Scoop: Gosselin divorce just needs judge's signature

After filing papers in June to end their 10-year marriage, Jon and Kate Gosselin’s divorce is set to become final before the start of 2010, despite a statement by a lawyer for Jon that it won’t happen until next year.

According to a source familiar with the ongoing talks, both sides have agreed upon the details of the divorce and the papers just need the judge's signature.

One item of contention in the divorce didn’t surface until late in the game: Jon’s gun. Jon was recently spotted shooting a .38 pistol on the property he and Kate own in Wernersville, Penn. On Thursday, a judge issued a court order barring the gun from the property. Expect that ban to remain in effect as part of the divorce agreement. The source said that it’s been agreed the gun is not allowed in the house with the kids.

As for how the divorce might affect TLC’s relationship with Jon and Kate, the network had no comment, but a production source doesn’t foresee a scenario where the network would change its stance. For now, they have plans only for the new series centered around Kate, and “have no plans to shoot the kids,” according to that source.

William Shatner’s ears are ringing
You wouldn’t know it from William Shatner’s mellow delivery of Sarah Palin’s tweets on “The Tonight Show,” but Shatner suffers from tinnitus, a persistent, incurable ringing of the ear.

“It began 17 years ago,” Shatner told GQ magazine, and likened it to “the loud sound of an unoccupied radio station or television station … but there is a harder element to it. I think of it as an evil sound. I’m listening to it now. It’s like a fuse … SHITCH-ssssssssssssssssss … going on and on and on and on, and you LIVE in the anticipation of the explosion that fuse is crawling toward.”

Shatner said the sound never changes, except for the first five or six years, when it became steadily louder. Shatner, poetically, told the magazine about the sounds it prevents him from hearing. He said he “would never experience a silent night again. Those moments out in the country, the starlit sky, the sound of a single cricket, were gone. Or those nights where there was only the breeze on the waves of the sea: gone. … I have to work to discriminate between what I am hearing in my head and the sound that is occurring outside my head. It is horrific.” 

Weekend box office
There’s only one movie that matters this weekend: “Avatar.” The much anticipated James Cameron flick opens wide, in 3,453 theaters.

Since the film will run with a 3-D premium on ticket prices, you can look for it to make somewhere in the neighborhood of $75 million.

“Did You Hear About the Morgans?” will be worshiping at the altar of counterprogramming. The Hugh Grant-Sarah Jessica Parker film doesn’t stand a chance of besting “Avatar,” but since “Morgans” will open on 2,718 screens, it’s may make some financial impression if enough of the non-sci-fi crowd hits the theaters.

Courtney Hazlett delivers the Scoop Monday through Friday on msnbc.com. Follow Scoop on Twitter @courtneyatmsnbc

Copyright MSNBC - MSNBC
Contact Us