A tipster tells us that National Public Radio "just began first wave of layoffs and show cancellations this morning." Really? If you know more, email us.

Remember all those pathetic attempts to cash in on our new president, from "commemorative editions plates" to a Barack Obama fragrance? Well, at least the latest one isn't cologne: in a desperate plea for PR (hey, it worked!) cosmetics company Khuraira named a lipstick after the incoming First Lady, reports Nylon. It's called "Lady Obama Special Edition" and is "a shimmery bronze that works with many skin tones and even more outfits." Click for even more product info.

Conan O'Brien is considered one of the big losers of Jay Leno's decision to stay on at NBC, because Jay will eat up his audience, steal his guests, and keep him out of the spotlight. How did Conan handle the issue last night? With a simple bit involving newspapers that is way funnier than anything Jay Leno's slackjawed writing staff has ever come up with. Click to watch Conan's moral victory.

These are difficult times for hedge fund king Paul Tudor Jones but he was all smiles as the guest of honor at last night's 11th annual NYU Child Study Center Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street. Joining Jones and his wife Sonia (left) was the center's director, Harold Koplewicz, co-chairs (and fellow finance big wigs) Gary Cohn and Lisa Pevaroff, David and Danielle Ganek, and Michael Novogratz and wife Sukey, and a crowd of nearly 600, including Vera Wang and Arthur Becker, Jon Corzine, Elie Wiesel, Jane and Jimmy Buffett, Ellen Barkin, Erica Jong, Jane Rosenthal, Christiane Celle, Faith Popcorn, Al D'Amato, Larry Silverstein and wife Klara, Neal Shapiro and Juju Chang, Julie and Ed Minskoff, Elaine and Ken Langone, Susan and Martin Lipton, Claude Wasserstein, Linda and Arthur Carter, Alice and Tom Tisch, Vicki and Stuart Match Suna, and Brooke and Dan Neidich. [PMc, NYSD]

Liberal media watchdog Media Matters has revealed its true colors. In an email blast just now touting the "most inane punditry of 2008," MM offers this option: "Barnes: Obama 'not strong on national security' because he opposed war 'when the entire world believed' Obama had WMD." THEY MEANT 'SADDAM' BUT THEY WROTE 'OBAMA.' When will Media Matters stop being so racist?

Today is A Day Without Gay! Did you remember? It's the day when ey'body is supposed to call out of work Gay to take a stand and make a point about how many valuable gays and lesbians there are in the workforce and why shouldn't they get married. Clearly, I have not called out gay (though I am at home, rather than experiencing our office's fabulous Day With Frey). But we're curious, is anyone out there calling out gay? If so, how are you spending it? (Well, reading internet blog sites I guess). We've set up a quick poll after the jump, so please tell us what you're doing.

♦ David Pecker's AMI, the publisher of the Star and National Enquirer, has been near bankruptcy for months. Now it's one step closer. [NYP]
♦ The details of Judith Regan's settlement with News Corp. have been revealed: It cost the company $10.75 million to make her go away. [Bloomberg]
♦ Janet Robinson says there are no plans to sell the Times. [E&P]
♦ A brief explanation for why newspapers are so screwed right now. [NYT, AP]
♦ An increasingly desperate OK! has cut the price of the mag. [NYP]
♦ The reorganization of Random House will likely leave Sonny Mehta the big winner. [NYO]
♦ Les Moonves on the state of network TV: "The model ain't broke." [THR]
♦ Gus Van Sant's Milk was named by the New York Film Critics Circle as the best film of 2008. [THR]

Remember Judith Regan? She was famous for publishing anything at her Newscorp/HarperCollins imprint, Regan books—as long as it was trashy, salacious, and celeb-autobiography oriented, like O.J. Simpson's If I Did It (which Newscorp killed.) She was like the National Enquirer of book publishers. In 2006, she was fired for saying something about the Jews, and she filed a $100 million lawsuit. It was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, but, as the Observer brought to our attention, we now know the figure that NewsCorp paid out to shut her up—$10.75 mil. Damn—that's a lot of lawyering. Update: When called for comment by our intern James Frey, Jonathan Burnham, publisher of HarperCollins, said "no comment."

This ROD BLAGOJEVICH scandal is just awesome for newspapers. I mean, who would have thought the Tribune company would ever have a starring role in another political scandal even as a reporting entity, much less as some sort of "powerful" media outlet that inspired fear and hatred in elected officials? The Chicago Trib editorial page was what you were worried about, ROD BLAGOJEVICH, really? Well that suits the Chicago Trib editorial page just fine!:

"Illinois law is silent on whether a governor must leave office after he's arrested on corruption charges...." While that's hardly a shocking sentence to read, it does seem like it's come up often enough for Illinois lawmakers to have a plan in place. So. What happens now to Rod Blagojevich and the governorship and and Barack Obama's vacant senate seat? It's a hilarious, Chicago-style mess!

