The six-foot high 1960 Alberto Giacometti sculpture "Walking Man I" sold yesterday for $104.3 million, the most ever paid for a work of art. Unless you consider credit default swaps to be art, in which case this is trifling. [WSJ]

The White House Press Pool is getting crazy! This morning, Roll Call was the print outlet scheduled to cover Obama's movements today. But Roll Call was a no-show. And they paid for it.

[An image of Bettie Page sexys up a mural being painted in Jeff Koons' studio in Manhattan last night. Image via Getty]

Fame has come for Snooki, and like any unconventional looking woman who's landed in the spotlight, someone feels the need to make over her image into one of bland conformity. This time it's Inside Edition and the results are frightening.

Every season, wannabes crash Fashion Week shows and parties. But few are as brazen as the daughter of a Vermont gubernatorial candidate and her BFF, who allegedly hacked into a fashion PR company's database. (I kind of admire their moxie!)

Black Francis' new record is called NonStopErotik, is about "sucking at the only thing that matters," and features a song called "When I Go Down On You." We are apprehensive.

Slight late pass, but here's an educational lesson for all you aspiring flacks: How do you connect your craptastic client to a huge star? Just lie about it! That's the 5WPR way.

[Moses, a gay man from Uganda seeking asylum in the U.S., hides his face at a press conference in D.C. today while announcing a multi-city tour to help decriminalize homosexuality worldwide. Image via Getty]

Rupert Murdoch sent out a memo today to reassure his News Corp. charges that, recession or not, their media conglomerate remains on top and is growing revenue. "Organically," which is heartening. Full memo after the jump. But don't let the hippie-dippie "organic" language fool you into thinking Murdoch is turning liberal; despite rumors of an internal feud, Murdoch still gives prominent praise to his right-tilting Fox News Channel and Wall Street Journal in the memo below, albeit after a nod to Avatar, a film about native peoples' struggle against mining interests. And he sounds as defiant as ever about free internet content, citing the Journal's effort at "instituting fair pricing for digital journalism" as a major accomplishment. He's about to turn 79, but Murdoch sounds like he's still very much in a hurry.

Amid White House complaints, Reuters retracted a story saying the president's "backdoor taxes" will "hit [the] middle class." This is the second story Reuters has killed in as many months, but, on the bright side, the first actually bad one.

The Baptist missionaries accused of human trafficking for trying to remove 33 children from Haiti insist they were trying to help. But the BBC finds that some missionaries in Haiti are motivated by Pat Robertson's warning that it's Satan's haven.

Oprah is quitting her show next year to build her cable network, but have no fear: that network will feature a reality show about the final season of Oprah's show. And a show called "Miracle Detectives." Oprah Oprah Oprah. [NYT]

The New York Daily News reported over the weekend that none other than David Bowie may be coming to financially strapped celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz's rescue by buying her Rhinebeck, N.Y. estate.

Merry Groundhog Day! This morning Punxsutawney Phil "saw his shadow," meaning six more weeks of winter. Jesus. Every year we politely pay attention to these Pagans and their animal rituals and in return they fuck us. Enough already. [CNN]

Well, not your nominations. But you know what we mean. Anne Hathaway and her good friend Old Dude delivered the shimmering news just minutes ago.

(1.) How have white people still not learned to stop marveling at "articulate" black leaders? (2.) This should make a good attack ad for incumbent New York Senator and Ford competitor Kirsten Gillibrand.

When Condé Nast folds a magazine, it doesn't just clear out the desks. There's also the messy business of disentangling the top editors from all the perks that came with being in S.I. Newhouse's good graces. Ask Domino's Deborah Needleman.

If Steve Jobs keeps this up, he may yet set off the biggest corporate flamefest in Silicon Valley: Googlers past and present are pushing back against the Apple CEO's trashing of their corporate motto.

Our Scientology sources tell us there's an interesting reason that some members of the church are swarming into Haiti. And it's even more appalling than you might have thought — tragedy profiteering.

What fresh hell is the fact that this sentence—in New York's cover story about kindergarten meritocracy—is necessary: "The fact is, 4 is far too young an age to reach any conclusions about the prospects of a child's mind."