• Mariah Carey must be determined to earn back the title of "world's most demanding diva." For an appearance at a London shopping shopping center to kick off the holiday season, she asked for 20 white kittens, 100 white doves, and confetti shaped like butterflies. She also requested a Rolls-Royce, pink carpet, pink podium, and a security staff of 80 to protect her entourage of 15. Then again all she asked for in her dressing room were a few bottles of water, so it isn't as if she's totally out of control, is it? [NYDN, DM]
• Jude Law made the unfortunate decision to move into a building next to an NYU dorm and he hasn't been too happy about the students who invariably look down on him as he plays with his kids or works out with his trainer. When Law recently noticed students waving at him from across the way, he responded by pelting their windows with oranges. That'll do it! [NYP]
• Madonna is still saving the world. But she isn't taking any chances while she does it, clearly. She insisted on wearing a bullet-proof vest under her jacket while touring a "lawless" Rio de Janeiro favela recently. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan's gig at Emanuel Ungaro may be coming to an end soon. The company's chairman reportedly wants her out since he, like the rest of the world, wasn't impressed with the "cheesy and dated" outfits she debuted at Paris Fashion Week, and many stores are refusing to carry the line. Ungaro CEO Mounir Moufarrige wants to keep her, though, to save face. [P6]

Times are tough, and people are sat at home chewing bellybutton fluff instead of eating out or ordering in. What are restaurant owners doing? Some are not paying staff, and others are sending abusive emails calling them "fucking lazy motherfuckers."

The President has left China. But try as he might, he couldn't get the Chinese to translate his name correctly the whole time he was there. Please call him President Aobama from now on.

New York City has picked its latest big public art project. And it doesn't involve setting up a water show in the East River or wrapping up Central Park in brightly colored fabric. It's going to be distributing seven million Metrocards with the word "Optimism" printed on the backs. It's cooler than it sounds:

In a story that can only be described as made-up-but-not, police have busted a gang in Peru who targeted fat people on "lonely roads," killed them, extracted their fat and sold it, possibly to make anti-wrinkle treatments.

Mitch Winehouse offers charming new details about his daughter's breasts; Adam Lambert fires back at Out magazine's editor; Miley Cyrus literally dresses like a whore. Friday's gossip is losing its sense of irony, but makes up for it with cleavage.

The King of Pop, in his infinite grace and wisdom, has returned to the mortal realm by making his face appear in an ultrasound of fetus inside a British lady's uterus.

Alyssa Bustamante's MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube profiles are eerie in that "teen who engages in self-injurious behavior and bullshits about being tough" way. Except, when she lists "killing people" as a hobby? Police say that part was true.

"30 Rock" often uses serious, "real-world" issues as fodder for their very silly plots. Tonight it was global-warming, and Al Gore stopped by to change all the light-bulbs!

Perhaps you've seen this chart from the Awl, which shows via colorful line graphs exactly how screwed the magazine industry is. (Very screwed.) However, one magazine seems to be weathering the storm quite well. Vice. What's their dirty little secret?

A Twitter engineer said Google's new "Chrome" OS is something you resign yourself to; a CNET writer said it's something you are infected with; and Mediaite might hang out awkwardly on Tumblr with it. The Twitterati were ruthless.

Didn't Fox News' parents ever explain the best thing to do when someone makes fun of them is just ignore it? Tonight, Bill O'Reilly's guest couldn't let Jon Stewart jest and jape at his expense without a rebuttal.

Welcome to the last live blog of Season Six. To help us survive the final hour, I propose this fun diversion. Let's vote on who looks better in an apron: Tim Gunn or Erica of Glad bag fame.

Ew, guys, seriously: Stop groping women on the subway. Complaints of sexual abuse in New York subways are up four percent this year, to 587.

Courtenay Semel, the sapphic spawn of former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, is quoted in the lesbian magazine Curve dissing former lady friend Lindsay Lohan. Then she complains that the media twists her relationships. The nerve of this one.

And thus an era ends. As rumored she would, Oprah Winfrey announced today that she will give up her syndicated show to focus on building her cable network.

• Dean Poll has a new name for Tavern on the Green if the city loses its legal battle with the LeRoy family: He'll rename it Tavern in the Park instead. [CNY]
• New: Pichet Ong's dessert place in the EV is open; Bobby Flay's second Bar Americain has debuted in Connecticut; and Death & Co. has a new menu.
• The East Side Social Club opens at Midtown's Pod Hotel next week. [GS]
• Michael Bloomberg celebrated his electoral win with a trip to Paris last weekend and a fancy meal at a fancy restaurant by the Seine. [NYT]
• LaGuardia airport hosted a pizza-eating contest today for some reason. [BB]
• The producers of Top Chef are at work on a new food show for NBC. The winner of the competition gets to open a restaurant chain. [THR]

The path from socialite to reality TV star isn't an easy one. A pilot rarely leads to a full series. And even if it does, there's no telling what may be required to stir up the necessary amount of drama. (See here and here for a recent example of the lengths some will go.) That certainly hasn't stopped every other member of the social set from seeking out a TV deal, of course. To get a little perspective on the socialite-reality TV madness, Douglas Marshall took a few minutes to chat with power publicist Alison Brod and socialite Emma Snowdon-Jones at last night's Solerno-sponsored screening of Robin Baker Leacock's new documentary, A Passion for Giving, at the Four Seasons.

Twitter today announced it will prompt users to post by asking "What's happening?" rather than the old "What are you doing?" We asked a prominent linguist if this means anything. Turns out it does: Twitterers are no longer such loners.

[There's nothing to hide the flaws in an extreme closeup of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton taken during a press conference at the U.S. embassy in Kabul today. Image via Getty]