It's hard not to feel some sympathy for the Wescotts. They adopted the boy two years ago, but he spent the last year in a psychiatric facility after trying to burn their house down and leaving a note that said, "Sorry you have to die." He's violent, kills animals, stashed butcher's knives under his bed, and he's been diagnosed with "reactive detachment disorder, disruptive behavior disorder, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and fetal alcohol syndrome," according to ABC News.

The Wescotts say they knew what they could handle and requested a child who wasn't "violent or acting out sexually." Since the Oklahoma Department of Human Services claimed he was "well-behaved," "respectful toward authority," and had no significant behavioral problems, they say that when he returns from an inpatient psychiatric hospital in January, they should be able to dissolve the adoption and put him back foster care.

Other parents in the Wescott's adoption support group are backing their fight to make it legal in Oklahoma for adoptive parents to return their child if the he or she turns out to be violent. The state counters that it warns all parents that the children grew up in abusive homes and are likely to have emotional and behavioral problems.

While Melissa Wescott says, "It's not like we're trying to return an itchy sweater," in some ways it is. They didn't promise to take care of the boy unless things didn't work out, and if their biological 11-year-old son developed psychiatric problems, abandoning him would be considereed illegal. Obviously, the Wescotts need help caring for their son. But, with so many adoptive parents fighting to be recognized as their child's "real" parents, creating a law that makes adoption less permanent isn't the answer.

Oklahoma Couple Want To Return Troubled Adopted Son To State [ABC News]

Al Arabiya reports:

After making it on America's infamous "axis of evil," Syria will now become synonymous with Angelina Jolie's brood as the U.S. actress looks set to adopt a child from the Arab nation despite her partner Brad Pitt's objections.

Uh oh. Apparently, Brad is of the opinion that six kids is enough. The Jolie-Pitt clan currently counts three biological children and three adopted among their ranks, but Jolie has supposedly "fallen in love with" Syria after a recent trip, and insisted on adopting with or without her partner.

OK! Magazine reports that Jolie is adopting a little girl. Metro, a UK-based paper, offers some details from a source:

'He has made it clear that six children are more than he can handle,' claims an insider.

'The idea of one more seemed ludicrous, but Angie is determined to complete her rainbow family', said the source.

However, they also note that only Jolie's name was on the adoption papers for Maddox, who she adopted from Cambodia in 2002, while still married to Billy Bob Thorton. She also adopted Zahara solo, but Brad later legally become father of both kids. So it's possible that Angelina isn't driving Brad straight into Jen's arms with her baby-mania, but we still suspect that's the story tabloids are going to tell.

Angelina Jolie To Adopt Seventh, Syrian Child [TrueSlant]
Angelina Jolie Set To Adopt An Arab Child [Al Arabiya]
Angelina Jolie To Adopt Tot Number 7? [Metro]

• Speaking of Palin and "broad", the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner is really sorry for calling Sarah Palin a "broad" in a front-page headline. In their defense, it was a pun ("A Broad In Asia"), but editor Rod Boyce has apologized for printing "offensive language." • The Guardian reports there has been a sudden increase in the number of female headteachers, who often make over £100,000. However, although 70% of elementary school heads are women, the few men who do work with young children are more likely to be in senior management positions than women. • According to a recent survey, swearing is "so common" in the UK that one in three Britons claim they hear a curse word every five minutes. Maybe we're just foul-mouthed Americans, but that doesn't sound that bad. • Researchers have found that your personality type may influence your success at weight loss. This sounds totally obvious, but they also claim that more optimistic people have a harder time keeping weight off. • A new study has found that taking anti-depressants early on in pregnancy may increase the risk of giving birth to a child with a heart defect. Researchers note that the risk is still relatively small, and that Zoloft, Prozac and Celexa carry a higher danger than other drugs. • After a "disastrous marriage," Robina Niaz started Turning Point for Women and Families, an organization that helps abused Muslim women in New York. She says domestic violence is no more common among Muslims than non-Muslims, but that cultural norms can make it harder to confront. • 10% of homeless veterans are now women, and their numbers are rising — many suffer from PTSD resulting from combat or sexual assault by other service members. • If new vaccination and screening programs are implemented, some say cervical cancer could disappear within 50 years. • Tufts University has instituted a new policy instructing students not to have sex while a roommate is in the room, or to allow their sex lives to affect a roommate's "privacy, study, or sleep." Translation: don't be an asshole. • Susan Atkins, follower of Charles Manson and killer of Sharon Tate, has died of brain cancer at the age of 61. • Women have long been barred from serving on submarines, supposedly because space concerns make separate bathrooms impractical. But now an admiral thinks that should change. • Hugo Chavez says "I laugh when I see people from Fox News" that President Obama smells like hope. • A new study has found that gay parents are just as fit to adopt as heterosexuals. Children raised by same-sex couples had no more emotional problems than those raised by straight parents. •

