MTV's Tony DiSanto is stepping down

Now MTV really does have a situation on its hands.
It's losing the man who helped put shows such as "The Hills" and "Jersey Shore" -- with its characters Michael "The Situation" Sorrentino and Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi -- on the map.
Tony DiSanto, president of programming, is exiting the cable network along with Liz Gateley, senior vice president for development, according to a person familiar with the situation. The duo are departing to join former NBC Entertainment President Ben Silverman's new production entity Electus.
David Janollari, the former head of the now-defunct WB Network who joined MTV as a development executive this year, is expected to take the reins as the network's top programming executive. Janollari was brought on board to help MTV lessen its reliance on reality shows and focus more on scripted programming. News of the shake-up was first reported by Deadline Hollywood and Daily Variety.
The departure of DiSanto will be a big blow to MTV. He has spent more than two decades at the network, starting as an intern in the late 1980s when the channel was in its heyday and rising through the ranks to president, a position he has held for the last three years. Under his watch, MTV regained some of its prominence with young viewers.
Fueled by the popularity of "Jersey Shore" and "Teen Mom," MTV's ratings are up 14% so far this year compared with 2009. The third quarter was particularly strong, with ratings growing  30% over the year-earlier period among the network’s target audience of viewers ages 12 to 34. The third quarter included the launch of MTV's new series the “World of Jenks.”
MTV is the crown jewel of Viacom's far-flung media empire and as of late has even become a focal point for the company's 87-year-old Chairman Sumner Redstone, who has expressed interest in getting a reality show on the air about a female band called the Electric Barbarellas that he apparently likes very much. DiSanto was able to resist giving in to the programming desires of the big boss. Now we'll see whether Janollari will do the same.

Giants sweep Arizona, clinch tie for NL West title

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Bruce Bochy has said all along the NL West race would probably come down to the season's final weekend - and it will.
His San Francisco Giants have put themselves in prime position: They need only one victory against visiting San Diego in their season-ending three-game series to win the division and end a six-year playoff drought.
Pablo Sandoval hit a splash shot into McCovey Cove, Andres Torres and Buster Posey also homered and the Giants beat Arizona 4-1 on Thursday, moving them closer to their first NL West crown since 2003.
Bochy said the days of team meetings are over. His players understand the stakes.
"We've got to go out there and go hard," Bochy said. "Yeah, we put ourselves in good position but we've got games ahead of us. They know it. They're very much aware of where we're at."
San Francisco's win, coupled with San Diego's 1-0 loss to Chicago later Thursday, left the Giants' magic number to win the division at one. Even if the Padres sweep this weekend's three-game series in San Francisco, the teams would be tied for the title.
The Giants completed a three-game sweep over the Diamondbacks, won their fourth straight and eighth in 10.
Matt Cain (13-10) starts Friday night's series opener for San Francisco. It could be to clinch - and it's expected to be an electrifying scene at AT&T Park for all three sold-out games.
"We've put ourselves in a good situation and got done what we needed to get done today," Cain said. "I've got to go and do the same things I've done before. Same preparation."
Torres' go-ahead, solo homer in the fifth inning helped rookie Madison Bumgarner (7-6) earn his first home victory in eight tries. Posey hit a two-run homer in the sixth, the rookie's seventh shot in September.
Overall, the Giants have hit 16 home runs in their last seven games. Pat Burrell had a three-run drive Wednesday night.
"We have one guy hitting a home run one night and another guy hitting a home run another night," Sandoval said.
Barry Enright (6-7) lost his fifth straight start. He has given up 12 homers during that span after surrendering just eight longballs in his previous 12 outings.
"We want to be in their position next year," Enright said. "We still have a few games left but it's exciting to think about some of the guys coming back next year."
New Arizona general manager Kevin Towers said he hopes to decide on a manager "shortly after the season" ends. He has spent time in recent days with interim Kirk Gibson, who hopes to stay on for 2011.
Sandoval's solo shot into the water beyond right field with two outs in the second prompted one of two kayakers paddling for the ball to jump out of his boat and swim to snag the souvenir.
It was the first home run for the struggling slugger since Aug. 28, a homerless stretch of 66 at-bats. Sandoval has just 12 hits in his last 63 at-bats. He insists he is more relaxed lately and finding his stroke again.
"This is the same Pablo as last year," he said.
Sandoval connected for his fourth career splash hit and second this year. It was the fifth by a Giant in 2010, 55th by San Francisco overall and 77th total in the 11-year ballpark's history. Barry Bonds, the home run king, has 35 of them.
Arizona loaded the bases against Bumgarner in the fourth, getting Enright's sacrifice fly to tie it at 1.
Bumgarner had been 0-3 at home with a 4.95 ERA before winning Thursday. He struck out seven and walked one in five innings, allowing seven hits and one run.
The 21-year-old lefty pitched on an extra day's rest after he had his start pushed back a day as ace Tim Lincecum pitched Wednesday night on normal rest. Bumgarner has allowed only five earned runs in his last 38 innings over his last six starts.
"It feels pretty good," he said of the Giants' position. "We're going to try to get it tomorrow, but we're not penciled in yet."
Ramon Ramirez pitched the ninth for his third save in as many tries as the Giants completed their third sweep of the season against Arizona. With a three-run cushion, Bochy gave All-Star closer Brian Wilson a break after he saved back-to-back games with a five-out effort Tuesday.
Moments after the final out, three concession workers on the lower concourse raised brooms into the air and chanted "Sweep! Sweep!"
Arizona struck out 12 times after 14 Ks in Wednesday's 3-1 loss. The Giants' pitching staff has a majors-best 1,306 strikeouts and established a San Francisco single-season franchise record, topping last year's total of 1,302.
Notes: Posey also hit seven home runs in July. He'd been in a 1-for-19 stretch before the homer. ... 2B Freddy Sanchez returned to the Giants' starting lineup after missing the first two games of the series with a strained right shoulder. ... Struggling 3B Mark Reynolds was back in the D-backs' starting lineup after missing three straight starts with a sore thumb. He is in an 0-for-19 funk and 3 for his last 34.

