ROAD TO POWER: Tom Hanks topping Entertainment Weekly's list of 100 most powerful celebrities in entertainment. HBO executives Jeff Bewkes and Chris Albrecht lead the magazine's list of most powerful execs.
WHERE CAN WE SIGN UP? Survivor mastermind Mark Burnett signing a deal this week with Russia's space agency to train 20 contestants for a reality show that will send the winner on a trip to the International Space Station. The program will launch in November 2003.
WHERE DID ALL HIS LOVE GO: MTV News reporting that Whitney Houston's father is suing the pop diva for $100 million in a breach-of-contract dispute.
DID YOU EVER NOTICE... 60 Minutes curmudgeon Andy Rooney under fire from women's groups after appearing on a sports radio show and saying, "I'm not a sexist person, but a woman has no business being down there trying to make some comment about a football game." Rooney, 83, says he was joking.
DENIED: The Federal Communications Commission rejecting the proposed merger between Echostar and Hughes Electronics. The $18.5 billion deal that would have combined Echostar with DirecTV and created the nation's largest pay-TV service.
LOVE HIM TENDER: Britney Spears, Dave Matthews, Tom Petty, Sheryl Crow, Chuck D and Bono among the artists celebrating Elvis Presley's legacy on an hourlong NBC special to air in late November or December.
FALL FAILURES: ABC making the Ben Affleck-produced Push, Nevada and the time-travel series That Was Then the first casualties of the new TV season, canceling both on Wednesday, according to the Los Angeles Times. The network's MDs is reportedly in critical condition, as well.
ENTRAPMENT: Sean Connery filing a $17 million lawsuit against Mandalay Pictures and producer Peter Guber Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging intentional and negligent misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment and breach of oral contract stemming from the company's spy thriller End Game.
FUHGEDDABOUDIT: Organizers of New York's Columbus Day Parade trying to stop cast members from The Sopranos from marching in this year's affair. Two weeks ago, the plot of the HBO show centered on mobsters beating up Native Americans who were protesting Columbus Day.
ALL WE ARE SAYING... In honor of what would have been John Lennon's 62nd birthday Wednesday, his widow Yoko Ono invoking his song "Give Peace a Chance" to inaugurate a new peace prize, doling out $50,000 checks to the first winners, Palestinian artist Khalil Rabah and Israeli artist Zvi Goldstein.
TOP 10 STREET SIGNS: The Indianapolis City Council unanimously approving a resolution Monday naming a portion of a street after Indiana native David Letterman, who had been joking about getting his name on a road or highway on the Late Show for the past week.
INTO THE OIL BUSINESS: 20th Century Fox-based Regency Enterprises strking a deal to turn popular primetime '80s soap opera Dallas into a feature film. The big-screen version would have an all-new cast.
RELEASED: Oscar-winning actor George Kennedy released from the hospital Monday after successfully undergoing an emergency heart bypass and treatment for sleep apnea in early September.
REMEMBERED: Teresa Graves, an actress who appeared on the 1969-70 season of Laugh-In and starred in her own TV show Get Christie Love, died after getting trapped in her Los Angeles home during a fire. Firefighters rescued her, but she died at a hospital. She was in her early 50s.
APPLE OF THEIR EYE: The NFL giving air time on television, radio, the Internet and stadium scoreboards to New York City's campaign to promote tourism in the wake of 9-11.
CELEBRATING CINEMA: The U.S. Postal Service and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences unveiling 10 commemorative stamps celebrating "American Filmmaking: Behind the Scenes." The collection features director John Cassavetes, Jack Pierce (the creator of Boris Karloff's famous Frankenstein mug), E.T.'s special-effects whiz Mark Siegel and eight-time Oscar-winning costume designer Edith Head.
KUDOS! The Cleveland Play House staging Lost Highway: The Music and Legend of Hank Williams, a musical tribute to the legendary country singer scheduled to coincide with an exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The play runs through October 20, and the exhibit will close in January.
DO THE RIGHT THING: Pennsylvania lawmakers passing a resolution Tuesday asking VH1 to donate any profits from an upcoming Music Behind Bars special to the state's Office of the Victim Advocate.