First, the official news, straight from lowdown Lloyd Grove: He's got a new Hudette. The Lloydster emails:

As opposed to before, when everyone was champing at the bit for an increase in cop-slays.

Here's a Christmas-season tale to warm your otherwise black and withered heart. From today's News:

• Will Michael Cooke's NYDN departure cause problems for Bravo reality show about the paper? Even worse: What about Hud Morgan's departure? [NYP]
• Jon Friedman thinks ABC fucked up its anchor decision. [MW]
• Even so, ABC's changes give a glimpse at CBS's future. [NYO]
• How did Us get the Nick-and-Jessica scoop? Through Dan Klores, the publicist the mag and the couple share, according to Access Hollywood. [MIN]
• Maureen may be everywhere these days, but the books she's flogging is "a glib, d j vu compendium of every Newsweek-style pop-science zeitgeist piece of the last 15 years." [VV]
• NYT Co. announces ad hikes, a $40M cost for layoffs. And says it won't give any earnings guidance for 2006, which can't be a good sign. [NYT]
• The Source is evicted from its offices. Which can't be a good sign. [NYP]

We're not mocking the matching covers of our local tabs — the shooting death of NYPD officer Dillon Stewart certainly merits a synergistic show of respect. But while the Daily News is strong and silent, the Post just couldn't resist the power hed, could they? Way to ruin a moment, dicks.

This just in from a sure-to-be-dejected Lloyd Grove:

The Daily News is, naturally, still reeling from last week's announcement that editor-in-chief Michael Cooke, after only 10 months at the tab, will be returning the big shoulders of Hollinger Inc.'s Chicago-area papers. E&P has more on how the News will go on without him:

• John Huey is finally initiated as the successor to Norm Pearlstine's editorship at Time Inc. The ceremony involved branding, hazing, and some tasty swag.
• Daily News EIC Michael Cooke barely lasts 10 months before scampering back to the Windy City. At least he'll be taking a nice, new pair of shoes home with him.
• The Upper East Side's finest brats open their own under-18 Chelsea nightclub, where they won't be drinking or blowing rails.
• Fabulist Jayson Blair returns to the Times building, but naturally lies about the incident.
• Actor Chris Klein attends the Condé Nast holiday luncheon!
• We haven't sold out to the New York Times Company, but can you imagine if we did?
• Body-armor magnate David H. Brooks breaks all records for nauseating indulgence by throwing his daughter, Elizabeth, a $10 million bat mitzvah at the Rainbow Room, complete with A-list entertainment and princess costumes.
• Woody Allen graces Lincoln Center, prompting us to recall when his films were consistently good.

To the great surprise of no one, Daily News editor-in-chief Michael Cooke, who arrived at the tab less than a year ago from the Chicago Sun-Times, is returning whence he came.

The Post reports on the brutal murder of 21-year-old Catherine Woods, an attractive, "aspiring Broadway dancer" whose death is clearly solid cover material.

• Jessica Simpson gets dumped by her publicist, who's tired of lying to the world about miserable state of Simpson's marriage. Could the PR industry be having its Jerry Maguire moment? Nah.
• Wenner honcho Kent Brownridge is (possibly) forced into an early retirement, courtesy of big Jann himself. Sadly, his possible successor is fresh from rehab — that's no fun.
• Sexual assault suspect and fake fireman Peter Braunstein continues to flit about New York, and yet no one can seem to catch the mofo. Especially not the hipsters or Greg Lindsay.
• Kimberly Stewart, eager to be more Paris Hilton than we can stomach, gets engaged to barely-legal Laguna Beach star Talan Torriero.
• Anderson Cooper and Ryan Seacrest could adopt the most beautiful gay babies.
• Time mag begins its debate on the person of the year, and you predictably voted for Mother Nature.
• Gawker Media makes a distribution deal with Yahoo!, which sanitizes us without completely selling out.
• Inside TV folds, and TV Guide lays off editors who need to take a personal leave.
• And Mort Zuckerman reminds his staffers that in the Jew's house, Christmas doesn't mean shit.

• This just in: Daily News Managing Editor, Features, Colleen Curtis has resigned from her position. She's heading to Good Morning America, where she'll fetch Diane Sawyer's coffee.
• It's possible to work at High Times and not love bong hits, but it's certainly not recommended. Unless, of course, you're purely intrested in their manual of style. ("Buddha" versus "buddha," etc.) [NYPress]
• Midwestern locals at the University of Wisconsin-Madison loathe their bourgie peers from the East Coast. What, is it the Uggs? [JSOnline]
• NB to the new Nightline: Ted Koppel is watching you. [B&C]
• Much like Paris Hilton, Al Reynolds has a patented paparazzi pose. [Cityrag]
• Done raping and pillaging (and eventually being scorned by) Hollywood, Mike Ovitz bends over NYC's art world. [LA Weekly]
• 62-foot Jesus makes us glad we live in Manhattan. [NYT]
• Nick Denton takes his moneybags out to LA and throws a party with Arianna Huffington. Finally, our slighted little brother gets a free drink on the boss man's dime. [Gridskipper]

Because a holiday party at Copacabana simply doesn't convey the warmth of the season, the Daily News has a special offer for their employees: discounted subscriptions to Radar and U.S. News & World Report. Publisher Mort Zuckerman knows everyone has worked very hard this year, so his giving staffers the chance to get 53 issues of U.S. News for $15, or 10 (ha) issues of Radar for $7.50. Apparently they were all out of lumps of coal.

Oh, that's unfortunate. We don't think she looks like a tranny at all.

• Syd Schanberg says journalism's big problem is insufficient transparency — that is, not enough journalism about journalism. In next week's "Press Clips," we fill him in on the existence of Jim Romenesko. [VV]
• Amid yesterday's newspaper-circ horror show, Post gains on News. Yay! [NYP]
• Yet the News is still ahead. Yay! [NYDN]
• Never mind the Judy mess; NYT still hasn't fulfilled post-Jayson promises. [PR Week]
• Why'd Andrew Heyward stick around CBS News for so long after the Memogate debacle? For his pension to kick in, of course. [Radar]
• Can't figure out why you should care about the recent sale rumblings at Knight Ridder? Because no less is at stake than — cue ominous music — the entire future of print journalism. Well, fuck. [LAT]
• Ted Koppel is leaving Nightline, in case you didn't know. [WP]

Big news in TabloidTown: Daily News reveals that their rivals at the Post have ties to La Cosa Nostra.

The Daily News today nudges all New Yorkers' favorite — and deserved — bogeyman, the MTA, by determining the ten worst stations in the city's subway system. There's "peeling paint, crumbling concrete, leaks and grime" in the ten, the paper says. The particularly bad news is that their locations demonstrate just the sort of inequality you'd expect: Five are in the Bronx, one is in Bensonhurst, and the only two in Manhattan are on the J/M/Z.

A particularly intrepid reader decided to look at more of Colgate Alito's writing than just his jokey bio, and she presents a solid case that the boy is in fact our man. Take, for example, bits like:

Wonky sis considerately provided a link to a Google-cached version of young Alito's bio at the Colgate Forum, and we suspect we've discovered another clue that the collegian in question might not actually be the son of the Supreme Court nominee. Young Alito opens his bio thus:

Gatecrashing Daily Newser Ben Widdicombe this morning provided some perhaps calming insight into SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito by quoting the charmingly amusing musings of his son, Phil, on the website of the Colgate college newspaper. Writes Widdicombe: