Victoria Kennedy

Victoria Kennedy

Victoria Kennedy, greeted family, friends and dignitaries as they arrived for the funeral mass, CNN said. A brief prayer service was held earlier in the morning in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library before an honor guard loaded Kennedy's casket into the hearse for the short trip to the basilica, The Boston Globe reported. Kennedy, 77, died Tuesday of brain cancer.

"Today we say goodbye to the youngest child of Rose and Joseph Kennedy," President Barack Obama said in a eulogy. "The world will long remember their son Edward as the heir to a weighty legacy; a champion for those who had none; the soul of the Democratic Party; and the lion of the U.S. Senate -- a man whose name graces nearly one thousand laws, and who penned more than three hundred himself. " Former U.S. Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and the prime ministers of Ireland and Britain were among the 1,400 guest who filled the basilica.

Friday night, 650 friends, family and colleagues gathered at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library for three hours of story-telling and remembrance, The Boston Globe said. Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., spoke of Kennedy's love of sailing and how the day after Kennedy's death was a perfect day for sailing off Massachusetts. Kennedy is now sailing with the members of his family who died before him, Kerry said, choking up. "Sail on, my friend, sail on," Kerry said. Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening in Arlington National Cemetery near the graves of his brothers, Sen. Robert Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Boston

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Boston

The telephone rang early Wednesday morning in the hushed rectory of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica, the old Catholic church on Mission Hill. Phones are always ringing in old churches in working-class neighborhoods, but this caller, a priest, had a singular request. He said that the Kennedy family — that would be the Kennedys of Hyannis Port, Washington, the world — wondered whether the funeral Mass for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who had died just hours earlier, could be said at Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Would that be all right?

The Rev. Philip Dabney, the associate pastor, was stunned. All he had done was answer the phone, and now his life had changed. “I said, ‘Sure,’ ” he recalled. “I was so taken aback. But you knowhow grace works.” Soon Father Dabney was working out the details with the senator’s aides. No air-conditioning? We’ll send over several industrial fans. Unsure about the sound system? ABC, the television network, will be on it. When the priest noted that the sidewalk in front of the church was in the midst of being repaired, one of the aides said, “It’ll be fixed.”

The priests here are Redemptorists — missionaries who built this commanding Romanesque church in 1878. Known locally as the Mission Church, it holds a special place among Boston Catholics because of its shrine to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which is bordered by two vases filled with canes and crutches. According to the church’s official history, these strange but beautiful bouquets “provide testimony to the multitude of cures and graces granted through the intercession of Our Lady.”

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson tributes and book-a-zines have generated $55 million in additional newsstand sales for magazine publishers, providing one bright spot, however somber, amid widespread newsstand declines so far this year. "Based on our estimates, we're at about almost $67 million in Michael Jackson product," said Gil Brechtel, president-CEO of the Magazine Information Network, often called MagNet, which tracks data from wholesalers and retailers. "Some of that, of course, is People magazine and all that. But these are mostly specials, like the People tribute, an $11.99 product. The industry was able to produce probably $55 million in additional revenue from Michael Jackson magazines and book-a-zines."

For some context, MagNet projects that magazine retail sales in the U.S. in the first half of 2009 will reach between $1.8 billion and $1.975 billion. Michael Jackson's death last June unleashed a flood of memorial media coverage across media. In print, everyone from Time to Us Weekly to Jet converted regular issues into Michael Jackson specials, rushed special issues to newsstands and published book-a-zine tributes. Time magazine, for example, published a 64-page special extra issue on June 29, which retailed for $5.99, with a special Pepsi ad on the back that read, "You will always be the king of pop."

MagNet's analysis of Michael Jackson's impact includes July, which won't help the approaching circulation report covering January through June that's due Monday from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Early looks at many publishers' results have suggested that subscriptions held up fine over the first half but that newsstand sales suffered some sharp blows from the recession and a dispute with wholesalers.New numbers from Hearst Magazines and Conde Nast are further reinforcing that picture.