Google won't be providing ads to Yahoo. The official Google version of the story says, "It's clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement. Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners." Then again, it also says, "That would be like trying to drive down the road of innovation with the parking brake on." I'm serious. A grownup wrote that.

In the Senate, the Democrats picked up five seats. But hey, guess what? Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman barely held on to his seat. With all the precincts reporting, Coleman's won by 571 votes. Which means recount time! Poor comedian Al Franken should've won this, but a third party candidate took more of his votes than Coleman's (instant runoff voting, anyone? please?), and also he didn't run a very good campaign, and also Minnesotans, like many Americans, are in love with the idea of a divided government as some sort of good thing, because we all remember how well that worked in 1994, when the government shut down, as a stunt. And hey, let's check in on Alaska, the retarded child state America forgot it adopted until this year, when it nearly crashed the democratic car into a tree. Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who is a convicted felon, won his reelection campaign! Stevens, convicted just last week of seven counts of corruption, has a 4,000 vote lead over his opponent, some boring non-corrupt Democrat. There are still 50,0000 absentee ballots left to count, so you know, this could still go either way. But honestly, Stevens is probably a lock. Good work, Alaska.

Everyone wanted to get out last night! Whether you were in a city where you could roam the streets, or in a small-town bar, or simply at a friend's house, it was a bad time to be alone in your apartment. It was one of those rare moments where people took to the streets in celebration. It's a primal, biological urge: spontaneous gatherings are inspired when we lose the desire to be an individual and are inexplicably driven to be part of the herd.Past examples? Well, September 12th in New York City. While people weren't sure what they wanted to do or what to think, the one thing they knew for sure was that they wanted to be around others. (Remember those trend pieces about post-9/11 sex and couples reuniting?) The Blackout of 2003 was an awesome confluence as well. It took power out all the way west to Detroit, where I remember it as one of the few moments where the highly segregated black and white populations dropped their guard for two days and actually talked to each other without suspicion, offering clean water and the like. Of course, there was also 1945's V-J Day and its iconic Times Square celebration:

If you haven't picked up a copy of the Times today, don't bother. Vendors across the city report they sold out this morning as people snatched up multiple copies to keep as collector items. Let the Ebay sales begin! [City Room]

The 600 layoffs at Time Inc. that the magazine publishing giant announced last week will reportedly cost Time Warner, its parent company, at least $100 million. That averages out to $167K per layoff. How high is the severance pay over there? Time Inc. salaries are high, but Jesus. Even assuming they toss in a few months of health care benefits and hire some outside consultants to help execute the cuts, it's still a lot of money for only 6% of the workforce to leave. (It would cost $1.67 billion just to fire everybody. Fun with math!). Anyone with more info on the layoffs or the severance packages, email us. [All Things D]

Feeling a bit blue this afternoon? Perhaps a little anxious or depressed, even though the presidential candidate you supported ended up winning? You're not alone. Psychologists are predicting that many people "will find a hole in their lives and time on their hands" now that the election is over and they no longer have a reason to spend hours every day monitoring political coverage on TV and obsessing over the latest poll numbers. It's not unlike what little kids experience the day after Christmas, or what happens when a junkie stops taking drugs, expert say. (Well, except for the fact you're not going to be spending the next three days vomiting into a plastic bucket.) So what's an Obama-obsessed New Yorker to do?

We know it's too soon to bring you all down, because last night was indeed an inspiring and amazing night and John Lewis was so so so great to see and wow, it was just, man. But! Other things went down in the great nation of ours too! We began looking at the Ballot Initiative fights, last night. But then we got drunk and went to bed. So let's check in on how the gays are doing, this morning, in Barack Obama's hopeful New America. Out in California, Proposition 8, the ballot initiative to ban all the wonderful, tear-jerking gay marriages that ruined all the straight marriages out there, is narrowly ahead in the polls. With 95% of precincts reporting, the ban is holding up 52% to 48%. :( California's Proposition 5, the one that would mandate lax penalities for all non-violent drug-related crimes, lost 59.8% to 40.2%. The only good news out of California is that Prop 4, the abortion notification initiative, looks to be failing. Arizona's Proposition 102, the gay marriage amendment, passed handily. Fuck Arizona. Florida's terribly worded gay marriage ban passed too! With the necessary 60% and everything! This amendment also fucks over every non-married cohabitatng couple as well, and seems to even outlaw civil unions. Sorry, gays, no hospital visits for you! Similar great news for bigoted morons in Arkansas, where the measure forbidding gays and ummarried people from adopting or fostering children passed with flying colors. They did also vote to remove the outdated language in their constitution banning "idiots and insane persons" from voting, though they didn't replace it with language banning Arkansas from voting. (J/k, democracy's a wonderful thing, whatever.) Michigan legalized medical marijuana, Colorado and South Dakota's abortion bans failed, and Massachusetts' marijuana decriminalization passed.

Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard leaving their polling precinct yesterday in Park Slope ... Natalie Portman working at an Obama phone bank ... Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick and son James leaving the pollsi in the West Village ... Naomi Watts going to the movies at the Angelika Film Center ... Elisabeth Hasselbeck taking an Election Day jog on the Upper West Side ... Keri Russell walking in Brooklyn with son River ... Jessica Alba on the set of her new movie ... Beth Ostrosky walking her three dogs in Midtown ... Katie Holmes and Suri walking to get pizza at Pie by the Pound on Fourth Avenue ... Eva Mendes on the set of her new movie in Chelsea ... and Paris Hilton arriving at JFK airport to catch a flight back to LA.

Drugs! Alcohol! Baseball bats! Hey, it's a good story. IT contractor Steven Barnes will serve a year in prison and pay a $54,000 restitution after being convicted of logging into a client's network and deleting the Exchange database, among other things. Barnes claimed he acted after coworkers from Blue Falcon Networks, now known as Akimbo Systems, came to his home and took away his personal computers by force. Barnes reconfigured Blue Falcon's server as an open relay for spammers, causing the company to be automatically blacklisted from delivering real mail. I'm sure there's nothing wrong with Barnes's temper that a little prison time won't — haha! I almost finished that sentence without laughing.

• While you were merely voting and watching television or whatever, Kirsten Dunst was personally investigating the voting process, in North Dakota. She was asking America why it's terrible at voting, and hoping the answer has nothing to do with movies. [Daily Star]

[Ben Affleck, an actor whose limited range of dramatic expression did not prevent him from having sex with J-Lo, celebrates democracy. Pic via X17. New headline from commenter llamalash.]

Did you expect that celebrities would all turn their attention to the election last night, and therefore the tabloids would refrain from printing scurrilous blind items on this day of historic import? You foolish, foolish bastard. Gossip does not "Change," nor does it "Hope." After the jump, an actor with a secret history of sexual assault, a fading socialite, a singer with dandruff, and a (possibly flack-concocted) item about the nicest actress in the whole wide world: 1) "WHICH aggressive TV, stage and movie actor has a shady past? Rumor is he sexually assaulted a girl while in high school and his family had the situation "swept under the rug" [P6] 2) "WHICH oft-photographed socialite/designer is losing her grip on the fashion world? Luxury brands no longer send her clothing and accessories and don't want her in their ad campaigns." [P6] 3) "Which popular male singer is hiding a hairy secret? His dandruff has got so bad, his flunkies are having to go out and buy him industrial strength supplies of special shampoo..." [Mirror UK] 4) "A list actress. Hell, she isn't just an actress, she is also a producer and a very successful one at that. About three months ago our actress was in downtown LA and was headed for dinner. She saw a family that was huddled about 50 feet from the restaurant. Obviously homeless, the dad had a sign while the mom watched their two children. Our actress could have just gone into her dinner, but, instead walked over to the family and started asking them about their life. It was during this that one of her dinner companions also showed up at the restaurant. Through no fault of their own this family was stuck. This actress could have walked away, but instead she canceled her dinner plans, got the family to a hotel and got them some food. Over the course of the next week she found them a place to live, hired the husband for her company, helped the mom get the kids in school and found a job for the mom as well." [CDaN]

The black-and-red Narciso Rodriguez dress that Michelle Obama wore in Chicago last night? A good deal of the reaction online has been negative ("just short of hideous"), although some critics have applauded the boldness of her choice and the apparent symbolism ("patriotic red bursting out of black like a firecracker out of the night sky.") At the very least, though, it should provide a nice boost for Rodriguez, who has struggled to build a business in recent years and parted ways with Liz Claiborne several weeks ago after the two sides had "creative differences." Take heart, Narciso: Maria Pinto, the Chicago-based designer who dressed Michelle for several campaign events, says she's seen retail orders increase 45 percent over the last year.

