FIRST OFF . . .

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge refused Tuesday to dismiss Joan Rivers’ $50-million libel suit against writer Ben Stein, whose lawyer argued that Rivers was “libel-proof” because she often joked about her late husband. Rivers sued Stein and the publisher of Gentleman’s Quarterly magazine after it published an article by Stein quoting Rivers about her husband, Edgar Rosenberg, after his suicide. Rivers claims Stein’s story is completely false. Stein’s attorney also asked that other stories written by Stein allegedly defaming people not be introduced as evidence; Lewin said the trial judge would decide that.