It's nearly the new year and we all know what that means: A list of resolutions like losing ten pounds, learning Italian, and drinking fewer vodka martinis will be decided upon with enthusiasm, put off a few times, and abandoned altogether by February 1st, at which point you'll loathe yourself a little more than before. Just in the nick of time, an "international team of psychologists" has finally revealed why everyone procrastinates.

["Gossip Girl" actress Chace Crawford in New York last night; image via WENN]

Three months ago, while Barack Obama was running for president and his rival John McCain kept kinda-sorta threatening to bring up corrupt Chicago politics, Obama called up his good friend in the Illinois State Senate, Emil Jones, Jr, and convinced him to change his mind on an important upcoming vote. The formerly doomed bill suddenly passed! Man, that Chicago machine. So dirty! Of course, it was the ethics bill. The one that forced Governor Blagojevich to get all his corruption in before it went into effect in January, leading to his convenient pre-inauguration downfall.

So, the new Jay Leno variety hour. Are you dying to learn more about it or what? Ha, network statistics show that you are! Advertisers are also very enthusiastic about the move of the not-quite-funny entertainer into prime time. Perhaps the enthusiasm stems from the fact that Leno now has a mandate that his show not suck quite so much as it currently does. Is this guy trying in vain to rip off the Daily Show, or bring back vaudeville?:

Jessica Szohr taking some of her hard-earned GG cash out of an ATM at a deli on the Upper East Side ... Barbara Walters walking down the street by herself ... Beth Ostrosky arriving at Fox for a TV appearance ... Jennifer Connelly leaving ABC studios after an appearance on Regis & Kelly ... Leighton Meester and Blake Lively filming scenes for Gossip Girl on the Upper East Side ... Michelle Williams reading a magazine while crossing the street ... Heather Graham standing on the sidewalk ... Amy Adams posing for pics outside Letterman ... Katie Holmes crossing the street with Suri in the East Village ... and Ivana Trump and Star Jones standing outside La Goulue on Madison Avenue.

A while ago, in an attempt to get Ryan Adams as my intern instead of him interning at Blackbook (nice catch, Mohney!), I received a one-line e-mail from somebody calling himself James Frey. "I'll come intern for a day," it read. He thought it would be interesting to intern for people who "hated" him (a strong word!) and was especially eager to do menial tasks. So Vogue gets celebrity intern Sean Avery, Blackbook gets Adams, and we get James Frey. He has written books such as A Million Little Pieces, Bright Shiny Morning, and once he went on Oprah and she yelled at him! He'll be helping me pack my things into boxes for my imminent departure and factchecking, among other things. He's out on a coffee run right now, but after the jump, let's play "Ask the Intern," in which you can ask James about what it's like to intern for Gawker. You can find James' answers over here.

Is AMI going to go bankrupt? Nooooooooo! Do you know what that would mean: trouble for the new zombie version of Radar.com! Keith Kelly reports this morning that AMI, which publishes Star and the National Enquirer in addition to zombie Radar, missed a deadline on an interest payment and is "feverishly negotiating" with its lenders. How can you publish the National Enquirer in its finest year ever and still be coming up short of cash? We blame Bonnie Fuller, a little bit.

Yesterday you guys resoundingly declared that the lady reluctant to marry her new beau in case her old one splits up with his main squeeze was Jennifer Aniston. I could see that being a sad reality. Today we have a TV actor who dates mens on the sly, a supermodel who's full of Botox, a love triangle, and a sad ruined (and foodless) marriage.

Last week, the cover of the esteemed National Enquirer reported that Kelly Ripa was splitting up with her husband Mark Consuelos. Was it true? Not so much! Ripa's reps denied the rumor, and her lawyers jumped into action, too, which probably explains why the Enquirer has since removed from the story from its website. In fact, the relationship appears to be going strong, at least judging by the couple's behavior at the "Marriage is a Beautiful Thing" event on Monday night, which was hosted by Jerry Seinfeld to benefit his wife's charity, Baby Buggy. "Not only didn't there seem to be any tension," a tipster tells us, "but they looked totally in love. At one point, Kelly leaned in and gave him a kiss. Could have been just for show, but it looked pretty real to me." Remember: Once you land the stripper of your dreams, you never let him go!