Dead People

WASHINGTON - The federal government pays out millions of dollars to dead people each year, including deceased retired federal workers, according to a report. In the past five years, the Office of Personnel Management has made more than $601 million in benefits payments to deceased federal annuitants, according to the agency's inspector general. Total annual payouts range between $100 million and $150 million. Inspector General Patrick McFarland, who previously reported on the improper payments in 2005 and 2008, urged the agency to more closely track such mistakes.

Saturday Night Live 11:30 p.m., Channel 7 Daniel Radcliffe enjoyed a pretty bang-up year in 2011. He finished up his obligation as the Boy Who Lived in the final "Harry Potter" film - take that Voldemort - and acquitted himself nicely as J. Pierrepont Finch in the revival of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" on Broadway. Here's hoping he brings a little comedy magic and a song-and-dance number to "SNL. " Buzz artist Lana Del Rey will serve up the musical interludes.

WASHINGTON — About 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each went to people who were either dead or in prison, a government investigator says in a new report. The Social Security payments, part of last year’s economic recovery package, were meant to increase consumer spending to help stimulate the economy. But about $18 million went to nearly 72,000 people who were dead, according to the report by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general. The report estimates that a little more than half of those payments were returned.

WASHINGTON - The federal government pays out millions of dollars to dead people each year, including deceased retired federal workers, according to a report. In the past five years, the Office of Personnel Management has made more than $601 million in benefits payments to deceased federal annuitants, according to the agency's inspector general. Total annual payouts range between $100 million and $150 million. Inspector General Patrick McFarland, who previously reported on the improper payments in 2005 and 2008, urged the agency to more closely track such mistakes.

Saturday Night Live 11:30 p.m., Channel 7 Daniel Radcliffe enjoyed a pretty bang-up year in 2011. He finished up his obligation as the Boy Who Lived in the final "Harry Potter" film - take that Voldemort - and acquitted himself nicely as J. Pierrepont Finch in the revival of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" on Broadway. Here's hoping he brings a little comedy magic and a song-and-dance number to "SNL. " Buzz artist Lana Del Rey will serve up the musical interludes.

Turns out you may need to finish up a few last-minute errands before you go into the light. And if that is the case, if, say, you need to have an urgent message delivered to a loved one, then you might want to seek out the services of Jennifer Love Hewitt's Melinda Gordon. A freelance medium, she can be hired for a song. Yeah, yeah, she sees dead people. And when she sees you, she will do everything in her power to help you complete your final tasks. Like a personal shopper, or a courier service, she will make sure the job gets done, and done on time, so that you won't miss your...

Ryan Reynolds is having some nice down time with Sandra Bullock before heading to Boston to film "R.I.P.D. " with Jeff Bridges. TMZ spotted Reynolds and Bullock - who filmed their hit comedy, "The Proposal," in Gloucester a few years ago - in Wyoming, where Bullock owns a home. Reynolds and Bridges should be in Boston by the end of the month. Bridges recently spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the comic-book-based movie, which will be about deceased cops fighting crime in Boston, and said, "This movie is really out there.

Director Errol Morris is taking a different approach on his next project. The filmmaker famous for documentaries, including “The Thin Blue Line’’ and “The Fog of War,’’ will try his hand at straightforward Hollywood storytelling. Morris, who lives in Cambridge, told us he’s working on a movie — not a documentary — based on a segment from Ira Glass ’s popular radio show, “This American Life.’’ It’s the story of Bob Nelson , a California TV repairman who was among the first to practice cryonics.

LOS ANGELES - Deborah Chesher was culling through her old boxes of negatives one day when a random thought crossed the photographer's mind about how young and alive all of the guitar gods of her youth had been. It was quickly followed by the realization that many of those rockers were also dead, and most had died young. She has now brought those synaptic occurrences into focus in the coffee table book "Everybody I Shot Is Dead. " The 208-page volume, with black-and-white and color photos, celebrates the joyous, often unguarded moments of...

Blind Spot By Terri PersonsDoubleday, 337 pp., $23.95 Past Perfect By Susan IsaacsScribner, 352 pp., $25 Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis By Cara BlackSoho, 304 pp., $23 FBI agent Bernadette Saint Cla re's nights are filled with disturbing dreams, and during the day she sees dead people . . . through the eyes of their killers. For the emotionally wounded protagonist of Terri Persons's debut novel, "Blind Spot," it's part of her job. Her former colleagues nicknamed her "Cat" -- after Catahoula leopard dogs , which, like Bernadette,...

