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Published: August 31, 2008
■ Hundreds of Oprah Winfrey fans are lining up in Chicago's Millennium Park for a chance at free tickets to the talk-show host's season premiere featuring 150 U.S. Olympic team members. Some fans lined up as early as 6 a.m. for the tickets to The Oprah Winfrey Show. Tickets usually are available only by phone and are nearly impossible to get. The tickets being handed out yesterday are for the planned taping of the show with the Olympic athletes on Wednesday. The 23rd season premiere of the show will air Sept. 8. Winfrey's Harpo Productions says she intends the show as a "welcome-home celebration" for the athletes and a chance to feature Chicago as the city bids for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Gold medalist Michael Phelps is among the Olympians to be included in the show.
■ Fuel prices have grounded an unexpected frequent-flier: Diddy. Sean "Diddy" Combs complained about the "... too high" price of gas and pleaded for free oil from his "Saudi Arabia brothers and sisters" in a YouTube video posted last week. The hip-hop mogul said he is now flying on commercial airlines instead of in private jets, which Combs said had previously cost him $200,000 and up for a round trip between New York and Los Angeles. "I'm actually flying commercial," Diddy said before walking onto an airplane and sitting in a first-class seat. "That's how high gas prices are.... Tell whoever the next president is we need to bring gas prices down."
■ Like the NFL teams beginning their new seasons, Usher is hoping to go all the way to the Super Bowl. The R&B singer will perform the season's first concert on Thursday in New York's Columbus Circle along with Keith Urban and Natasha Bedingfield. The 3 p.m. concert will be held just before the season opener, when the Washington Redskins take on the Super Bowl champion New York Giants. Like the Redskins and Giants, Usher is aiming for the big game in February. The game might be the destination of all football players; it's also one of the most sought-after gigs in music. "I don't think it's too early to consider it," said Usher, speaking from Atlanta. "Certainly being associated with the organization makes that a lot more possible. There have been conversations for a lot of years about me being part of a performance at a Super Bowl." He added: "I'm hoping that this leads, definitely, to that. This whole process is basically you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."
Deaths
■ Wilson Hurley, 84, of Lou Gehrig's disease, in Albuquerque, N.M. He was a noted American landscape painter who was inducted in to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1996 and was declared a cultural treasure in that state in 2002.
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