When Padma Lakshmi said she planned to put her "passion for meat" into a new commercial for the fast food chains Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, she wasn't kidding, clearly. Her new TV spot for the company has finally debuted, and well, we certainly hope Teddy has no objections. [YouTube]

[Real Housewife of New York Jill Zarin out with her daughter on Robertson Blvd in LA; image via WENN]

Updated: We've heard solid rumors that editors and managers at the New York Times are being told they will be taking a 5% pay cut and the paper is asking for similar cuts from newsroom employees.

Jessica Szohr walking her dog downtown ... Hugh Jackman getting coffee in the West Village ... Ivanka Trump walking on Madison Avenue ... Agyness Deyn carrying a Barneys shopping bag down Fifth Avenue ... Missy Elliott getting out of an SUV ... Spike Lee walking on Central Park South ... Kelly Rutherford filming scenes for Gossip Girl outside the Pierre Hotel ... Diane Kruger walking in Midtown ... Jennifer Aniston heading to the set of The Baster in Chelsea ... and Janet Jackson and Jermaine Dupri leaving dinner at the Waverly Inn.

Nicole Kidman and Woody Allen join forces, cable ratings are up, the Kennedys get a conservative treatment, Ian Somerhalder is back, and, just maybe, so is Jesus.

Rarely are the experiences of athletes a lesson to those of us who tend to restrict their cardio to carrying a bag of groceries up one flight of stairs. But it turns out that the consumption of caffeine before competing in various sports like running, rowing, and swimming measurably enhances performance—which means that it's worth drinking coffee before going to the gym or getting on the treadmill, or indeed any half-assed attempt to burn calories. Caffeine not only increases the power output of muscles, say researchers, but also "affects the brain's sensation of exhaustion." And if you swallow enough, it provides hallucinations and communication with the other side, which would really liven up a dull workout!

John Hope Franklin, the author of From Slavery to Freedom and possibly the greatest historian of the black American experience, died Wednesday at the age of 94. He lived well.

Former MSNBC host Dan Abrams, not content with running his shady new conflict-of-interest-laden PR firm for working journalists, now wants to start up his very own "'Drudge meets The Huffington Post' site." Oh good.

Today we have an offender of Judaism, a mean actor who got served, a ruined hotel room, an off-putting photography hobby, and a celebrity deliberately gaining weight.

• It looks like Karen and David Fleiss are willing to try anything to unload their duplex at 1030 Fifth. The couple originally listed the apartment for $47.5 million last June. They then lowered their price twice and tried selling off just the bottom floor for $15 million. When that didn't work, they took the listing down and lowered the price of the entire eight-bedroom unit to $25 million. But that didn't work out either, so now they've re-listed the bottom floor once again, albeit for a more modest $12 million. [Cityfile, PDE]
• Frederick Hill, director of Berry-Hill Galleries, has sold his two-bedroom penthouse at 43 West 64th Street for $2.55 million. [Cityfile]
• The 24th-floor Trump International apartment once occupied by Rand Skolnick, the former CEO of Solgar Vitamins who died last year, has been discounted by $1 million after just a month on the market. It's now $7.75 million. [Cityfile, Trump Realty]

People are planning for Liz Taylor's death, if only because of they were caught so thoroughly unawares by Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson's reported marriage problems and Nadya Suleman being called a horrid mom.

Poor Gwyneth Paltrow: We can scarcely imagine how trying it must be to accept that ever since she won an Oscar ten years ago, the world has been increasingly remiss in validating her admirably high self-esteem. Her website, Goop.com, whose sole aim was "to put good things into the world," was widely misconstrued as the out-of-touch ramblings of a narcissist, and then with the release of one of the few films she's deigned to make recently, Two Lovers, all people could talk about was her co-star Joaquin Phoenix going nuts instead of her bravura performance. So how to rehabilitate the unjustly devalued Paltrow brand? Duh, a clothing line, of course! It's a collaboration with Parisian brand ZOEtee and even better, the proceeds are going to a children's charity. No one could possibly find anything to criticize about that, could they?

Fashion Week queen bee Fern Mallis turns 61 today. The legendary Diana Ross turns 65. Nancy Pelosi is 69. Keira Knightley is celebrating her 24th. Steven Tyler is 61. Curtis Sliwa turns 55. Michael Imperioli is 43. Journalist Bob Woodward turns 66. Author Erica Jong is 67. Martin Short is 59. James Caan is turning 69. Amy Smart is 33. Jennifer Grey is 49. Leeza Gibbons turns 52. Kenny Chesney is turning 41. NBC's Chris Hansen turns 50. Hedge fund manager William von Mueffling is 41. And Elaine Chao, the former Labor Secretary and current sister-in-law of Bruce Wasserstein, is 56 today.

This San Francisco Chronicle photo shows a march in support of a suspected child rapist who just shot four cops in Oakland. If you haven't heard of the fringe Uhuru Movement, you're about to.

• The Jeremy Piven sushi drama just won't quit. Piven's dispute with producers over his decision to leave the cast of Speed-the-Plow will now be heard by an arbitrator in June. But Piven doesn't seem too worried: He says he's "looking forward to testifying," since President Obama recently described mercury poisoning as "the world's gravest chemical problem." [Reuters, Us, TMZ]
• Sean Penn and Natalie Portman were supposedly spotted "making out" at the Sunset Tower Hotel earlier this month. At least that's what the Star says. [Star]
• Are David Duchovny and Tea Leoni getting back together? They were spotted "canoodling" on the beach in Mustique. [NYDN]
• Scarlett Johansson is on a "rigid diet" at the moment. She's also the "new muse" of Moet & Chandon, just so you know. [P6, WWD]

Scarlett Johansson complained about the "rigid diet" she's on when she showed up "very slim" to a London film party Tuesday, says Page Six's source. The starlet does seem streamlined.

• Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner plans to ask for greater oversight of financial markets and stricter regulation today; his proposal will also seek more control over hedge funds and private equity firms. [BN, WSJ, NYT]
• The departure of two execs from AIG's Paris office could trigger defaults on $234 billion in derivative contracts, believe it or not. [WSJ]
• Morgan Stanley and Mitsubishi are merging their brokerages in Japan. [DB]
• Some say the insurance biz is the next shoe to drop in the crisis. [NYP]
• Commercial real estate loans are heading south in a hurry. Delinquency rates have more than doubled since September. [WSJ]
• Gross domestic product fell at a 6.3% annual rate during the fourth quarter of 2008; state unemployment claims are up, too. [WSJ, CNN]
• Hope you skipped business school: "The MBA will soon be joining equities and house titles in the museum of formerly overvalued pieces of paper." [TBM]

My God, did anyone think he'd fall this far, this fast? Bill Richardson's terribly awkward encounter with Michelle Obama, via the New York Times' Thursday Style section:

Barack Obama lost 18 percent of his TV audience between Tuesday's press conference and the prior televised presser, in February. Ratings were also down 23 percent from his non-State of the Union address.

Producers still want vengeance against Jeremy Piven for dropping out of Speed the Plow due to "mercury poisoning." They've been thwarted once, and the actor now claims history and Hope are on his side.