Ryan Reynolds is having some nice down time with Sandra Bullock before heading to Boston to film "R.I.P.D. " with Jeff Bridges. TMZ spotted Reynolds and Bullock - who filmed their hit comedy, "The Proposal," in Gloucester a few years ago - in Wyoming, where Bullock owns a home. Reynolds and Bridges should be in Boston by the end of the month. Bridges recently spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the comic-book-based movie, which will be about deceased cops fighting crime in Boston, and said, "This movie is really out there.

Director Errol Morris is taking a different approach on his next project. The filmmaker famous for documentaries, including “The Thin Blue Line’’ and “The Fog of War,’’ will try his hand at straightforward Hollywood storytelling. Morris, who lives in Cambridge, told us he’s working on a movie — not a documentary — based on a segment from Ira Glass ’s popular radio show, “This American Life.’’ It’s the story of Bob Nelson , a California TV repairman who was among the first to practice cryonics.

WASHINGTON — About 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each went to people who were either dead or in prison, a government investigator says in a new report. The Social Security payments, part of last year’s economic recovery package, were meant to increase consumer spending to help stimulate the economy. But about $18 million went to nearly 72,000 people who were dead, according to the report by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general. The report estimates that a little more than half of those payments were returned.

LOS ANGELES - Deborah Chesher was culling through her old boxes of negatives one day when a random thought crossed the photographer's mind about how young and alive all of the guitar gods of her youth had been. It was quickly followed by the realization that many of those rockers were also dead, and most had died young. She has now brought those synaptic occurrences into focus in the coffee table book "Everybody I Shot Is Dead. " The 208-page volume, with black-and-white and color photos, celebrates the joyous, often unguarded moments of...

Blind Spot By Terri PersonsDoubleday, 337 pp., $23.95 Past Perfect By Susan IsaacsScribner, 352 pp., $25 Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis By Cara BlackSoho, 304 pp., $23 FBI agent Bernadette Saint Cla re's nights are filled with disturbing dreams, and during the day she sees dead people . . . through the eyes of their killers. For the emotionally wounded protagonist of Terri Persons's debut novel, "Blind Spot," it's part of her job. Her former colleagues nicknamed her "Cat" -- after Catahoula leopard dogs , which, like Bernadette,...

The most popular facial expression for victims in "The Grudge 2" is something I'd like to call "deep befuddlement. " Brow furrowed, mouth slightly, stupidly agape as the hairy dead mother and her clammy son pop up, again, in the darnedest places, haunting whoever has entered the house they were murdered in. This time "deep befuddlement" goes double for paying customers. (Dude, how is she climbing out of that pan of film developing solution?) But logic in Takashi Shimizu's sequel to the Hollywood remake of his own cult classic, "Ju-On," is beside the point.

The most popular facial expression for victims in "The Grudge 2" is something I'd like to call "deep befuddlement. " Brow furrowed, mouth slightly, stupidly agape as the hairy dead mother and her clammy son pop up, again, in the darnedest places, haunting whoever has entered the house they were murdered in. This time "deep befuddlement" goes double for paying customers. (Dude, how is she climbing out of that pan of film developing solution?) But logic in Takashi Shimizu's sequel to the Hollywood remake of his own cult classic, "Ju-On," is beside the point.

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan -- A plane carrying US drug enforcement officials slammed into tents and mud brick houses yesterday while trying to avoid a truck on a runway, killing two people on board and two girls on the ground. At least 13 people were injured, including several Americans, after the Russian-made, twin-engine An-32 aircraft plowed into a nomad settlement on landing at an airport in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand Province. Two of the 16 people aboard the plane -- 12 passengers and four crew -- were killed, said Canadian military...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- In the most brazen attack yet on the city's heavily guarded center, a car bomber rammed into an American Humvee outside the US Embassy yesterday, killing himself and 16 other people, including two US soldiers. It was the Afghan capital's deadliest suicide attack since the 2001 toppling of the Taliban. Twenty-nine people were wounded in the crash and explosion. A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the privately run Pajhwok Afghan News Agency.

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan -- A plane carrying US drug enforcement officials slammed into tents and mud brick houses yesterday while trying to avoid a truck on a runway, killing two people on board and two girls on the ground. At least 13 people were injured, including several Americans, after the Russian-made, twin-engine An-32 aircraft plowed into a nomad settlement on landing at an airport in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand Province. Two of the 16 people aboard the plane -- 12 passengers and four crew -- were killed, said Canadian military spokesman Major...