Comic "Opus" nearing the end

People

"Opus" nearing the end

Berkeley Breathed is pulling the plug on his comic "Opus" after Nov. 2. The 5-year-old Sunday comic with a political bent, starring the penguin from Breathed's Pulitzer Prize-winning comic "Bloom County," is ending just before the presidential election. Breathed also writes screenplays, novels and children's books. "With the crisis in Wall Street and Washington, I'm suspending my comic strip to assist the nation," he said Monday. "The best way I can help is to leave politics permanently and write funny stories for America's kids. I call on John McCain to join me."

A lifetime of work

Actor-producer Michael Douglas has been chosen to receive the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award, 18 years after the same honor was bestowed on his father, Kirk Douglas. Douglas, 64, who won an Oscar for "Wall Street" and also starred in "Fatal Attraction," "Romancing the Stone," "Basic Instinct," "The China Syndrome" and "Wonder Boys," will receive the award at a ceremony in Los Angeles on June 11.

All for a laugh

Matthew Broderick will return to Broadway next spring in a revival of "The Philanthropist," a comedy by English playwright Christopher Hampton. The Roundabout Theatre Company production, directed by David Grindley, will open April 26 at the American Airlines Theatre. It will begin preview performances April 10.

$5,000 just for laughs

Larry Doyle, a former TV writer-producer for "The Simpsons," was named the winner Monday of this year's Thurber Prize for American Humor. He was cited for the novel "I Love You, Beth Cooper." "Clearly Larry Doyle was not the BMOC (Big Man On Campus)," Thurber judge Firoozeh Dumas said in a statement. "Had Larry been cool, he could have never written 'I Love You, Beth Cooper,' a hilarious yet painfully accurate account of high school in all its pimply glory." Doyle will receive $5,000. The two other finalists were Patricia Marx, for the novel "Him Her Him Again The End of Him," and Simon Rich for "Ant Farm," an essay collection. The Thurber Prize, named for author-illustrator James Thurber, was founded in 1996.

Passages

Movie director Servando Gonzalez Hernandez, 85, died Saturday in Mexico City. His best-known work abroad was "The Fool Killer," a 1965 film starring Anthony Perkins and Dana Elcar.

Today in History

1916: In the most lopsided victory in college-football history, Georgia Tech defeated Cumberland University 222-0 in Atlanta.

1991: University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill publicly accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of making sexually inappropriate comments when she worked for him; Thomas denied Hill's allegations.

2003: California voters recalled Gov. Gray Davis and elected Arnold Schwarzenegger their new governor.

2007: Nine skydivers and a pilot were killed when their Cessna Caravan 208 crashed in Washington's Cascade Range.

Today's Birthdays

Retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 77. Former National Security Council aide Oliver North, 65. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, 53. R&B singer Toni Braxton, 41.

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