Names and faces

■ Former CNN talk show host Larry King has been hospitalized with covid-19 for more than a week, the news channel reported Saturday. Citing an unidentified person close to the family, CNN said the 87-year-old King is undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Hospital protocols have kept King’s family members from visiting him. The Peabody Award-winning broadcaster was among America’s most prominent interviewers of celebrities, presidents and other newsmakers during a half-century career that included 25 years with a nightly show on CNN. He has had medical issues in recent decades, including heart attacks and diagnoses of diabetes and lung cancer. Last year, King lost two of his five children within weeks of each other. Son Andy King died of a heart attack at 65 in August, and daughter Chaia King died from lung cancer at 51 in July, Larry King said then in a statement.

■ The ongoing controversy over the money left behind by Prince when he died without a will is heating up again after Internal Revenue Service calculations showed that executors of the rock star’s estate undervalued it by 50%, or about $80 million. The IRS determined that Prince’s estate is worth $163.2 million, overshadowing the $82.3 million valuation submitted by Comerica Bank & Trust, the estate’s administrator. The discrepancy primarily involves Prince’s music publishing and recording interests, according to court documents. Documents show the IRS believes that Prince’s estate owes another $32.4 million in federal taxes, roughly doubling the tax bill based on Comerica’s valuation, the Star Tribune reported. The IRS also has ordered a $6.4 million “accuracy-related penalty” on Prince’s estate, citing a “substantial” undervaluation of assets, documents show. Prince’s death of a fentanyl overdose on April 21, 2016, created one of the largest and most complicated probate court proceedings in Minnesota history. Estimates of his net worth have varied widely, from $100 million to $300 million. With Prince’s probate case dragging on, his six sibling heirs have grown increasingly unhappy, particularly as the estate has doled out tens of millions of dollars to lawyers and consultants. Comerica and its lawyers at Fredrikson & Byron in Minneapolis maintain their estate valuations are solid. Comerica sued the IRS this summer in U.S. Tax Court in Washington, saying the agency’s calculations are riddled with errors. “What we have here is a classic battle of the experts — the estate’s experts and the IRS’ experts,” said Dennis Patrick, an estate planning attorney at DeWitt LLP in Minneapolis who is not involved in the case. Valuing a large estate, Patrick added, “is way more of an art than a science.”

Prince

King