?! A college student filing a police report Sunday accusing Joe Pesci of punching him in the mouth after he took a picture of the Goodfella star in a Boca Raton, Florida, shopping center parking lot.

THE BUST STAYS: Kentucky's governor rejecting Pamela Anderson's bid to have the bust of KFC icon Colonel Sanders removed from the state capitol because she says he stands for "chicken torture." The governor defended the Colonel, saying he's a "Kentucky icon."

ON A POSITIVE NOTE: Brokeback Mountain, Transamerica and Capote leading the movie nominations for the 17th Annual GLAAD Media Awards. CBS' Out of PracticeCommander in Chief head up the TV contenders.

DON'T BLAME TOM: Filmmaker Jason Reitman surprised to find a sex scene between Katie Holmes and Aaron Eckhart mysteriously missing from the satire Thank You for Smoking during a packed screening at Sundance. Reitman later said the edit was accidental.

OUTWITTED: Original Survivor winner Richard Hatch testifying in his tax evasion trial that he decided not to pay taxes on his winnings from the show because he thought producers had paid them.

IN A BIG HEAP OF TROUBLE: Wole Parks, a 23-year-old actor who appeared in the sixth season of the MTV series Undressed, pleading not guilty to charges of fatally striking 25-year-old New York University grad student Hannah Engle with his car Saturday night while driving intoxicated, then fleeing the scene.

BACK TO WORK: Hawaiian singer Don Ho, 75, returning to perform in Waikiki less than two months after undergoing an experimental stem-cell procedure in Thailand to strengthen his heart.

CRACKING THE CODE: Ron Howard's big-screen adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, selected to open the Cannes Film Festival May 17 before hitting theaters around the world two days later.

SWIFT EXIT: Nas bolting Sony's Columbia label and signing a deal with Def Jam, which is presided over by former rival Jay-Z, the New York Times reports.

WHERE THERE'S SMOKE: TheSmokingGun.com and Court TV in talks to develop a scripted TV series based on the investigative Website, according to Variety.

ANOTHER GHOST STORY: Evil Dead filmmaker Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures snagging the film rights to Japanese videogame Siren, to adapt to the big screen.

PAGING TOM SELLECK: Rawson Marshall Thurber, who wrote and directed Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, set to adapt CBS' '80s series Magnum P.I. to the big screen for Universal.

HEADED FOR HOLLYWOOD: Good Charlotte's twin rock stars Benji and Joel Madden forming a production company, Fast Future Films, with documentary director Marvin Scott Jarrett. Joel Madden is also set to star in the thriller Valley of the Damned, which starts shooting in the spring.

THE TWO: Jet Li and Jason Statham, who previously costarred in 2002's The One, teaming up again for Rogue, a thriller following an infamous assassin (Li) who's being tracked by an FBI agent (Statham) after setting off a war between two rival Asian mobs.

FOR SALE: A Tennessee Court of Appeals ruling that the heirs of country music legend Hank Williams can rightfully sell some of his old recordings made for an old radio show, despite Polygram Records and Legacy Entertainment Group's claims to the contrary.

CODA: Janette Carter, the last surviving child of country music's original Carter Family, who continued to perform well into the new millennium and helped preserve her family's legacy with the founding of a Virginia museum and amphitheater, died on Sunday in Kingsport, Tennessee. She was 82.