Ethan Hawke walking with wife Ryan Shawhughes and his three kids ... Nick Cannon and Mariah Carey getting out of their Maybach ... a cheery-looking James Franco holding a notebook and cup of coffee ... Diane Kruger hailing a cab ... Steven Tyler dressed in leopard pants outside the Trump International Hotel ... Bill Murray leaving a store with a woman ... Katie Holmes shopping with Suri and her parents ... Rihanna and Chris Brown catching a flight at LaGuardia ... Ashley Tisdale holding hands with her boyfriend at JFK ... and Amy Poehler, Cameron Diaz, and Casey Affleck heading into the SNL afterparty.

♦ People got Alex Rodriguez to open up about his relationship with Madonna. Or, you know, maybe not. The slugger claims that they're just "friends—that's it." He also says he's never been on a plane with her, despite the countless photos that clearly indicate otherwise. [People]
♦ Have Tea Leoni and David Duchovny reunited? Star reports they were spotted holding hands at a Tasti D-Lite on the Upper East Side and they've picked up a $7.5 million apartment in the East 70s. [Star]
♦ It looks like Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin may have buried the hatchet after Harvey publicly thanked Scott at the premiere of The Reader on Wednesday night. [P6]
♦ A London jury has found Boy George guilty of false imprisonment for having handcuffed a Norwegian male escort to a wall. [People]

♦ Madonna and A-Rod are reportedly shopping for "love nests" on the Upper East Side. They're looking for something between Fifth and Park, from 60th Street through the 80s, in case you have any suggestions. Oh, and they're looking for retreats in Hamptons, too. [P6]
♦ The blame game begins: Ivana's friends say her split with Rossano Rubicondi was his fault because he's been dating a model. Rossano, meanwhile, says Ivana is to blame because she's been dating a model. [R&M]
♦ Robert and Blaine Trump are scheduled to make their first appearance in Manhattan Supreme Court this morning as the couple looks to end their 25-year marriage. Prepare for things to get "exceptionally ugly." [NYP]
♦ Uma Thurman's parents unknowingly hired one of the bookers from Ashley Dupre's escort agency to run their upstate yoga center. [NYP]

♦ Things are going from bad to worse for Damon Dash and Rachel Roy: Three months after a bank foreclosed on their two Tribeca condos, Dash's Chevy Tahoe was seized this week after he failed to make the monthly lease payments. Does this mean he's already lost his Maybach? [NYDN]
♦ Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson were supposedly getting engaged yesterday. Today the relationship is supposedly "heading for choppy waters," because Lindsay wants to "explore her heterosexuality." [The Sun]
♦ How is Lindsay's publicist explaining her client's description of Barack Obama earlier this week as the country's first "colored President"? She says no one knows what LiLo really said, since it was "unintelligible." [MSNBC]
♦ Katie Holmes is supposedly refusing to move back to LA after she's finished on Broadway. Why? Because she doesn't get dragged to as many Scientology events when she's in NYC. [NYDN]

Sarah Jessica Parker making phone calls last night at a Barack Obama campaign center ... Macaulay Culkin standing on the sidewalk ... Katie Holmes and Suri wearing matching orange dresses in Central Park ... Philip Seymour Hoffman walking in the West Village ... Ashley Olsen and Paul Rudd posing outside the Letterman show ... Tyra Banks getting some frozen yogurt ... Lindsay Price carrying her dog on the set of Lipstick Jungle ... Keira Knightley walking with her boyfriend, Rupert Friend ... Becki Newton on the set of Ugly Betty ... and Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon outside a Halloween party at Marquee.

♦ Madonna and Alex Rodriguez were able to fly out to the Hamptons for a "quick and cozy rendezvous" without anyone knowing, but only because Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld picked the couple up (separately) from the East Hampton airport and let them hang out for several hours at their waterfront manse. [P6, The Sun]
♦ With her husband Rossano Rubicondi filming a reality show in Italy, Ivana Trump has been hanging out with a 23-year-old Belgian model named Marius Rusovici. [P6]
♦ Tina Brown and Cathie Black are enemies, apparently, since they "disagreed on just about everything" and "wouldn't even look at each other," at a conference this week. [R&M]
♦ Is John McCain making an Saturday Night Live appearance this weekend? Does anyone care? [MSNBC]

♦ Madonna and Guy Ritchie's divorce wasn't a huge revelation after months of rumors. But now it turns out the couple hadn't even been on speaking terms for months, and had been communicating through their assistants. Also: Guy may lose custody of his sons if Madonna decides to leave London and settle in NYC full-time. [Us, People]
♦ The namecalling has started: Madonna called Guy "emotionally retarded" at her Boston concert on Wednesday night, and now Guy's father is calling Madonna "beastly." [The Sun, Telegraph]
♦ Peter Cook and Diana Bianchi aren't happy about the leak of their sex tape. Who's to blame? Peter is blaming Diana. Diana, meanwhile, says it couldn't have been her since she didn't even know he was taping them having sex in his Southampton office. [P6, ET]
♦ Did Tea Leoni have a fling with Billy Bob Thorton while she was still with David Duchovny? [Extra, E!]

