Guilty Pleasures
By Associated Press
Norah O’Donnell leaving as anchor of CBS evening newscast after election
Norah O’Donnell said Tuesday she is leaving after the presidential election as anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” a post she has held for five years.
O’Donnell, 50, has been the network’s top anchor since 2019, and prior to that was a host of CBS’ morning news show and White House Correspondent covering President Barack Obama’s administration. She told her CBS News colleagues in an email Tuesday that she’s looking forward to a change.
“I have spent 12 years in the anchor chair here at CBS News, tied to a daily broadcast and the rigors of a relentless news cycle,” she wrote. “It’s time to do something different.”
She said she is staying with CBS News to contribute interviews and other stories, but in a role not fully defined. CBS says it is committed to the broadcast continuing, but gave no indication of who will be replacing her.
The “CBS Evening News,” the perch from which Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather held forth for many years, generally runs third in the network ratings behind ABC’s “World News Tonight” with David Muir and the “NBC Nightly News” with Lester Holt.
During the week of July 15-21, for instance, ABC averaged 6.8 million viewers, NBC had 5.5 million and CBS had 4 million, the Nielsen company said.
Prior to the onset of cable news, the three broadcast evening news anchors were generally considered the most powerful journalists in television news, and are still influential.
O’Donnell said a recent interview with Pope Francis, which became her first prime-time special for the network, got her thinking about doing something new. She’ll focus on interviews in the future for various CBS broadcast and digital properties.
“Norah’s superpower is her ability to secure and then masterfully deliver unparalleled interviews and stories that set the news cycle and capture the cultural zeitgeist,” said Wendy McMahon, CBS News chair.
She said the change had nothing to do with the pending merger of CBS News parent Paramount to Skydance Media. CBS News’ president, Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, announced her departure from the network shortly after news of the merger broke.
Francine Pascal, creator of beloved ‘Sweet Valley High’ books, dies at 92
NEW YORK | Francine Pascal, a onetime soap opera writer whose “Sweet Valley High” novels and the ongoing adventures of twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield and other teens captivated millions of young readers, has died at age 92.
Pascal died Sunday, her publisher, Penguin Random House, said. It did not immediately have additional information Tuesday.
Starting in 1983, Francine Pascal oversaw the completion of more than 150 “Sweet Valley High” stories with the help of others. They were set in an imaginary Los Angeles suburb, one of “gently rolling hills” and a “fantastic white sand beach” nearby. In best sellers such as “Double Love,” “Power Play” and “All Night Long,” the Wakefield girls and their schoolmates navigate dating, family conflicts, sibling rivalries, more troubling themes such as race, divorce and mortality and even vampires and werewolves.
“Sweet Valley is the essence of high school,” Pascal told People magazine in 1988. “It’s that moment before reality hits, when you really do believe in the romantic values — sacrifice, love, loyalty, friendship — before you get jaded and slip off into adulthood.”
Her books sold more than 200 million copies, and included “Sweet Valley” spinoffs and sequels. After the initial novels took off, Pascal brought in outside writers, providing them general outlines and a “bible” of the books’ characters.
“It was mostly very young, new writers,” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2019. “The story outlines weren’t chapter by chapter, more like acts: You get from here to here in the first quarter, then you have to get from here to here. Don’t forget, they already had the bible, where I had written deeply into the lives of the twins and their backgrounds. With the characters, you knew what they liked, you knew what the walls in their room (looked like), every single thing about them.”
Born Francine Paula Rubin, Pascal was a New York City native who studied journalism at New York University, wrote for such magazines as Cosmopolitan and Ladies’ Home Journal and, with second husband John Pascal, found work with the soap opera “The Young Marrieds.” When Francine Pascal began thinking of creating her own series, she took a friend’s advice and developed what became the Sweet Valley books.
The concept: “Dallas” for young people. The main characters: twin sisters, one mischievous (Jessica), the other more sensible (Elizabeth).
“There are a lot of twins in my life,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “My sister-in-law was a twin. People are always fascinated by twins. You’ll never be alone.”
Pascal and her first husband, Jerome Offenberg, divorced in 1963. They had three daughters, one of whom, Jamie, died in 2008. John Pascal died in 1981.
Erica Ash, comedian, ‘Real Husbands of Hollywood’ and ‘Mad TV’ star, dies at 46
LOS ANGELES | Erica Ash, an actor and comedian skilled in sketch comedy who starred in the parody series “Mad TV” and “Real Husbands of Hollywood,” has died. She was 46.
Ash died Sunday in Los Angeles because of cancer, according to her publicist and a statement by her mother, Diann. “Erica was an amazing woman and talented entertainer who touched countless lives with her sharp wit, humor, and genuine zest for life. Her memory will live eternally in our hearts,” the statement said.
Ash impersonated Michelle Obama and Condoleezza Rice on “Mad TV,” a Fox sketch series, and was a key performer on the Rosie O’Donnell-created series “The Big Gay Sketch Show.” Her other credits included “Scary Movie V,” “Uncle Drew” and the LeBron James-produced basketball dramedy “Survivor’s Remorse.”
On the BET series “Real Husbands of Hollywood,” Ash played the ex-wife of Kevin Hart’s character. Ash told the Los Angeles Times in 2017 that for awhile, the only roles she was offered were similar to that character, but she wanted to have a more varied career.
“I want to make choices based on what I want to read about myself when I’m older. For me, it’s just about growing and moving forward,” she told the Times.
She appeared in the Broadway production “Baby It’s You” and a touring production of “The Lion King.”
Ash attended Emory University to study medicine but took a break and went to Japan, where she performed and modeled and her career flourished.
“One thing led to another, so I tell people I’m the Forrest Gump of my field. I just blindly, by faith, walked through life and said ‘yes’ to things that were presented to me, and it led me here,” Ash told the Times.
Former ‘General Hospital’ actor Haley Pullos gets five
years probation
after DUI crash
PASADENA, Calif. | Former longtime “General Hospital” actor Haley Pullos was sentenced to five years of probation Monday after pleading guilty to felony drunken driving and serving three months in jail.
Pullos, 26, was also sentenced in a Los Angeles County court in Pasadena to 200 hours of community service. The judge ordered her to complete a nine-month alcohol treatment program and to pay more than $8,000 in restitution to the other driver in the crash that authorities said she caused when she drove the wrong way on freeway lanes in April of 2023.
Pullos began appearing on “General Hospital” as a child, playing Molly Lansing-Davis on nearly 500 episodes of the ABC soap opera from 2009 to 2023. She left the show after the collision and has not returned.
She was driving westbound on the Ventura Freeway in Pasadena when she swerved into eastbound lanes, crossed a barrier and ran into an oncoming car, authorities said. Firefighters had to pull both drivers from their mangled cars, and both were hospitalized. It’s not clear what their exact injuries were.
Pullos pleaded guilty to a felony count of driving under the influence earlier this year.
A representative for the actor did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.
—From AP reports
