Sad mysteries today, of old ladies looking for love, hospitals craving attention, and drug-ruined pregnancies. But first, a tale of lonely, Hollywood woe, from, fittingly, the Post: "Which red-carpet couple will finally have someone to talk to now that they're new parents? The Hollywood pair are so strange and reclusive, 'they have no other friends.'" Stars, they're just like us. Lonely and miserable and forever warping their children. Three more after the jump.

The New York Daily News went totally, utterly insane today with their "editorial" on the upcoming trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other alleged 9/11 conspirators. Headlined "Death is too good," the fourth paragraph reads, in its entirety, "Burn in hell!" Then it just sorta keeps going in that fashion for a while.

Poor Keith Kelly. The New York Post media reporter's mission in life is to bash rival tabloid, the Daily News. (Kelly landed a good punch on the Daily Snooze, yesterday, when he reported on a blowup between two sports writers at the News, one of them a survivor of locker-room harassment.) But Kelly, before he took Murdoch's dollar at the Post, used to work at its despised competitor. And the veteran reporter, even ten years later, still gets confused. As this voicemail, being passed round the News, demonstrates. Marvel, child journalists, at the media world's most feared investigator at work. (Oh, and, yes, it is indeed petty for a News staffer to pass on Kelly's inarticulate message; nearly as petty as the Post's endless rubbishing of its competitor. Petty, and endlessly entertaining.) Listen here to Keith Kelly's request for a callback on the News "stuff".

Oh dear. Could it be that not one but two new British tabloid editors (insert obligatory Denton joke here) are coming across the pond? Over at Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, Keith Kelly is reporting that the Daily News has been wooing Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace for the better part of a year. We're also hearing that Rebekah Wade, editor of the Sun, Murdoch's other tab, is the heir apparent to truculent Post editor Col Allan. Of course, this could also be complete crap or a conflation of the facts—two Fleet Streeters (with the same initials—conspiracy!) headed to New York's tabbies at the very same time? Both of whom have pretty pretty hair? Not possible. Possible? You tell us.

Hooray! The Daily News took on City Hall and beat the Transit Hike! All New Yorkers owe those intrepid journalists a huge debt of gratitude for personally finding the MTA an extra $220 million and forcing them to delay their fare increase for a year or two. The 7% of Subway riders who pay the $2 cash fare are sleeping easy tonight. The vast majority of us who use the multiple-ride and unlimited monthly Metrocards, prices of both of which are still expected to rise, will grin and bear it like usual. Thanks, Daily News! [NYDN]

The Daily News is running a contest to pick New York's Sexiest chef, because it is apparently a blog now. You also enter a contest to win dinner for two. This dinner does not include "wine, beer, liquor or gratuities" and is "subject to availability." Fun! Of the eleven chefs, quite a few lounge in the littoral zone of heteronormative behavior and at least six are either married or in relationships. Also, approximately none of them is actually cute. Except perhaps Sam Mason of Tailor. And he's not only taken but the chef with the most vexed sexual identity.

Well lookee here! Turns out we weren't too far off with our predictions that the recent price increase at the New York Times might have kicked off a circulation drop. According to the Audit Board of Circulation's six-month report for the period ending in September, daily circ at the Times fell 4.51% to 1,037,828—with Sunday circulation nosediving by 7.59% to 1,500,394, "at least partly due to a price increase," according to Editor & Publisher. Not that we're saying we told you so.

Remember, ladies, anorexia is bad, bad, bad! But, you know, don't pack too many of those pounds on, hungry girls! Here's some low-cal salad dressing to spruce up your lettuce leaves, courtesy of the Daily News. (Click to enlarge). [NYDN]

"PROTESTING PLANS by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center attack site, the New York Daily News told the Iranian president in a headline to "Go to Hell." A Politics & Economics article yesterday incorrectly said the headline was in the New York Post." Nice to see the folks at the Wall Street Journal trying to give credit to their new fellow employees at the Post. Given the way the News has been destroying its competition in the front-page outrage department, the Post needs all the help it can get. [WSJ]

Each morning we wake up, open the front door, grab the newspaper, look at the forecast for the day's high temperature, and dress based on that forecast. (Occasionally we also shower.) And every day, around noon, we find ourselves complaining that we're too hot because the paper was completely wrong. So we asked Intern Mary to track the weekday results of the city's three major papers and the New York Sun against the actual high temperatures over a two-week period. She also looked at the online predictions, for those of you who get your news that way. Her findings may surprise you!