• A 24-year-old biologist from Rutland has become the first woman to row solo across the Indian ocean. Sarah Outen began in journey off the west coast of Australia in April and ended it Monday night at the island of Mauritius. • A man was arrested in Tokyo Monday on suspicion of stabbing a young woman in the ear-cleaning salon where she worked and killing her grandmother. The 41-year-old man had been previously banned from the salon. • According to a report in the journal Pediatrics, only 10% of girls who describe repeat sexual abuse by genital penetration have "definitive" physical evidence. However, this does not mean that the other 90% is making it up; an earlier study shows that very few children fabricate stories of abuse, and most victims under-report attacks. • A recent study conducted by The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research found that cheerleading is the leading cause of catastrophic injury among young women. Researchers cite the increased difficulty of cheerleading stunts as the most likely reason for the high number of injuries resulting in either death, head or spine trauma. • The Advertising Council has announced a new campaign, which will make its debut this fall, to "encourage blacks to adopt children from the U.S. foster care system." However, it is not clear from the article whether the ads are aimed at black would-be parents (as suggested in the previous quote), or meant to encourage the adoption of black children, or both. • According to new regulations, employers in DC will now be required to provide sanitary rooms (other than a bathroom) for moms that need to breastfeed at work. Surgeon General Steven Galson deemed the new laws "profitable, important and feasible." • The traumatized gorilla mom who carried around the corpse of her dead baby for several days has given birth again, and this time, the baby is happy and healthy. • Police have arrested the owner of an Ohio sports bar for pointing a gun at an 11-year-old girl and robbing her of her skateboard. • A small Vegas-style wedding chapel has popped up in Manhattan as the newest incarnation of art collective Grand Opening's ever-changing storefront. It costs $100 for a half-hour ceremony, and they offer both mock and legal weddings.

First up, stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick recently had twins via surrogate. This leads Jane Brody of the New York Times to examine surrogacy in general. Sure, there's a stigma: surrogacy "has been called a violation of natural law, a form of prostitution or baby selling, an exploitation of poor women, and a privilege of the rich and famous [where would anyone get that idea?] who may not want to disrupt their careers or their figures by giving birth to their own children." However, lawyer Melissa Brisman, whose children were carried by surrogates, says, "People don't become gestational carriers as a way of making money. Rather, their motives are altruistic." Brody doesn't really interrogate this assertion much, other than offering the admittedly heartwarming story of Pamela MacPhee, who acted as a surrogate for a cousin who was infertile due to cancer. Surrogacy can have complex moral and economic ramifications, none of which really get much play here.

Next, adoption advocates are worried that the new film Orphan, with its depiction of an evil adopted girl, will discourage families from adopting older children. The Christian Alliance for Orphans has made a website in response to the film, which cites studies showing that adopted teens do better in school and have less depression than the non-adopted. The site also reports that kids who are adopted generally do just as well as kids who aren't, and far better than children who stay in abusive homes or in foster care. Despite this comforting information, the CEO of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute fears that Orphan "may impede recruitment efforts by feeding into the unconscious fears of potential foster and adoptive families that orphaned children are psychotic and unable to heal from the wounds of abuse, neglect, and abandonment."

But the movie may not be the problem. Times blogger Lisa Belkin says of the Christian Alliance's website: "I have to admit, some of these facts surprised me. For years I'd heard stories of older adoptions that ran into trouble, and while I like to think that a horror film would not sway me, I am realizing that anecdote over the years already has." Surrogacy and adoption are both, as Brody and Belkin point out, frequently misunderstood. But the solution is more information — not more "anecdotes" like the ones Brody provides.

Much Has Changed In Surrogate Pregnancies [NYT]
Challenging The "Horrors" Of Adoption [NYT]

A letter signed by the leaders of eleven adoption and child-welfare groups stated

We are concerned that in addition to its intended entertainment value, this film will have the unintended effect of skewing public opinion against children awaiting families both in the United States and abroad...(and) may impede recruitment efforts by feeding into the unconscious fears of potential foster and adoptive families that orphaned children are psychotic and unable to heal from the wounds of abuse, neglect, and abandonment.

My first reaction was kind of summed up by one of the tipsters who emailed us about this story: "It's like claiming Rosemary's Baby would make people stop getting pregnant." Well, it probably did, but that's kind of the point: it would have been a major, irrational leap, and those few people shouldn't dicate our collective action. Are Psycho and The Shining discriminatory against hospitality industry employees? Are The Omen and The Exorcist arguments against having kids?

No. But at the same time, it's true that any good horror movie deals with issues that scare us as a culture, on a subconscious or conscious level. Godzilla dealt with topical issues of post-Hiroshima nuclear fallout. The Day the Earth Stood Still played into Cold War fears. And yes, part of the resonance of Rosemary's Baby comes from fact that pregnancy does involve an element of being taken over, of losing control, and of physical danger.

Those who object to this movie are concerned about just this: systematic portrayal of adopted kids as sinister. And while this may seem overly touchy, it's worth knowing that the movie's original tagline was actually "It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own," which besides being cruel, stupid, untrue, and insensitive, implies that an adopted kid isn't "your own" - by definition inaccurate. I'm not one to dismiss these objections out of hand, simply because it's true that letting little things go is what leads to larger societal attitudes. And those who object to the film worry that older adoptees already have a rough time, given the perception that such cases are usually "troubled" - although the statistics actually tell a very different story. They wish, one assumes, to challenge certain stereotypes we take for granted. But at the same time, while I see their point - The Bad Seed has probably lodged in a lot of our subconscious - I can think of at least as many portrayals of angelic orphans as sinister ones (Annie, Oliver, Night of the Hunter, Australia, hell, even Harry Potter.) At the end of the day, the villain is usually the devil, or some more amorphous form of Pure Evil that Satanists would, I suppose, be within their rights to object to. (Or are they proud of it? I'm confused.) The truth is, no one thoughtful - and, one really, really hopes, no one considering adopting an older child - is going to be swayed by a B horror movie. And if the controversy has got us talking and thinking and actually realizing consciously that this is merely a stupid cinematic trope - I'm for it.

Challenging The "Horrors" Of Adoption [NY Times]

Adoption Groups to Challenge Orphan [Babble]

While Bess Rattray's essay feels like part of Vogue's conspicuous recent push to run more "serious" content - albeit safely online - it's a piece worth reading. Rattray, like Madonna, has adopted a little girl from Africa. And while this might imply a certain solidarity, Rattray's feelings are ambivalent.

I would like to think that Madonna had pretty much the same motivation I did when I adopted an eleven-month-old girl named Nettie Tesfanesh from Ethiopia a year ago: She wanted a child, and if that child could come from a place where millions of kids live without safe homes and loving arms, well, all the better. Yes, OK, it's always to the greater good when a celebrity adoption gets us talking about Africa's children-so why could the sound of smacked foreheads be heard in multiracial families across America? Because the talk that results when a white Western superstar-sporting an $800 haircut and Parisian safari gear-"rescues" a black child is not usually an enlightening dialogue on AIDS orphans, or how money can best be spent to address poverty. In the hands of the tabloids, it's more like an outtake from Brüno.

In other words, whatever the motivation, these celebrity adoptions run the risk of reducing the act to a fad - or worse, to politicizing the dynamic in ugly ways. And of course, with Madonna, everything's different. It's like, is Madonna a role model for single moms? Is she showing how strong and independent a woman can be, that she's perfectly capable of taking on the challenges of parenting alone? Not really; Madonna has nothing to do with the challenges of the average single mother. Maybe in some contexts, a newly-single woman adopting a child could serve as an empowering example, in Madonna's it's... not. Simply put, no one would think to compare Madonna to other single moms. They will, however, compare her to other white women adopting African children, and while in one sense this is equally unreasonable, in others it's inevitable.

Madonna, Rattray notes, has further muddied the waters by, in both her adoptions of children from Africa, engaging in custody battles with the children's families, further increasing the impression of colonial entitlement that already, inevitably, hangs over the business. Says Rattray,

What is so irksome to workaday adoptive parents like me, is ...why Madonna, who adopted a boy named David to much criticism in 2006, decided to adopt another child from a country that doesn't have an established, transparent adoption system. In reputable adoption countries-which include China, Russia, and South Korea-there are elaborate checks and balances in place to guard against baby-trading and to protect the rights of a child's birth parents.

In contrast, Rattray says her adoption of her daughter, Nettie, was carefully supervised, and requires periodic updates and contact with Nettie's family. The writer finds it frustrating that Madonna's cavalier approach, the seeming ease with which she and Angelina acquire children, serves to trivialize both the seriousness of the process for most parents, and their motivations.

It was important to me to adopt a baby who might otherwise languish in an institution, scramble to stay alive on the streets-or die. People often ask why I didn't adopt in the United States, and, boiled down, my answer is that I wanted an infant, I wanted to go where the need was greatest, and I was open to a child born to a mother infected with HIV. In the States, there are families waiting around the block to adopt healthy infants, while in East Africa, formal foster-care and domestic-adoption systems are more or less unheard of. It's never easy to leap through the flaming hoops of paperwork and bureaucracy, especially as a single parent, but my year-and-a-half journey to motherhood via a remote, coffee-growing hill town called Mudula was relatively smooth, even speedy, in relation to most international adoptions.

Rattray acknowledges, however, that this dynamic will always, to a degree, be fraught. Given the burden of context, it simply is - hence the frustration when a star seems to reduce it even further to cliche. Take last year's controversy surrounding Italian-Brit artist Vanessa Beecroft's work. She says it's art that plays with ideas of colonialism. Critics say it can do this and still be racist. Beecroft says her images of African men in blackface devouring fried chicken, or of herself as a Madonna nursing Sudanese twins, are about reclamation. But there's the inevitable question: can it be "reverse colonialism" when it's still, well, colonialism? Can we get away from the fact that this is a white woman rescuing African babies - and, at the end of the day, does she want us to? Beecroft, who attempted to adopt the little boys, said the process - captured in a documentary film - was (according to the artist's press releases) "not just fetishization of the blacks. It will be a beginning of a relationship with that country." But her high-handed attitude, her patronizing references to "these people" and "these poor creatures" render her easy to dismiss. Said New York in its review of the documentary,

In the film's most disturbing scene, sisters from the orphanage try to stop her from stripping the children nude inside their abbey for an elaborate photo shoot. Beecroft refuses, complains, starts shooting again, and eventually loses a physical confrontation with one of the sisters, who takes the children away from her, furious that Beecroft is stripping children naked inside a church.

As Racialicious's Latoya Peterson sagely puts it, "Her penchant for darkening the features of the models used in her work, the casual disregard for the environment she is in, and even her positioning as a white woman who wants to make the world aware of these issues plays into longstanding issues with neo-colonialism and racism" and that the viewer can see two things:

"1. That she is an artist, interpreting the world as she sees it.

AND

2. That artists can be influenced by racism and colonialism, even as they are trying to make a statement about one of these topics."

And there's the rub. Because anyone is influenced by these things, making a statement or no. And take someone like Bess Rattray. She may not be making the same kind of self-glorifying statement Beecroft is, but by definition, her act is still a statement in itself. What I was struck by, looking at Beecroft's lightning-rod image from The Art Star and The Sudanese Twins was the sheer vulnerability of the babies: they don't know whose breast they're suckling, just that they want nourishment. They don't know that their skin is being used as a contrast to the artist's angelic robes, or that the image is burdened with centuries of context and meaning. And it's this at the end of the day simplifies and complicates everything. And it's pretending that it doesn't, as Rattray knows, that's the problem.

Madonna And Child [Vogue]

Related: The Thin Line Between Art and Explotation [Racialicious]
‘Art Star' Vanessa Beecroft: Slammed at Sundance [New York]

ACCESS, an Oakland-based women's health organization, says 72% of women who call want information about abortion, up from 60% last year. Most of these women aren't the stereotypical single girls who need to get back to their carefree lives, but rather women with families who "are really having to make thoughtful decisions whether now is the right time to get pregnant or not," says ACCESS executive director Destiny Lopez. She also says, "we are seeing women who have children, who in another economy would probably have their second or third child, but now can't because they feel so insecure about maintaining their job or losing a job."

Women are also turning to other options besides abortion. A Chicago adoption agency has seen a 30 percent rise in pregnant women asking about adoption. "We've seen a dramatic increase in girls calling us from the hospital," concurs Joseph Sica, of a Florida-based adoption group. And one in five women is more conscientious about birth control now, with many seeking longer-term methods like IUDs.

The saddest part of this news, though, is the stories of women who are forced by economic concerns to consider abortion — and then can't even afford that. Lopez describes a woman who sought an abortion in her first trimester, but found her insurance wouldn't cover it. She tried to enroll in Medi-Cal, California's insurance program for the poor, but the program made her wait five weeks, at which point "she felt it was too late to personally go through with it." Lopez has helped the woman file a complaint with Medi-Cal about the delay. She says, "This is a really good example of the barriers that are put in front of women who are trying to make responsible decisions early on. It's not like women are making these decisions at the drop of a hat. They are considering their life situations." Better health insurance for everyone would improve these life situations — and lessen the need for such heart-wrenching decisions.

Women's Clinics See Rise In Calls And Visits [LA Times]
Inquiries About Adoption, Abortion OnRise [UPI.com]

• Lindsay Lohan's "post-breakup makeover" involved getting her hair dyed red and getting a tattoo. [People]
• This column calls Lindsay a "celebutard" who is "painfully thin" and "in the middle of an emotional meltdown." [NY Post]

• Madonna is planning to build a home in Malawi. Hmm, maybe if she becomes a resident, she can adopt? [The Sun]
• Buffy is gonna be a mommy! Sarah Michelle Gellar and hubs Freddie Prinze Jr. are expecting their first child in the fall. [People]
• Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag will get married (again?) on April 25 in Pasadena, CA. A "source" says: "This will be the real wedding. It's being filmed as the season finale for The Hills." So that thing in Mexico was a stunt for Us Weekly? [E!]
• Farrah Fawcett has been released from the hospital "in great spirits." [People]
• This story claims: "Sales of dog food have rocketed in Europe after Hollywood stars Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson ate some on a German TV show. Budget-conscious Swiss families are tucking into tins of the stuff rather than buying more expensive dishes." [The Sun]
• Drew Barrymore on playing Edie in Grey Gardens: "People who say this is exploitative are bullshit. Anyone who is a naysayer should pull a stick out of their you know what. You know? Get a heart and get into the art and the life and celebrate with us all; don't be on the other side-it's really not fun over there." [The Daily Beast]
• During the Oscars, Amy Adams was thinking about the mall where she worked after high school: "I just was so reflective the whole evening on how I came to be sitting in that room. At one point my fiancé was like, 'You feel distant.' And I said, 'I am! I can't even talk to you!' I was there at the Oscars thinking, What if I never left the Gap?" [W Magazine]
• Here's the first graph of a Miley Cyrus profile: "Miley Cyrus prepared for April 3, an average workday, by reading the Bible—a few chapters of Job—and ended it by telling a ribald joke as she walked off camera at Access Hollywood. In between she had a casting session for her next movie, The Last Song, written specially for her by weepie king Nicholas Sparks; was interviewed four times; performed twice; changed outfits twice; and visited the Tonight Show's make-your-own-sundae bar once. When she left the NBC lot at 6:30 p.m., she still had to do her homework." [Time]
• Kevin Federline was seen chain-smoking for 20 minutes outside of a TGIFriday's while his girlfriend Victoria Prince sat inside by herself, fuming. Ah, l'amour. [E!]
• Clive Owen's daughter introduced him to her "half-boyfriend." "She tells me, 'Dad... I share him with a friend.' I still feel awful thinking about it." [Daily Express]
• Five seconds after Snoop Dogg learned how to stream live video from his home computer to his Twitter page, his first order of business was to light up a blunt and smoke it. Clearly. [TMZ]
• Why is someone spreading the rumor that Snoop Dogg has the dead body of his wife in his basement? [TMZ]
• Here is an in-depth review of Tori Spelling's new book, Mommywood, should you feel inclined. The title seems ill-conceived, no? Or like slang for the boner a MILF gives a dude? [CC2K]
• Michael Jackson is going to rent a little place while he's in the UK for his O2 concerts: It's a 28-bedroom manor on eight acres with an underground movie theater, indoor swimming pool and private lake. [Daily Mail]
• The daughter of Jennifer Saunders, from Absolutely Fabulous, says "I've never been Saffy." Well, duh. Instead she is a folk singer. [Daily Mail]
• Uh-oh: Sinbad and Dionne Warwick are on the list of California tax evaders. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Blind item! "Which sensual singer tells his girlfriends that although he's straight, he still receives oral pleasure from other men - then fumes when they suggest he's bisexual?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Due to the unfounded and ugly rumors that have appeared in the papers over the last few days, I felt they shouldn't pass without comment. Patti and I have been together for 18 years – the best 18 years of my life. We have built a beautiful family we love and want to protect and our commitment to one another remains as strong as the day we were married." —Bruce Springsteen, on the state of his marriage. Although it doesn't exactly read like a denial of an affair. [People]
• "Is Bethenny a socialite? No. Will she ever sit next to Lauren duPont? No. Is she best friends with Aerin Lauder? No. Am I? No. Do I care? No. Does she? Oh, absolutely. She's not authentic. All she does is sit there and cry all the time. I'm like, 'You're crying about guys? …shut up.'" — Kelly Killoren Bensimon, of the Real Housewives of New York City [Harper's Bazaar via Page Six
• "It sucked when I was goin' into the jail, and once I got in jail it became enjoyable again because there were some real fun cellmates. We were singin' songs." — Matthew McConaughey on being busted for possession of mary jane back in 1999. [Men's Journal via MSNBC Scoop]
• "At one point, I really started freaking out. I couldn't sleep, and [the director] was chasing me around with food, telling me that the prosthetics weren't fitting me and I was swimming in my fat suit, which was really ironic. I was miserable in my room just typing these manifestos [in my journal] but one day, I'll have them to look back on and see that I stuck with it and I'll be glad to know I had that level of discipline." — Drew Barrymore, on being immersed in her Grey Gardens character. [WSJ]
• "Marriage and babies? Please. I want to be illegal. I want to live outside the mainstream. These awful middle-class queens-which is what the gay movement has become-are so tiresome. It's all Abercrombie & Fitch and strollers. Everybody has the right to do what they want to do, but still... And I think this surrogacy thing is crap. It is utterly hideous. I think it's egocentric and vain. These endless IVF treatments people go through. I mean, if you are meant to have babies, then great. But this whole idea of two gay guys filling a cocktail shaker with their sperm and impregnating some grim lesbian and then it gets cut out is just really weird. If I did have the impulse to be a parent, I would adopt-or foster. But this whole thing of forcing the idea of parenthood and marriage on us gay men is so bogus." — Rupert Everett. [The Daily Beast]
• "Suddenly, you're the elder in the group. I have been doing this a long time, 25 years now. It's nice to feel that you're still relevant. People like Carol Burnett, Gilda Radner and Lily Tomlin were my role models. America always had really good, strong women in comedy. I love that." — Tracey Ullman, whose second season of State of the Union premieres Sunday on Showtime. [USA Today]
• "Until the banks get fixed, there is no other issue. I think this public-private partnership of [Treasury secretary Timothy] Geithner's will be effective. Evidently, the time for debating nationalization or backing the banks — which I thought would have been smart, just to say we're backing the banks, but I guess that would have made folks uncomfortable — has passed. So the private sector is in a pretty good spot here. Truth is, it's mostly, and maybe this is just a cover, us buying back our own bad paper from ourselves, but incenting [is that a word? -Ed.]the private sector to invest by giving them an incredibly good deal, if you believe, like Geithner seems to, that prices are only artificially depressed and really have much more value than what you can get for them now. But despite what you've read about me in the tabloids, I'm not an economist. But I do worry about what value all of these bad assets people keep talking about will have in the long term." — Ben Affleck, who plays a politician in State Of Play and did research by meeting with representatives like Anthony Weiner, Adam Smith, Rahm Emanuel, and Patrick Murphy. [WSJ]

