Street-magician-turned-international performer David Blaine embarked on his latest endurance stunt Monday, suspending himself in an eight-foot acrylic sphere completely filled with water. Not content with merely trying to live through an oxygen-nutrition tube for a week, Blaine will attempt to escape from 150 pounds of restraints and hold his breath for a record breaking nine minutes. Previous feats by the 33 year old magician have included being buried-alive, being suspended in an acrylic box without food for 44 days and being encased in ice. The events of the next week at his perfomance site at Lincoln Center will be televised on May 8 in a two-hour special, "David Blaine: Drowned Alive."

Blaine seems to have a penchant for locking himself up in boxes and having a camera trained on him as he "miraculously" escapes. It seems like the only reason he feels the need to repeat similar stunts on national television is that he has yet to witness a crowd happy to see him emerge alive.







Anna Nicole Smith caught a major break Monday when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of her pursuit of her part of the inheritance left by her late husband. The topless-dancer-turned-diet-product spokeswoman has been entangled in a legal battle with E. Pierce Marshall, the youngest son of J. Howard Marshall II who married Smith at the age of 89, in 1994. Smith had previously been awarded $474 million from Marshall's estimated $1.6 billion, but this sum was first reduced and then thrown out by the San Francisco Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the undivided court, confirming that Smith, who arrived at court dressed all in black and often wept during the proceedings, could pursue her claims in a federal court, overturning the Ninth Circuit. Several reporters were injured during the scuffle to photograph her reaction to the ruling.

Immediately prior to his death, Marshall reportedly gave Smith $6.6 million in gifts including two homes, jewlery and clothes, but they weren't enough for the infamously oft-intoxicated heiress. Smith's claim to half of his estate, if it's upheld, might finally cover her alcohol tab.