"The Twilight Saga: New Moon" has set a box-office record for midnight screenings.

Summit Entertainment estimated yesterday that it earned $26.3 million after opening early in the morning.

That would topple the previous midnight record, held by "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." It earned $22.2 million this year. "The Dark Knight" from 2008 is third with $18.5 million.

"New Moon" is the second installment of the popular "Twilight" series. It opened at midnight in 3,514 theaters, including on screens in Hawai'i, with a per-theater average of $7,476.

RECORDS: JACKSON DOCTOR BOUGHT DRUGS

Michael Jackson's personal physician purchased five bottles of the powerful anesthetic that killed the singer from a Las Vegas pharmacy the month before his death, according to court documents unsealed yesterday.

Dr. Conrad Murray acknowledged giving Jackson the drug propofol in a police interview two days after Jackson's death June 25, and according to a police affidavit made public by a Las Vegas judge, Los Angeles police and federal drug agents subsequently worked to connect the doctor to drug bottles found in the pop icon's rented Los Angeles mansion.

EX-MARINE CHARGED IN SHOOTING DEATHS

A former Marine was charged yesterday with six counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of four people whose bodies were found in a burning home, including a prostitute featured on the HBO reality series "Cathouse."

David Allen Tyner, 28, is accused of shooting, stabbing and then burning the bodies of Brooke Phillips, Milagrous Barrera, Jennifer Ermey, 25, and Mark Barrientos, 32, at a southwest Oklahoma City home. Because Phillips and Barrera, both 22, were pregnant, two more murder counts were filed.

Phillips had worked at the Moonlite BunnyRanch, a legal brothel near Carson City, Nev., that is featured in the HBO reality show "Cathouse."

QUEEN, PRINCE PHILIP CELEBRATE 62 YEARS

Buckingham Palace says Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip are celebrating 62 years of marriage quietly — without the fanfare of two years ago, when they marked their diamond anniversary.

Princess Elizabeth married Lt. Philip Mountbatten in Westminster Abbey on Nov. 20, 1947, in front of 2,000 guests. They have four children and eight grandchildren.