♦ Natalie Portman is single. She's split up with boyfriend Devendra Banhart. Best of luck, guys! [People]
♦ The son of famed architect Richard Meier says his dad is gay and he was forced into a mental hospital and disinherited for saying so. Richard's friends, meanwhile, say he's definitely not gay and he's actually quite the ladies' man. [P6]
♦ Clay Aiken pocketed roughly $500,000 for his coming-out cover story deal with People. [MSNBC]
♦ Sarah Palin might make a cameo on Saturday Night Live. Also, Hugh Hefner would love to give her a spread in Playboy. [OK!, Daily Star]

Kirsten Dunst offering a smile to photographers while walking in the Village ... Tom Cruise waving at photographers and later carrying Suri as he headed to the West Side heliport ... Claire Danes carrying grocery bags ... Alex Rodriguez walking through Midtown ... Rachael Ray's husband kissing her on a red carpet ... Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon walking into the theater to see In The Heights ... Mario Cantone pretending to drink out of a pink shoe at the SATC DVD release party ... An unhappy-looking Bono getting out of a car ... Drew Barrymore making her way through a crowd with her hand on Chace Crawford's arm ...Kate Winslet acting goofy with friends ... and Gwyneth Paltrow leaving a party for her new PBS show with Mario Batali.

Eva Longoria (left) leaving the tents with Robert Verdi ... Simon Doonan showing off his moves in Bryant Park ... Mickey Boardman and Veronica Webb smiling backstage at the Catherine Malandrino show ... Blake Lively looking pretty for the photogs at the Miss Sixty show ... Lindsay Lohan posing with Fern Mallis ... Bijou Phillips smoking with a friend in Bryant Park ... Renee Zellweger posing for photos with Carolina Herrera ... Rachel Hunter relaxing with friends at an after-party at Socialista ... Mary-Kate Olsen walking with her handlers in the rain through Midtown ... model May Andersen wearing a short black dress at the William Rast after-party ... and Mariah Carey going to dinner at Nobu with husband Nick Cannon after performing at the Fashion Rocks event.

• John Edwards probably won't be invited to speak at the Democratic national convention unless he addresses those nagging rumors that he had a love child with Rielle Hunter. [Page Six]

• Ashley Dupre's reps, who have been negotiating deals on her behalf, say she's interested in "journalism and lounge singing," and that she "sees herself as a kind of Dr. Phil." Appropriately, the $2 million TV offer she's considering would team her up with the producer to reunited Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher. [NYP]

Shouldn’t single actresses know by now that giant diamonds worn on a particular finger shouldn't be flaunted in public? Cameron Diaz was photographed sporting an ostentatious sparkler yesterday in Santa Monica, suspiciously displaying the gory piece on her engagement ring-reserved finger in a very blatant manner. But considering she’s just barely started dating former cokehead/Jennifer Aniston ex Paul Sculfor, and has been linked to half a dozen other canoodling partners in the past few months, we’re not jumping on the “Diaz Engaged!” bandwagon quite yet. The notoriously anti-paparazzi actress might have just wanted to fuck with her camera-flashing enemies. Still, whenever a star makes the decision to debut a big ol’ gem there, it’s proven tough to gage those inevitable engagement rumors’ validity. We looked back at celebrity diamond-spotting of the past, from the most firm denials that led to splashy weddings, to the sure things that turned out to be false alarms, after the jump.

• The messy divorce case between Peter Cook and Christie Brinkley has just gotten messier. Days after a judge ruled that the trial would be kept open, it was revealed that Cook handed over $300,000 to Diana Bianchi, the 20-year-old girl he cheated on Brinkley with, in exchange for a promise that she wouldn't sue him for sexual harassment or discuss the affair. Of course, the cash won't prevent her from speaking out in court if she's called to testify. [NYP]

• Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon may have skipped the big wedding, but that doesn't mean they want to skip all the big presents. The duo has apparently registered at Bergdorf's, where they're encouraging friends to buy them fine china and expensive stemwear. [Page Six]

• Party mom Dina Lohan better show up at her divorce court hearing this morning, or she'll be subject to "immediate arrest and imprisonment." Her ex, Michael Lohan, has reopened their contentious divorce case with new charges that she's drunk around their kids, and fails to show up to court-ordered visitations. Oh, and she wouldn't let him babysit his daughter's puppy. [Rush & Molloy]

We hear that People magazine paid around $2 million (if not more) for the recent wedding pictures of Barbie-like singer Mariah Carey and younger actor Nick Cannon. People triumphed in a bidding war with OK!. This surely rates as one of the biggest paydays of Cannon's career, if not his wife's. And that figure would make their photos even pricier than the baby pictures of Nicole Richie and Christina Aguilera, though only half as valuable as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's baby shots of Shiloh. Does Mariah still move that many magazines?

Sorry boys, It appears as if Scarlett Johansson really is taken. As we noted yesterday, 2006's Sexiest Woman Alive got engaged to equally easy-on-the-eyes boyfriend Ryan Reynolds, and judging from ScarJo's behavior last night at the Costume Institute Gala, the soon-to-be-bride appears incapable of hiding her joy. All smiles as she walked the carpet, Johansson even did the paparazzi a favor by flashing her new rock, and her choice to wear an off-white demure dress helped us paint some mental images of her upcoming walk down the aisle. But how does her ring compare to infamous engagement rings of the past (J. Lo's sad pink diamond monster mid-Bennifer trainwreck) and rings recently sported by newly engaged stars like Mariah Carey and Ashlee Simpson? We compare and contrast after the jump.

• Testifying against her alleged stalker, Uma Thurman's dad said the man emailed him a few times about the study-abroad program at Columbia, where the dad is a professor. He had no clue the guy was a stalker, or even knew who his daughter was. Then one day the alleged stalker wrote: "Today the center of my forehead is ticking now and then. I feel in love with your daughter Uma." And later: "Apparently hoping it would be forwarded to the actress.... 'Work on that accent for our wedding night. Pretty please.'"

• If Nancy Grace joins "The View" does Elisabeth Hasselbeck lose her slot as designated crazy right-wing ranter? [TVNewser]