It's a pleasant surprise, but we actually love Lloyd Grove's profile of New York Post editor-in-chief Col Allan in this week's New York. Allan, a saucy Aussie if there ever was one, comes off as a pugnacious tyrant who is driven by a desire to win at all costs. Also, he likes a drink every now and again. Mostly now. Read the whole piece: There's a ton of detail, and Grove's knowledge of the tabloid industry may not have saved his job at the Daily News, but it is put to good use here. Our handy highlights follow.

Should you be interested in such things (and, if so, God help you) WWD has an extensive rundown of the blogs that are covering Fashion Week. The slappers over at Jezebel get a look in, as do the rest of the usual suspects. (Also, we'll be doing our part at various parties throughout the week.) Not mentioned: Fashion Dish, the Daily News' big shot to get in on this heinous internet thing. [WWD]

Yesterday the Daily News's resident Aussie-gossie Ben Widdicombe took a break from doing blind items about closeted actors and offered up this little gem: "Which struggling new glossy is so out of money that staffers are having to pay for photos on personal credit cards?" Hmm! The reader who sent this in suggested it was Portfolio, but we're inclined to disbelieve that; for one thing, there's the famous $100 million figure that's been bandied about ad nauseam, and for another, Condé would probably close down first. To be extra fair, we considered all the suspects.

This city is full of psychics, both high-end and low-end. But can any of them actually foretell what's tk? We'll only know when we all go back and reread this occasional feature in twenty years. Do you have a psychic you'd recommend we see? Let us know.

Though Centro, that newish Italian place in the West Village, is already filled with desperate girls in their thirties, you can bet that when Daily News restaurant critic Danyelle Freeman walked in, she was immediately ID'd. As we've noted, she's been quite athletic in getting her face "out there." Guess what? Her review today says she thought the service was great and the food delicious. Now it bears mention that key to her argument as to why it's okay to plaster her mug around town like some sort of Neck Face tag is that "restaurants don't bring in a new chef or run out to get new ingredients just because they spot a critic." True enough, but mightn't they make sure she gets the best deviled eggs (a dish over which Freeman, on her blog, already mooned) or that the piccolini plate does in fact "move swiftly from the kitchen to the table," as she notes?

"Very shortly after Rupert Murdoch bought the New York Post (the real New York Post), I was offered a job by the NY Daily News. My sports editor at the Post, Jerry Lisker, told Murdoch that he wanted to keep me. One quiet night at home the phone rang and it was Murdoch, letting me know that he had great plans for the Post and wanted to keep me on board. I mentioned that the News was offering me more money, and Murdoch kept saying he wanted to keep me on board. There was no hint of a few more dollars coming my way. I wonder if the WSJ staffers who picked up the phone heard the same line and did any better wallet-wise..." [Romenesko]

"[R]eporters for the Times Ledger, the Queens weekly that was purchased last fall by Rupert Murdoch, thought their editors were doing their corporate big brother the New York Post a favor. The reporters had located Matt Murphy, who caught Barry Bonds's 756th home run, through their high-school alumni Website and gotten the first interview with him, which the weekly posted on the Internet. But the Post didn't appreciate the tip. "The Post basically had a fit and demanded the story come down off the site," apparently to keep the Daily News from seeing it, says a source close to the weekly. The Times Ledger complied, and the Post published its own version later that night." That's just how they roll over at News Corp., kids: Wait until you start breaking the financial scoops. Straight to the Journal! [NYM]

A gleeful Keith Kelly reports that the Daily News will let the contract of TV critic David Bianculli, a fourteen-year veteran of the paper, expire this fall. "'Everyone is horrified,' said a source familiar with the situation. 'I assume it is a money thing. They'll probably replace him with some blogger who sits around in his pajamas.'" Hey, Mort, we watch T.V. and sit around in our pajamas! Drop us a line! [NYP]

A press release went around last Thursday on behalf of a woman named Ruth Regina, who makes dog wigs. A historically underserved market, we understand! The press release read, in part, "Release your Rottweiler's inner Pink! Decorate your Dog! Braid Your Beagle because Lassie's Got a Weave! This is not just another shaggy dog story!" Clearly, the Daily News could not resist these entreaties, and today published a slide show of dogs wearing wigs. We couldn't help but notice that all of the dogs in said slide show are on the smaller side. What would happen if you really tried to put this thing on a Rottweiler?

Dogs Wearing Wigs [NYDN]

Danyelle Freeman, food blogger Restaurant Girl, has been tapped to become the New York Daily News' next food critic. As many an Eater commenter has remarked, the only problem is that Freeman—an alumna of both Harvard and Duke, as she notes on her website—can't write. She cadges free meals from PR people—and she's oft-photographed and therefore never incognito. She also closes her correspondence with, "Until we eat again." She can be thought of as the Julia Allison of the food world: Cheaply attractive, ethically limber and relentlessly successful.