Ray, one of our readers, has let us know that Scholastic has finally obtained the rights to publish Book 5 in the United States. However, company president Dick Robinson said that this doesn’t mean the publisher will necessarily bring out the book before the end of May, when the house’s fiscal year ends.

Science fiction’s “Jedi” warriors and “Klingon” bad guys have entered the newest edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, along with “asylum seekers,” “asymmetrical warfare” and “spin control.” … There are also 500 new quotations. Among the writers whose literary citations appear for the first time are best sellers Tom Clancy and Nick Hornby, Bridget …read more!

And more, and more, HP everywhere. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which, notedly, had a very hot falling out with the WB network over a year ago, Willow (who is learning how to harness her magic) tells the everwise mentor Giles (who she was expecting to be very punishing because she, oh, almost killed the …read more!

From the KDLH NewsChannel website [Duluth, Minnesota]: ” ‘Harry Potter’ is a popular choice amongst kids, but do parents agree? Some northlanders are against children reading books about magic and sorcery such as the ‘Harry Potter’ series. A KDLH employee was in Target last week and noticed religious pamphlets tucked inside of ‘Harry Potter’ and …read more!

More “HP in the Darndest Places,” from our readers: From Sejal: The news about Harry Potter appearing in The Sopranos reminded me of something. A while ago, I was watching the movie Winning London. Harry Potter also had a little cameo in that. It was during a scene where the twins (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen) …read more!

From CBS Marketwatch comes this report: “Yes, investors were just wild about ‘Harry’ on Friday. But will their enthusiasm for good news about the lucrative ‘Harry Potter’ literary franchise carry over and give AOL Time Warner’s shares a bounce? An early indication might be ‘yes’ …” The BBC has posted a Newsmakers profile on JK …read more!

And in “HP in the Darndest Places” news – Harry got a little cameo on last night’s episode of HBO’s mob hit, The Sopranos. The gangsters were ganged around a table, eating (what else), and someone yelled, “Hey you know what’s a gold mine? Those Harry Potter books,” to which he received the response: “Yeah, …read more!

Happy Birthday Tom Felton! He’s fifteen today!

It’s what every Hogwarts fan knew, but now it’s official: the Harry Potter books are the best children’s stories of all time. A survey to be published this week names Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first of J K Rowling’s four teenage wizard novels, as the favourite children’s book for boys, girls – …read more!

Another poster – this time of Harry flying and Harry and Draco eyeing each other with the Quidditch teams behind them – has been discovered for sale on eBay.