USA Today and the Richmond Times-Dispatch (supplier of the photo at right) are sadly reporting that 65-year-old Claudette Yamin, beloved mother of American Idol season 5 runner-up Elliott Yamin, has passed away.

The cause of her death has not been revealed, although it is known that Claudette had been suffering during the past year, due to complications stemming from a hip-replacement operation.

Anyone who watched season 5 of Idol knows how close Elliott and Claudette were, and how proud Mama Yamin was of her son's accomplishments. I will always remember how choked-up she got while riding in her Elliott's homecoming parade, and I'm just glad she lived to experience that moment.

Please feel free to post your condolences to the Yamin family on the message board below.

It should've been obvious after Trace Adkins' episode 2 Celebrity Apprentice task--during which he provided the baritone narration for a pet-adoption PSA with what his teammate Gene Simmons called "the voice of God"--that this country star would make it all the way to the show's season finale.

With his authoritative voice and attitude to match, Trace was certainly bound to trump (pun intended) most of his competition. After all, despite his early Celebrity Apprentice exit, Gene Simmons is one shrewd businessman, and Gene knows a winner when he sees one. And he saw one in Trace.

However, tonight on the Celebrity Apprentice finale, Trace unexpectedly lost to America's Got Talent (and Britain's Got Talent) "mean judge," Piers Morgan. But if you look at NBC.com's poll, the results of which overwhelmingly predicted that Trace would win, it's clear he won viewers' hearts.

So now that show is over, Trace is free to talk about his friendship with tongue-waggling Kiss bassist Gene Simmons,

Blimey, there's something in the Thames water these days!

First Leona Lewis, the winner of the third season of Simon Cowell's British reality show X Factor, wowed America by going on Oprah. And now the winner of Simon's Britain's Got Talent competition--the similarly alliteratively named Paul Potts--is taking the States by storm as well.

This Bristol-born opera singer--who amazed Simon (and the rest of the U.K.) with his star-making performance of "Nessun Dorma" and soon earned the nickname "Pavapotty" by his many fans--delightfully stopped by the Yahoo! Music office today. And while, alas, Paul didn't sing for the Y! staff (trust me, I asked--but he was wisely preserving his pipes for his big show at L.A.'s Wiltern Theater tonight), this very nice bloke still charmed us all.

A movie based on Paul Potts' rags-to-riches Cinderfella story is now in the works with Paramount...but until then, you can get your small-screen Pavapotty fix with this little greeting to his fans

Well, tonight's show succeeded in making the Idol audience's older demographic feel positively Methuselah-ish, as the contestants sang songs from the years of their respective births--songs that more seasoned viewers probably vividly remember making out to in high school. Or their children making out to in high school. Eek! But hey, a good song is timeless, and a good singer is a good singer at any age (I personally have always been annoyed by the under-29 age limit on American Idol, for instance). So tonight's theme was a great playing-field-leveler if ever there was one.

So it seems 1987 was a very good year for Idol-birthin', since tonight's first three finalists all were born then. And hey, you know what else 1987 was a good year for? Songs. Yes, a lot of GREAT songs came out in 1987. But you wouldn't know it, from some of the song choices on Idol tonight. 

Please note that 1987 was the year of Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine," U2's "With Or Without You," Depeche Mode's