Alisa Kuzmenko cut dog!

Caution: Images have a character that might offend the most sensitive. We see animals dissected and skinned. So it has been removed.

Her name is Alisa Kuzmenko, 20, a student vet, and she is currently at the heart of a scandal facebookiens salacious enough. Because, she uploaded about 8 hours ago a photo album on his own fan page (would miss an "artist"). A photo album to say the least strange, because you can see, in the company of a friend of hers, a dog butcher proudly.

The photos are still on Facebook, which the moderators do not seem to lift a finger to remove them, despite the huge influx of insulting comments, petitions and threats directed against Alisa Kuzmenko in just a few hours.

In fact, the story dates back to 2009, as evidenced by the above-cons paper denouncing the atrocities of these young women. Although these facts are not any recent buzz has finally taken yesterday because the girl just put online the pictures of the "butchery" on his Facebook page.

If the animal appears to have already been recovered as a corpse, sources agree that the girl would actually went to get the dog to a park to kill him.In the genus blocked anal-sadistic stage, Alisa Kuzmenko is strong, so strong with the devastating effects of the web, you never know how far can stop any punitive Internet.

Gliese 581 g

Astronomers have discovered a new planet similar to the Earth in orbit around a nearby star. Gliese 581 g, is the name given to the red dwarf star has been spotted by a team of planet hunters. The planet is situated in the Goldilocks Zone of space around a star where surface temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to form.

An astronomer at the University of California, Steven Vogt said that their findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet.The fact that they were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells them that planets like this must be really common.

If this has been confirmed, then it will be milestone in the history of the solar system. It would the planet ever discovered in other solar system and the first strong contender for a habitable one.Other exoplanets have been discovered but most are gas giants, like Jupiter, that would be inhospitable to life as we know it.Keck telescope in Hawaii has been used by astronomers to study the movement of Gliese 581 g and observed the presence of a number of orbiting planets.

Gliese 581 g has a mass of three to four times that of Earth and takes 37 days to orbit the star. Astronomers believe it is a rocky planet with enough gravity to retain an atmosphere.Vogt said that" We had planets on both sides of the habitable zone — one too hot and one too cold — and now we have one in the middle that's just right," and "Any emerging life forms would have a wide range of stable climates to choose from and to evolve around, depending on their longitude,"

One side of the planet is always facing the star, much as one side of the moon constantly faces Earth. This means that the far side of the planet is constantly in darkness. The most habitable region of the planet would be the line between the light and dark regions

Sarah Palin's 2012 Opportunity

Washington Whispers

The odds-on favorite to win the GOP presidential nod in 2012 is none other than Sarah Palin, according to a statistical formula developed by Villanova University Prof. Lara Brown. The professor's figuring is bad news for presumed hopefuls like Rep. Mike Pence, Sen. Jim DeMint, ex-Gov. Mitt Romney, former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Gov. Haley Barbour, and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton. Many simply joined the game too late, says Brown, author of the new book Jockeying for the American Presidency: The Political Opportunism of Aspirants, which studies every election since the founding. Others, like DeMint, are still brewing but won't be ready until 2016. As for Newt? "I don't think the GOP can forgive him," she says.

