With its impeccable military intelligence contacts and team of White House insiders, the National Enquirer has scooped the world by obtaining “ISIS’s Map of Terror!” – revealing the jihadist group's “top secret” targets across America. Then again, it could be the route map of any retired couple planning to tour the States in an RV: targets include Mount Rushmore, Hoover Dam, Disney World, Dollywood, The Grand Ole Opry, the Statue of Liberty, and Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It’s only surprising that they didn’t include Wrigley Field. Oh wait – they did.
How the Enquirer gets such amazingly detailed inside information, I’ll never know.
The Enquirer also “blows the lid off Hollywood’s casting couch scandal,” if “blowing the lid” means regurgitating actress’s allegations made over the past two weeks while adding nothing new.
Comedy legend Jerry Lewis’s $75 million will was “forged,” claims a handwriting expert, who found that a dying 91-year-old’s signature doesn’t precisely match his signature when he was younger. Because at the age of 91 what could possibly make it harder to hold a pen or make one’s hand shake? Hard to imagine.
Tom Cruise has obtained the level of Operating Thetan VI within the Church of Scientology, which the Enquirer claims means that he has the ability to heal with the touch of a finger. This could be good news for every starlet he beds in the future, who could wake up in the morning a born-again virgin.
Would you consider yourself broke if you had $250,000 in cash? The Enquirer does just that to “broke” Bill Cosby, who allegedly “carries all his cash in a bag.” Not that the Enquirer has actually seen inside Cosby’s suitcase, but if he’s lugging it around with him it must be carrying a quarter mil in cash, because what else could he be hauling? Clothes? Fuller brushes? A headless torso? No, it must be $250,000 in walking money.
The Enquirer also publishes details relayed by a prostitute who engaged in violent sex fantasies with Las Vegas massacre gunman Stephen Paddock – an "Enquirer World Exclusive" which first appeared in the UK's Sun newspaper almost two weeks earlier. She reveals Paddock’s text messages, with his desire to book a room on a high floor of the Mandalay hotel with a view over the concert grounds. Unlike the Sun, the Enquirer fails to mention that the prostitute’s last contact with Paddock was in June 2016.
The Globe cover returns to its favorite sport of bashing Hillary Clinton, claiming that Caroline Kennedy hates Hillary because the former Secretary of State is supposedly behind rumors that John Kennedy Jr. was intoxicated when his plane crashed in 1999. Hillary's “evil lies" are repeated by the Enquirer at great length.
Hugh Hefner died of lung cancer, report the Enquirer and the Globe, which seems at odds with last week’s claims that he died of toxic mold at the Playboy mansion.
Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at Us magazine to tell us that Naomi Watts wore it best, that singer Kesha can only cook one thing – popcorn, that actress Rachel Bloom carries sunglasses, pepper spray and Prozac in her Prada purse (this feature never gets old!), and that the stars are just like us – they pump gas, eat lunch, and pick up their dry cleaning.
Us devotes its cover to the “Secrets of the Royal baby!” which, despite the exclamation mark, are remarkably mundane: Duchess Kate suffered severe morning sickness; she and Prince William don’t want to know the baby’s sex; their ob-gyn postponed his retirement to deliver the infant; and the Lindo wing of St Mary's hospital has been reserved.
People gives its cover to Harvey Weinstein’s victims, but adds nothing new to the exercise. "What did his wife know?” asks a side-bar story. After reading it, we’re none the wiser.
We turn to the National Examiner to bring us the week’s real breaking news: The “Shocking Secrets” behind the 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman, the grammatically-challenged day “O.J. Attacked Own Daughter!” in 2003, and “Heartbreak killed Sandra Dee!” in 2005.
Breaking news doesn’t get more broken than that.
Onwards and downwards . . .
