oprah winfrey photos Early Tuesday afternoon, Discovery Communications told Company Town that the talk-show diva would not join them at a big presentation to advertisers in Chicago held to promote Discovery's cable channels -- including the Oprah Winfrey Network, a joint venture between Discovery and Winfrey set to launch next January. The cable programming giant went as far as to say that Winfrey's presence in Chicago -- which is where she lives and tapes her talk show -- was never expected at the event. Guess what: Winfrey showed up after all. According to OWN and Discovery, Winfrey decided Tuesday afternoon to make an appearance at the last minute. She alerted OWN's staff at 4:07 p.m., seven minutes after the advertisers event was underway, that she intended to swing by. Arriving only 10 minutes later, Winfrey was led to a seat and even had a spotlight shone on her and waved to the assembled executives. Even better news for Discovery is that a potentially time-consuming defamation lawsuit against Winfrey was settled out of court this afternoon, shortly before she was scheduled to testify in the trial.

You may see Oprah Winfrey next week on her syndicated talk show, but you won’t be seeing the broadcasting queen in a Philadelphia courtroom. On Tuesday Ms. Winfrey settled a defamation lawsuit filed by the former headmistress of a school she set up in South Africa, who had said that the talk show host had defamed her after a sex-abuse scandal there, Reuters reported. Nomvuho Mzamane ran the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa at its founding in 2007 but left after students there said they were being abused by another staff member. After Ms. Winfrey held a news conference and said that Ms. Mzamane had ignored the students’ complaints, Ms. Mzamane said Ms. Winfrey had defamed her and made it difficult for her to find another job. A statement from lawyers representing both women said the dispute had been settled “peacefully to their mutual satisfaction” and both women had withdrawn their complaints, according to Reuters. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. A trial was scheduled to begin on Monday in federal court in Philadelphia, where Ms. Mzamane was living when she filed the suit.

Time to get some new business shoes! Ladies, (and gents or kids), if you have a Payless Shoes near you, print this 50% OFF Payless coupon NOW and run to your local Payless Shoes today!

The coupon, courtesy of Oprah, is good for 50% everything in the Payless store! That's half off all footwear styles and accessories including the Christian Siriano for Payless collection, which is only available at select stores.

Payless already has really low prices, so with half off everthing in the store, you can't go wrong! Stock up on business shoes, party shoes and cool kicks!

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have managed to top yet another list. This one is the Vanity Fair “New Establishment List,” which highlights some of the most influential people in society and pop culture.

Brangelina didn’t secure the #1 spot, but they’re not too far down the line at #8. They’re the only two actors in the top ten of the 100 named, and are placed alongside such powerhouses as Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch.

Vanity Fair states: “The tabloid-haunted, globe-trotting couple reminded us that they both can really act with Pitt’s Oscar-nominated performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Jolie’s in Clint Eastwood’s Changeling.”

“The couple’s foundation donated $1 million to the United Nations
to help the hundreds of thousands of refugees from violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"It also donated $1 million for a cancer center in Springfield, Missouri, named after Pitt’s mother, Jane. Pitt gave $100,000 to the No on Prop 8 campaign in California and said that he and Jolie won’t get married until gay people can, too.”

Apparently they switched it back to the spyware method. I thought they learned their lesson. I guess not. It looked like they replaced the download link that went to coupons.com with a pdf file. However, I think someone defaced the site and put that link on there because they were sending people to coupons.com. Each coupon has a unique identifier though, and it’s the number under the Expiration Date and the Black/White squared barcode. You can’t pass around the same coupon to all your friends because those numbers are unique. That was my concern with the earlier update that they just linked to one PDF - it had the same barcode.
You no longer have to download the software with spyware in it. KFC apparently realized the backlash, and made it so you can simply download the coupon: http://www.unthinkfc.com/. If you happened to download the software, please keep reading to find out how to remove it properly.

UnthinKFC is giving away a two-piece meal of Kentucky Grilled Chicken, two sides and a biscuit for free. That’s right folks, UnthinKFC is giving away coupons for two-piece meal of Kentucky Grilled Chicken, two sides and a biscuit for free. So, what are you waiting for? Turn your computer browser to www.unthinkfc.com now and download a coupon good for a two-piece meal of Kentucky Grilled Chicken, two sides and a biscuit. The coupon is good until May 19 but the coupon won’t be honored on May 10, Mother’s Day."The Oprah Winfrey Show” is a partner in the promotion, which aims to introduce customers to KFC’s new lower-calorie grilled chicken. And she is giving away coupons now instead of cars. You are reading it right, Oprah Winfrey is giving away free coupons for a KFC dinner too. So go grab

Earlier today, a hungry mob of New Yorkers (the millennial generation's version of an angry mob) staged a '60s-style sit-in at a Manhattan KFC restaurant. Why? They were protesting the store manager's refusal to honor coupons for the fast food chain's new grilled chicken courtesy of the karma-grubbing cultural icon Oprah Winfrey. Funny and absurd, sure. But I can't help but see this kerfuffle as evidence of either the beginning of the end of all that's good in the world or (pause for sip of Obama-flavored Kool-Aid) the return of power-to-the-people engagement. The obvious response is to look at the entitlement of those free-chicken seekers as crass and pathetic. I mean, how could any fast food really be worth generating a storm of righteous indignation? And what about that Scrooge-like, power-crazed KFC store manager, who allegedly refused to play along and serve up the finger lickin' goodness to which anyone with an Internet connection is entitled. These are tough times and cheap thrills are hard to come by, much less free ones. That's tough medicine.