How can a newspaper near the heart of Silicon Valley win readers back from the Web? With a new $200 million-plus plant for printing the news on top of dead trees. Welcome to the future!

As it has for so many other celebrities, death has bolstered Michael Jackson's image. The late pop singer just surpassed Barack Obama to hold the most popular page on Facebook. The numbers are pretty staggering:

[Finally sun in New York! After a month plus of dreary weather, the sun has returned and stayed put (for now). This image, of a sunbather in Riverside Park yesterday, via Ed Yourdon's Flickr]

Time political analyst Mark Halperin has a list of "9 Pieces of 'Analysis' About Sarah Palin's Decision That Are Flat-Out Totally Wrong. This is Halperin we're talking about, so you know that they are all indisputably right. [Wonkette]

What's that? A car chase, in Houston? Studio B With Shep Smith was on the case! It is, as always, delightful. Though it wasn't as exciting as last week's, you wouldn't know it from listening to Shep.

Perez Hilton called will.i.am a "faggot." Now, in an Advocate profile he desperately wants for you to know that he's not a gay hate-monger. He's just a racist. Some of his best friends are gay people. Best friends like... himself!

Manic, floating disembodied eyeball in dark alley teaches kids about drugs. As always!

A car chase failed to end on camera, making MSNBC's David Shuster sad; Ben Stiller hobnobbed merrily with Lance Armstrong; and a blogger became fascinated with Lydia Hearst's fulsome... theories in financial regulation. The Twitterati were excitable today.

Republicans are sick of Michael Jackson: it's a meme! We don't know why, but it is! Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is sick of this nonstop coverage of the death of one of the world's most famous and bizarre people.

• A kitchen fire destroyed Anita Lo's Annisa over the weekend. [SE]
• A roundup of restaurants that just opened, or will be open shortly. [Eater]
• Adam Platt reviews Marea in this week's issue of New York and doesn't walk away all that impressed: "For all its impressive, even dazzling qualities, it feels less like a labor of love than like one of ambition and duty." [NYM]
• A rebuttal from Josh Ozersky: "Adam Platt is out of his mind." [TFB]
• The owners of the River Café have filed a $3 million lawsuit over damage they claim was caused by Olafur Eliasson's "Waterfalls" art project. [NYP]
• Despite a last-minute petition, Joe Jr.'s closed its doors yesterday. [GS]
• The Health Department may take away the permits of as many as 500 street food vendors after investigators found evidence of "widespread fraud." [NYP]
• Joey Chestnut took top prize at the Nathan's hot-dog eating contest. [NYDN]

America's Paper of Record cannot afford to have its reporters sending text messages or calling 411 on their company phones. What a pitiful state of affairs.

Sure, Marc Andreessen is now helming a $300 million investment fund, but where is the Netscape co-founder investing his own money? On that surefire moneymaker, professional blogging.

Career changing is difficult. And making the leap from high school basketball coach to male escort-as Ray Drecker of HBO's new hit comedy series Hung is attempting to do-is particularly challenging. Intimate knowledge of zone defense patterns can only get you so far in the bedroom.

Career changing is difficult. And making the leap from high school basketball coach to male escort-as Ray Drecker of HBO's new hit comedy series Hung is attempting to do-is particularly challenging. Intimate knowledge of zone defense patterns can only get you so far in the bedroom.

The bankrupt Tribune Co. has finally reached a deal to sell the Chicago Cubs, reportedly for close to $900 million. Only, ah, $11 billion more until Sam Zell has that debt knocked out! [Pic: AP]

Scores, the strip club on East 60th Street, closed its doors at the end of 2008 after running into some financial difficulty. (Its West Side location was shuttered last May after it got caught up in a prostitution sting operation.) But it's back in business and under new management. And it's in desperate need of publicity, clearly, since it just offered Heidi Pratt a job at the club.

The results of our poll to find America's best city for journalism, story-wise, are in. Chicago surged into second place thanks to a characteristic ballot-stuffing campaign, but in the end, good sense prevailed. Full results below!

It has been days since Empress Sarah Palin quit Alaska, forever. And no one yet knows why! Her "explanation" lacked, uh, actual coherent reasons. But there are theories.

Poor author Susan Orlean is just besieged by animal woes. First it was the wistful tale of the dead chicken, and now she's been attacked by a bear. Well, OK, just her house in Aspen was attacked. Do tell, Twitter: