The World Health Organization just raised its pandemic alert to 5, its second-highest level, an indication that the outbreak of swine flu is "nearing widespread human infection." Enjoy your afternoon, folks. [CNN]

For reasons only the editors of People can explain, the magazine's new list of the "100 Most Beautiful" includes a section called "Barack's Beauties," which, in turn, includes "sexy" chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Possible evidence to the contrary: A search for "Rahm Emanuel nude" on Google brings up precisely zero results. (Try it; we did!) But keep this up, People, and he'll be taking off the shirt along with the suit jacket soon enough. [Politico]

The penultimate Housewives! With tales of rejuvenation and renewal, discord and disharmony. But mostly tales of women on the verge—about to pop or explode, to shit or get off the pot. How'd it go?

Sadly, former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich cannot participate in I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, because "here," for him, could be a penitentiary. But his reality tv dreams are not yet dead!

The Way We Live Now: Involuntarily dieting. Cafeteria trays are a forgotten luxury. Sandwich boards are the new sandwiches. Stare in the windows of the many new luxury restaurants!

This cartoon was found on the Web site of Americans For Limited Government, one of the astroturf organizations behind the tea parties. See, Specter's a greedy Jew just like Judas.

• More trouble at Condé Nast: Ad pages at Vogue are down 31 percent this year and Vanity Fair experienced a 52 percent drop in May alone. The silver lining: Graydon Carter's lavish expense account remains unaffected. [NYP]
• The Sun really may be returning after all. As a website, that is. Seth Lipsky says "there's a business plan for the site in the formative stages." [Politico]
• This certainly isn't a good sign: It seems NBC is exploring the possibility of leasing out part of its headquarters in Washington D.C. [NYO]
• More desperate: NBC will air another season of Celebrity Apprentice. [THR]
• The Portfolio names/logos that never were (and more on its closing). [NYO]
• Al Roker will co-host a Weather Channel show called Wake Up With Al from 6 to 7 a.m. Because waking up with Al is what you've always dreamed of. [NYT]
• Oprah Winfrey's Twitter usage is way down. So much for that! [AdAge]

The FBI has arrested Orange County financier Danny Pang on money-laundering charges, as his firm, PEMGroup, faces an SEC investigation. It's a classic law-enforcement move, like when Eliot Ness caught Al Capone on tax evasion.

Don't despair, laid-off media types: you could still land this magazine editorial job. You'll never guess how much it pays:

The National Pork Producers Council would really appreciate it if you stopped calling it "swine flu." Some people could hear the name and get confused and think they can get sick from eating pork. And that's "a real headache for the pork industry," as you might imagine. So what would they like us to call it instead? "H1N1 virus." Catchy, no? [AdAge]

If you had any doubt that style, and indeed gayness, is genetic, listen to Michael Kors: His first commission was designing his mom Joan's wedding dress for her second marriage when, as he reveals in an interview, he was five years old. It was definitely in the blood: Even though the "Swedish Lutherian" side of his family "couldn't have given a fig about fashion," the Jewish side "loooved it. My grandfather's idea of a really great afternoon out was being fitted for a suit."

Last year, the Bush Treasury Department assigned a 35-year-old nobody named Neel Kashkari to oversee the multi-billion dollar bailout of the financial sector. He sucked and everyone hated him. Except in private!

Greed is good... again! 20th Century Fox has confirmed that it will be resuscitating the 1987 classic, Wall Street. Oliver Stone, who is probably still licking the wounds from his recent string of embarrassing films (Alexander, World Trade Center, W.) has signed on to direct, and Michael Douglas, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of soulless fat cat Gordon Gekko, will also be returning. Shia LaBeouf is in talks to join the cast, too, which would make him the only person under 60 involved in the project.

After rocking the world with the Hipster Grifter story, former Gawkerer and current Observerer Doree Shafrir is back with a new tale from humanity's murkiest moral precincts: Some dude totally trashed his friend's apartment, bad.

The White House has uploaded almost 300 photos of Barack Obama's first 100 days in office, in a Flickr gallery called, cheesily, "Delivering on Change." The photos themselves are pretty great. Our ten favorite:

If you're wondering how it is a strip club managed to get Samantha Ronson, Pamela Anderson and Shannen Doherty to turn up for its opening night party on Monday, well, there's a good reason for that. All three now say they were "tricked" into making an appearance at the debut of Sapphire East and had only signed on because they thought Sapphire "was a restaurant or club," and "without realizing there would be topless dancers and bodypainted performers" on the scene. Not that Sam appears too distressed by the sight of a woman in stripper heels doing her thang, of course. [Us]

Did you recently lose your job at an investment bank or hedge fund? Help is on the way! A group of City Council members and community activists are now lobbying to increase the number of street vending permits the city hands out each year. They say adjusting the cap on the number of permits in circulation will reduce the city's growing unemployment rate. And they've got historical precedent to point to, too, such as World War I and the Great Depression.

"There's an old saying, 'The cobbler's children have no shoes,'" flacks would say to me every single fucking time I wrote about the PR industry's reputation, at my old job. Advertising people: equally bad.

Who will pay for scaring all of Manhattan last Monday? Obama promises action! Bloomberg promises... forgiveness! We promise finger-pointing.

News from the Sex and the City front, a new Disney comedy sounds annoying (and already done), swine flu does its worst damage yet, and another actor picks up a trident.