February 26, 2007 — A Manhattan dentist said yesterday that he, his parents and his brother got drilled for more than $1 million by boy-band impresario and alleged Ponzi schemer Lou Pearlman, saying he refused to return investments they’d made in his company over two decades.

“I’m wiped out. My parents are wiped out,” said Steven Sarin, who’s suing. “My parents are in their 80s. They don’t need this.”

Pearlman, a Queens native who managed *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys, recently vanished from his Orlando, Fla., home amid allegations that he’d swindled more than 1,400 investors out of $317 million.

The Sarins started backing Pearlman’s air-charter firm in the 1980s, the parents with money taken from safer investments, the sons with money from a mortgage. Pearlman had said they’d make 20 percent or more a year on their investments, Sarin claimed.

Shares in toy maker Hornby fell sharply as investors cashed in on the news that the group had done better than expected over Christmas.

At one point, shares were down as much as 7% as shareholders took profits following a spectacular rally since November of more than 30%.

“Order intake and sales for the final quarter from January to March are expected to be above the strong levels experienced last year,” the firm said earlier.

It is expecting trading to meet market expectations of around 50m for the full year, the maker of Scalextric cars and model trains said - it made 44.1m the previous year, with pre-tax profit at9m.

Hornby CEO Frank Martin said last week that one reason for the rising demand was that people finally saw and understood the benefits of digital Scalextric cars and model trains compared to analog versions.

Pilots of the new generation of Scalextric cars communicate with the vehicles via a controller that sends digital signals to a chip in the car in a realistic Formula 1 racing experience.

The European businesses also performed in line with expectations, with analysts expecting a near doubling in revenue contribution in the current year.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Mamet lampoons, dissects and filets Hollywood in his new book “Bambi vs. Godzilla,” but Mamet ? who has also been twice nominated for a Academy Award for script writing ? says he “loves the place” and will never leave show business. Mamets new book explores how Hollywood moguls, which he terms Godzillas, and the creative Bambis of the film world follow the torturous path from idea to movie. Chapters fall under such headings as “How Scripts Got So Bad” and “The Repressive Mechanism of Corruption.”

He may be a New York native, but its neighboring New Jersey that may get to claim “The Donald” for eternity. The real estate mogul Donald Trump has filed paperwork to build a wedding chapel on his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, and has told a local newspaper, The Star-Ledger of Newark, that he wants to later convert the building into a mausoleum for himself and his family. Trumps sprawling golf course is located about 50 miles, or about 81 kilometers, west of New York City. (AP)

Several Oscar stars will be arriving at the awards show Sunday in Los Angeles in a variety of energy-efficient limousines, Reuters reported. While in past years the environmental group Global Green USA has provided only hybrid cars for celebrity transportation, this years procession will feature vehicles that use alternative fuels and take advantage of emerging technologies, said Matt Peterson, chief executive of the group. The most coveted vehicle is a prototype of the Tesla Roadster, an electric car that goes from zero to 60 miles per hour in four seconds, “faster than most Porsches,” according to Tesla Motorss vice president, Darryl Siry. Peterson would not say which celebrity will be chosen to ride in that vehicle. Unlike those who fail to earn Oscars, those who are not chosen to ride in the roadster can simply sign up to buy their own. At a base price of $92,000, 330 celebrities already have.

One day after walking out of a Malibu, California, rehab center, Britney Spears has walked back in, her manager, Larry Rudolph, confirmed in an e-mail to The Associated Press. After a night spent talking with family members and her lawyers, Spears on Thursday checked into the Promises residential center, which specializes in treating drug and alcohol abuse. Last week, Spears sought treatment at a center in the Caribbean but also checked out after a day. Her estranged husband, Kevin Federline, will care for the couples two sons, 17-month-old Sean Preston and 5- month-old Jayden James, for the 30 to 45 days that Spears is undergoing treatment. (AP)

For the moment, Anna Nicole Smith will likely be buried in the Bahamas. A Florida judge gave custody of Smiths body to the court-appointed guardian for her infant daughter, who has said the island country would be Smiths final resting place. But, fighting back tears as he read his ruling, Judge Larry Seidlin of Broward County Circuit Court also ordered Richard Milstein, the guardian, to work out a burial agreement among Smiths mother, Virgie Arthur; the lawyer Howard Stern, her partner at the time of her death; and Larry Birkhead, a former boyfriend. Birkhead and Stern each claim to be the father of 5-month-old Dannielynn. Moments after the burial place was announced, a lawyer for Smiths estranged mother said his client planned to appeal. Arthur wants her daughter buried in Texas, where she was born and grew up.

The rapper Busta Rhymes has been charged with driving with a suspended license after police in New York said they stopped him for driving through a red light. The singer, whose given name is Trevor Smith, was taken into custody in New York City, early on Thursday. If convicted, he could face up to 15 days in prison. Rhymes, 34, was recently accused of assault in two separate cases which are still ongoing. (BBC)

A South Carolina judge has dismissed a suit brought by two men featured in the Oscar-nominated film “Borat,” starring the British comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen. The two men alleged that they were plied with alcohol before signing the waiver that allowed them to be shown on camera acting boorishly.

U.S. rejects N. Korea delay idea

Pyongyang said it will start moves to shut its nuclear reactor within a day of receiving $25 million in frozen assets from a Macau bank, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said after meeting with officials in N. Korea. But he said it could be 30 days before the reactor begins shutting down, well past a Saturday deadline it agreed to in Feb. The State Dept. reiterated it expects N. Korea to “meet its obligations.”

EAST TIMOR: With no majority winner, the presidential election now moves to a 3-way runoff with the current PM and 2 others.

INDONESIA: Officials began setting up the 1st locally made warning buoy for alerting the archipelago in the event of a tsunami.

ECUADOR: President Rafael Correa called for measures to protect the country’s famed Galapagos Islands, including restrictions on tourism.

MEXICO: About 200 journalists marched through Acapulco to demand justice in the slaying of Amado Ramirez, a TV reporter.

ST. PAUL, Minnesota: It seems to me, observing the young in coffee shops, that something is missing from their lives: the fine art of holding a newspaper.

They sit staring at computer screens, sometimes with wires coming out of their ears, life passing them by as they drift through MySpace, that encyclopedia of the pathetic, and check out a video of a dog dancing the Macarena.

It is so lumpen, so sad that nobody has shown them that opening up a newspaper is the key to looking classy and smart. Never mind the bronze- plated stuff about the role of the press in a democracy a newspaper, kiddo, is about style.

Whether you’re sitting or standing, indoors or out, leaning against a hitching post or with your brogans on a desk, a newspaper gives you a whole rich vocabulary of gesture.

You open it with a flourish and a ripple of newsprint, your buoyant self- confidence evident in the way you turn the pages with a snap of the wrist, taking in the gray matter swiftly, your eyes dancing over the world’s sorrows and moving on, crinkling the page, tapping it against the palm.

Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, all the greats, used the newspaper to demonstrate cool. Sitting and staring at the profile of Kerri (”Dreamer of dreams”) Jodhpur, 18, of Muncie, Indiana, and her cat Snowball is not cool.

A man at a laptop is a man at a desk, a still, a drone. Where is the nobility here? He hunches forward, his eyes glaze, and heads of saliva glitter in the corners of his mouth and make their way down his chin as he becomes engrossed in the video of the fisherman falling out of the boat.

A newspaper reader, by comparison, is a swordsman, a wrangler, a private eye. Holding a newspaper frees you to express yourself, sort of like holding a sax did for Coltrane. Just observe a few simple rules.

If you want to make a serious impression, don’t buy one paper, buy three or four. A person walking into Starbucks with four papers folded under his wing is immediately taken for a mogul. If he’s young, he’s a software mogul. If he is unshaven and wearing pajamas under his raincoat, he is an eccentric mogul, perhaps a Mafia kingpin.

Take your sweet time opening the paper. You already know what’s in it, boss man, you only read it so you’ll know how much other people know, so there’s no big rush.

Once you open it, never look up unless someone speaks your name. Don’t be distracted just because a leggy blonde has crossed the room, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke and Chanel No. 5. You’re the actor so let others be the audience, you be the scene.

Scan the front page, check out the headlines, but don’t pore, don’t be a drudge. Be cool. Jump to the sports page, then the comics, then the society page, then editorials. That’s the beauty of the inverted pyramid news story. A glance is usually good enough.

Always rip out a story or two and tuck it in your pocket. Not casually, like it was a recipe for meatballs, but with urgency and purpose. This creates an indelible aura of mystery.

When you’re done with a paper, clap it shut and toss it aside. (You can’t do that with a laptop.) A gesture of dismissal that says, “Feh! Enough of this pettiness! Onward! To the barricades!”

All of this should take no more than 20 minutes.

I know a man who is almost my age, and so he grew up with ink on his fingers and then, for reasons he couldn’t explain, he switched over to reading online publications and checking out The New York Times and the Washington Post and Slate, and then found a Web site with streaming video in which a mature Austrian woman with braids tells you what to do.

He sits, his eyes locked to hers, as she says, “You vill eat, mein little schweinhund” and upbraids him for imaginary transgressions.

If he reaches for the off switch, she screeches at him and a rottweiler growls low in its throat and so he is a prisoner of his laptop, his days shot.

This sort of thing happens all the time. The Internet will eat you alive. With newspapers, you’re in an out, 20 minutes. It’s your life, you choose.

(Garrison Keillor is the host of the American public-radio show “A Prairie Home Companion.” This article was distributed by Tribune Media Services International.)