The book devises an "opportunism variable" based on the candidate's résumé to explain who wins the presidency and why. Palin has an advantage because she has been elected both mayor and governor. She also was a major party vice presidential nominee, giving her an enviable breadth of political experience. According to Brown, candidates who take risks and run for a variety of offices do well. It's even better if they lose a presidential race or two. "It takes about a run and a half to get there," Brown says. Pols "may think they can get it done in six months or a year, but [winning] will actually take them running, losing, and planting seeds," she says.

Coroner: Actor Tony Curtis dies at Las Vegas home

This news had been worldwide nowadays. Coroner Mike Murphy are informed us that Curtis died at 9.25 at  his Las Vegas area home of a cardiac arrest. Moreover, Curtis who had heart bypass surgery in 1994, began his acting career as a 1950s heartthrob but became a respected actor with such films as "The Defiant Ones" and "Sweet Smell of Success.

"The Defiant Ones" brought him an Oscar nomination in 1958 for his portrayal of a racist escaped convict handcuffed to a black escapee, Sidney Poitier. The following year, he co-starred in one of the most acclaimed film comedies ever, Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot."

Police Probe Rutgers Student Suicide Link to Sex Tape Scandal

Police are probing whether a death leap taken by a Rutgers student is related to a sex-taping scandal in which two Rutgers students secretly filmed another 18-year-old student's sexual encounter and streamed it live on the Internet.

Law enforcement officials tell NBCNewYork that  Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi committed suicide last Wednesday by leaping off the George Washington Bridge and that act of desperation may be linked to the scandal. Authorities are working to determine whether the suicide was also the victim of the sex-taping crime, sources said.

Dharun Ravi, of Plainsboro, and Molly Wei, of Princeton, both 18, face two counts of invasion of privacy for secretly placing a camera in the victim's dorm room and streaming it live. 

Authorities say Ravi, who was Clementi's roommate, faces another two counts of invasion of privacy for allegedly trying to use the hidden camera to tape the same victim in a previous encounter two days before the second one hit the web.

Wei surrendered to campus cops in New Brunswick on Monday and was released on her own recognizance. Ravi turned himself in Tuesday and was released on $25,000 bail.

College police initially launched an investigation after finding out a hidden camera had been placed in the victim's Piscataway dorm room without permission.

"The question is I think always the question of trust, whether or not you trust people in your life," said Rutgers Assistant Professor Mor Naaman, a former Yahoo research scientist. "The basic element you have is human nature that can exploit any technology to do any number of bad things to other individuals."

It wasn't immediately clear where or how the live feed was broadcast, and investigators took strict precautions to protect the identity of the victims.

A lawyer for Ravi declined requests for comment. It wasn't immediately clear if Wei, a first year pharmacy student at Rutgers' Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, had an attorney.

According to the Associated Press, a Twitter account belonging to Ravi was recently deleted, but in a cached version retained through Google he sent a message on Sept. 19: "Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay."

Two days later, he wrote on Twitter: "Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again."

Clementi's driver's license and Rutgers ID were found in a wallet left on the bridge on Sept. 22 after two witnesses saw someone jump from it, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Clementi's body hadn't been positively identified.

Paul Mainardi, a lawyer for the Clementi family, issued a statement confirming the teen's suicide.

"Tyler was a fine young man, and a distinguished musician," said Mainardi. "The family is heartbroken beyond words. all. The family and their representatives are cooperating fully with the ongoing criminal investigations of two Rutgers University students."

The statement also said that Clementi's body had not yet been recovered.

Steven Goldstein, chairman of the gay rights group Garden State Equality, said in a statement Wednesday that his group considers Clementi's death a hate crime.

"We are heartbroken over the tragic loss of a young man who, by all accounts, was brilliant, talented and kind," Goldstein said. "And we are sickened that anyone in our society, such as the students allegedly responsible for making the surreptitious video, might consider destroying others' lives as a sport."

Ed Schmiedecke, the recently retired music director at Ridgewood High School, where Clementi graduated earlier this year, said Clementi was a violinist whose life revolved around music. "He was a terrific musician, and a very promising, hardworking young man."

Rutgers spokeswoman Sandra Lanman said the college is taking the situation seriously.

"The university takes these matters seriously and has policies to deal with student behavior," Lanman said in a statement.

According to New Jersey law, illegally collecting or viewing images showing sexual contact involving another individual without that individual's consent is a fourth-degree crime. It's a third-degree crime to transmit or distribute such images. The penalty for the latter offense carries a possible prison term of up to five years.