Polar Music Prize

Awards

Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf on Tuesday presented the 2008 Polar Music Prize to U.S. soprano Renee Fleming and Pink Floyd band members Nick Mason and Roger Waters for their contributions to popular music and opera. The Stockholm audience gave the prizewinners a standing ovation. The awards are each worth $157,700. The Polar Music Prize, Sweden's biggest music prize, was founded in 1989 by Stig Anderson, manager of Swedish pop group ABBA.

Beauty contests Canceled

An Italian priest backtracked from his idea to organize an online beauty pageant for nuns, saying Tuesday he had been misunderstood and incurred the protests of the faithful and local religious authorities. The Rev. Antonio Rungi had thought of the beauty contest to give nuns more visibility within the Catholic Church, showcase their "overall beauty" and pastoral experience and to fight the stereotype that they are all old and dour. The "Miss Sister 2008" contest was supposed to start in September on a blog run by the priest, who is a theologian and schoolteacher from the Naples area. But he said attacks against him, phone calls and e-mails as well as reported unease of his religious superiors over the ideaprompted him to cancel the plan.

People

Sheen house is expecting

"Two and a Half Men" star Charlie Sheen soon will be adding another small human to his family. The actor and his wife, Brooke Mueller, 30, are expecting their first child together. There's no word on a due date. Sheen, 42, has three daughters: Sam, 4, and Lola, 2, are Sheen's daughters with former wife Denise Richards. Cassandra, 23, is his daughter with former girlfriend Paula Profitt.

Osment signs on for play

David Mamet's "American Buffalo," a robbery tale set in a Chicago junk shop, has found its third partner in crime, Haley Joel Osment, 20, who will be making his Broadway debut in the production. Osment, an Academy Award nominee for "The Sixth Sense," joins John Leguizamo and Cedric the Entertainer in the revival that opens Nov. 17.

Perry creating spinoff

Playwright, filmmaker and actor Tyler Perry has signed with TBS to create a spinoff based on his successful cable TV hit, "House of Payne." TVGuide.com reports that TBS ordered 10 episodes of "Meet the Browns," which follows the adventures of Leroy Brown, who inherits a rundown house after his dad's death.

Passages

Dave Freeman, 47, co-author of "100 Things to Do Before You Die," a travel guide and ode to odd adventures that inspired readers and imitators, died Aug. 17 after hitting his head in a fall at his home in Venice, Calif.

Laurence Urdang, 81, a prolific lexicographer who had a hand in more than 100 dictionaries and other reference books, died Thursday in Branford, Conn., of congestive heart failure.

Today in History

1859: Col. Edwin Drake drilled the first successful oil well in the United States, near Titusville, Pa.

1962: The United States launched the Mariner 2 space probe, which flew past Venus in December 1962.

1998: Two suspects in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya were brought to the United States to face charges. Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali and Mohammed Saddiq Odeh were convicted in 2001 of conspiring to carry out the bombing; both were sentenced to life in prison.

2006: A Comair CRJ-100 crashed after trying to take off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Ky., killing 49 people and leaving the co-pilot the sole survivor.

Today's Birthdays

Actress Barbara Bach, 61. Actor Paul Reubens, 56. Gospel singer Yolanda Adams, 46. Actress Chandra Wilson, 39. Actress Sarah Chalke, 32. Rapper Mase, 31. Singer Mario, 22.

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