News Brief

Chicago Tribune: The WGA strike: It's nearly over, writers should pick up pencils by Wednesday.

Variety: Writers Guild of America members gave a resounding thumbs-up to the guild’s new contract agreement at membership meetings held Saturday in Gotham and L.A., clearing the path for the three-month-old writers strike to end by midweek. At the L.A. meeting at the Shrine Auditorium, WGA West leaders told the crowd of more than 3,500 members that the WGA West board and WGA East council would meet Sunday morning to formally recommend the deal for ratification, and to approve a special 48-hour vote among members about whether to end the strike. The boards are also expected to begin the process of holding a 10-day ratification vote for members to formally seal the new three-year contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

New York Daily News: A desperate Carly calls ex-husband Jack this week on AS THE WORLD TURNS to say they've got big trouble. SPOILER: "Parker has shot Sam," reports Michael Park, who plays good cop Jack Snyder. Parker is Jack and Carly's teenage son, who caught Sam trying to rape Carly on Friday's episode. "By the time Carly calls Jack, Parker has already fled the scene," continues Park."Parker runs over to the church, where Jack catches up with him [and Carly]: 'What are you doing here?' Jack asks them. They left the scene of the crime, and they left a man for dead," Park continues.

E! Online: On the same day the Writers Guild of America announced it had an agreement with producers, potentially ending three months of keyboard stoppage, the union on Saturday bestowed its top movie and television honors.

Sunday Mirror: Former HOLLYOAKS star Lesley Crawford has finally landed a job as a midwife... but only part-time and 50 miles from home. Lesley, 25 - who gave up her £100,000-a-year role as bad girl Laura Burns in the soap to join the NHS - had searched for work for over five months.

The Telegraph (India): At 48, Victoria Rowell is neither young nor restless. But the show in which she played a stellar role as Drucilla Winters for 13 years is still full of pizzazz. It has just completed 2007 as the top-rated daytime drama on US television for the 919th week running. And even as The Young and The Restless prepares to celebrate its 35th anniversary in March (it will soon complete a year in India on Zee Cafe), Rowell, who single-handedly pulled the show up when she joined it in 1990 drawing Afro-Asian viewership, is far away — in India, doing book readings and visiting underprivileged children.

Chicago Tribune: Did you ever want to make a B&B your home? ALL MY CHILDEN star Walt Willey did it. Willey, who took on the role of the "AMC" lawyer some 20 years ago, is in love with the magnificent "unimpeded" sights his home just south of Santa Fe offers -- the "beautiful rolling arroyos dotted with pinons, junipers and Russian olive trees. Red rock, blue sky and at night -- so many stars it looks like crushed diamonds on black velvet."

Ventura County Star: Networks bringing soap stars back, even after decades. Returning popular characters and actors to daytime serials is a staple of the 60-year-old genre. However, the knack for doing it has come in particularly handy for ABC Daytime this time.

Hollywood Reporter: Former GUIDING LIGHT star Brittany Snow hasn't made a huge name for herself yet, but she's been in the biz for ages. Soon she will star in a new film called Vicious Kind, from writer/director Lee Toland Krieger. Snow will star as "a woman targeted by the obsessed older brother of her boyfriend after he brings her home for Thanksgiving." So this is yet another reason not to meet the family. It's just too much hassle.

Times-News: Former AS THE WORLD TURNS Emmy acting nominee Terrence Mann will direct the University Players in a production of the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Feb. 21 through 23, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24, in the performance hall of the Fine and Performing Arts Center on the campus of Western Carolina University.

Korea Times: Most Korean dramas start airing after the shooting of first a few episodes. Thus the general practice has been that production gets busier and busier, with the dramas eventually rushing to the end with obviously lower quality than before. The ``one-page script'' exists in Korean soap-opera making. The whole script for one episode is not produced at the same time. The actors stand ready for shooting a scene without knowing what they are going to film and just one page of the script is sent from the writer. Then they act according to that one page without knowing what's going on before and after the scene.