According to the BBC, Donald Parfitt managed to skirt a jail term and was sentenced today to 180 hours of community service and £55 of court costs.

A visit to Scholastic’s Web site has shown it to be remade with the Harry Potter look and feel. Also, in an effort to get parents up to speed (like most parents haven’t read the book), they’ve created a Harry Potter Companion. Stay tuned for the winners of Scholastic’s competition due out early next week.

In today’s CBBC “Celeb Gossip” daily update, they report that Dan Radcliffe has grown 8 inches since he filmed the first movie.

WB has told CBBC Newsround that they are most definitely on schedule with filming. No delays here.

Amazon.com put out a press release today with some interesting statistics. To-date more than 550,000 copies of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” have been ordered at www.amazon.com. At 2.8 pounds a piece, that’s more than 770 tons of Harry Potter magic – nearly 3.5 times the weight of the Statue of Liberty …read more!

An interesting commentary on Christianity & Harry Potter from Christianity Today.

Set your calendars and ready your Quick Quotes Quills – Jeremy Paxman from BBC’s Newsnight has already interviewed Rowling in a show set to air on June 19th. Rowling tells Paxman about Order of the Phoenix, gives him a taster from the new book, and provides an insight into the inspiration behind the novels. She …read more!

According to the AP, the big event at London’s Royal Albert Hall will be webcast live at http://www.msn.co.uk/harrypotter starting at 12pm EDT. Microsoft says it has the ability to reach children in 34 countries in 18 different languages. Here’s the best part: Before the event, children are invited to submit their questions about Harry to …read more!

Bloomberg has a report on a recent downturn in U.K. stocks. Quotage: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (BMY LN) rose 20p, or 2.4 percent, to 855p. The U.K. publisher of the Harry Potter books said it will propose a 4-for-1 stock split to help increase the liquidity of its shares.

Check out a full list of the MMA winners. The awards ceremony will air on MTV on June 5.