Bernie Kerik needs your help! The former police commissioner is defending himself on charges he accepted bribes, didn't report the freebies to the IRS, and later lied when he was being vetted for Homeland Security chief in 2004. But he's run out of money to pay his lawyers, and is having trouble paying for his Jersey mansion and his BMW and Range Rover! So he's turning to the public for help. He's set up a sad, little website with photos of him posing alongside his former BFF, Rudy Giuliani. Even sadder: He's throwing a fundraiser at a catering hall in Paterson, NJ in a few weeks and hoping to get people to hand over $75 to attend. [NYP]

The Sun folded over a month ago, but the paper's vending machines remain. At least they were kind enough to stamp an "E" on the front to remind people it's empty.

I watched the election results last night at a big shiny CNN party surrounded by flat screen TVs and media people in suits. Sure, there were free mozzarella sticks and lots of cheering, but Lou Dobbs was there too, and when the Obama victory came through I wished that I was out in the streets surrounded by hundreds of crazy cheering hopeful people. And I found that very thing on Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg, the geographic heart of all we mock. Hipsters, it was your finest moment. And you can't help but believe that when the amorphous hipster mob takes to the street for democracy while a grim Lou Dobbs climbs silently into his pajamas somewhere across town, brighter days are ahead. God bless America.

It was a mercifully brief presidential election night, if you consider the period effectively over once a clear winner has emerged. By 10 pm. Eastern, newspaper editors could put crisp, definitive headlines atop their front pages. Some European newspapers managed the same, either by way of special editions or the quaint tradition of afternoon publishing. Papers on several other continents also heralded the election results with some, such as Barcelona's el Periódico below and Diario do Comercio in Brazil, running high-concept covers emphasizing the election's deeper meaning for American culture. One briefly wonders what sorts of words and images they would have reached for amid a McCain victory. But it is much more satisfying, really, to feel the world gaze on America with approving eyes once again. A blow-up of the newspaper headlines is after the jump.

♦ Pharma mogul Richard Ullman is reportedly the man behind the new $75 million listing at 15 CPW. Ullman paid just $23.5 million for the 18th-floor duplex penthouse back when he bought it in March. [NYO]
♦ Jewelry exec Leonard Littman and his wife Barbara have sold their 44th-floor apartment at the Museum Tower on West 53rd Street for $5.5 million. The couple originally listed the two-bedroom condo for $6.45 million back in July. [Cityfile]
♦ UBS exec Ramesh Singh is having a hard time unloading the two Park Avenue apartments he has on the market. His co-op at 860 Park was first listed for $13.4 million; it's now down to $9.5 million. Meanwhile, his 15-room duplex at 823 Park, which was originally listed $24.75 million, is now $19.95 million, less than what he paid for it four months ago. [NYO, Corcoran, BHS]

John McCain and Sarah Palin may have lost last night, but there is still plenty of work for Republican strategists to do. Like shift the blame for McCain's embarrassing defeat! There is lots of blame to go around, of course, and the finger-pointing will likely go on for weeks and months (years?) as the GOP struggles to come to terms with the loss. But watching Sarah Palin get pummeled by anonymous GOP insiders and get handed the blame for everything that went wrong in the final weeks of the campaign will certainly be the most entertaining thing to watch. Several former "top advisers" to John McCain, for example, are now speaking with Newsweek about Sarah Palin's spending spree, and they now say her shopping expeditions were actually even more outrageous than previously reported. (Naturally, they go on to share just how upset the McCain team was by her "outrageous profligacy.")

Ryan Adams turns 34 today. Yankee Johnny Damon is 35. Celebrity economist Jeffrey Sachs is celebrating his 54th. Art Garfunkel is turning 67. Actress Tatum O'Neal is 45. Kevin Jonas of the Jonas Brothers turns 21. Famke Janssen is 43. Author Joyce Maynard is 55. Actress Tilda Swinton is turning 48. Sam Rockwell is 40. And Kris Jenner, the woman who you can thank for bringing Kim Kardashian into this world, is 53.