• A Saudi man has reportedly divorced his wife by text message. Under Saudi law, a man may divorce his wife if he says (or, I guess, texts) "I divorce you" three times. • A seven-year-old girl with with a Y chromosome but not other signs of "maleness" usually associated with the genetic abnormality (shriveled testes, ambiguous gonads) is providing scientists with new clues about the "master switch" of gender. • A couple from Seattle have discovered the newest trend in the wedding industry: outsourcing vows. • Washington State passed a bill yesterday that protects transgender people under the current hate crime legislation. • A report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission reveals this "shocking" fact about the pay gap in London: women working in finance make 55% less a year than their male counterparts. • Actress Virginia Madsen is currently working on a documentary about women ski jumpers and their campaign to be allowed to compete in the 2010 Winter Olympics. • Sociological Images has posted a very interesting video on female sex tourism, followed by a discussion of the way we think about the role of the "victim" in sex. • Researchers at St Andrews have found that people do judge you by the color of your skin, and that certain (pale) skin tones are still associated with illness. • Despite certain high-profile celebrity adoptions, Americas are actually adopting fewer foreign children than we did five years ago. • This Easter, a new line of nonedible Peeps branded products (think china and stuffed animals) will appear in stores. No word yet on whether they will also explode in the microwave. •  Click here to watch a depressing video about the sale and use of skin-bleaching products in Jamaica. Skin-bleaching was once practiced only by women, but has now spread to men and children. • Oh dear: "Teen pregnancy boosts girls' risk of getting fat," reads a headline on Reuters. • After being groped by a stranger on the subway, a quick-thinking woman snapped a cellphone picture of her attacker, which eventually led to his arrest. • Another lawsuit against the "Hot Chicks with Douchebags" people has been dropped. • 

• Being on vacation with Amy Winehouse must be relentlessly entertaining:

She was apparently told she couldn't sunbathe au naturale, so she whipped off her bikini top and streaked through the resort in St. Lucia, waving her arms in the air. She told you she was trouble! [Daily Mail]

• The family of Mercy James, the Malawian child Madonna would like to adopt, are on Madonna's side. Mercy's uncle says the guy who claims to be Mercy's biological dad "didn't care about his girlfriend, Mercy's mother, when she needed him most. He didn't even come to see his baby." [The Sun]
• Madonna was overheard telling people: I can't believe I'm leaving my beautiful baby behind. It's not right. I love that baby girl. She's my little girl - she needs to be with me." A judge disagrees, your Madgesty! [MSNBC]
• Chris Brown was in court yesterday, and he pleaded not guilty to two felony counts. His next court date is a preliminary hearing on April 29. [Rolling Stone]
• Some are "surprised" that Chris Brown pleaded not guilty? Really? [MSNBC Scoop]
• Rihanna was not in court, but her lawyer was, and he said her feelings about the case are that she would be happy if "it were over quickly." [TMZ]
• The latest on Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson, according to LL: "We are taking a brief break so I can focus on myself." But, uh, she banned you from her party and changed the locks, right? [E!]
• Sam Ronson's family is hoping that Sam will not get back together with Lindsay. Ouch! [People]
• Courtney Love is about to sue a whole mess of people: She finally realized that whomever had been handling Kurt Cobain's estate lost millions of dollars. It's not her fault she didn't look into this sooner, she was high, okay? [Page Six]
• Cops in Costa Rica are investigating the security team hired by Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen since they, you know, open fired on photographers, which doesn't seem very legal. [NY Post]
• Gisele wore Galliano, by the by. [People]
• Howard K. Stern will not cut a deal with the D.A. in the Anna Nicole Smith drug case and is expected to plead not guilty. He'll be in court today. [TMZ]
• Do what you must to prepare yourself: Britney Spears might take her Circus tour to Australia. [E!]
• Of the items being moved out of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin's London home, the mattress is not surprising; the dinosaur, the large horse and surfboard are. Gwynnie's moving to NYC; Chris is going on tour. [Daily Mail]
• Speaking of Chris Martin, Coldplay is denying that it copied Joe Satriani's music for "Viva La Vida." [Breitbart]
• Oh dear: Scarlett Johansson has reportedly been working out with Gwyneth's trainer, Tracy Anderson. She's already lost 14 pounds and now she's off carbs. Is she prepping for Iron Man 2 or just joining the brigade of stick thin stars? [The Sun]
• Did a reporter set up a fake charity and trick Heather Mills into dishing dirt on Paul McCartney? [ABC News]
• Zac Efron's mom stuffed hi stocking with condoms last Christmas and his dad gave him some speech about protection at some point so maybe the point is you won't see Zac as a young baby daddy any day soon. [E!]
• The woman who was saved from committing suicide by Demi Moore and "the Twitter community" says "I'm eternally grateful to her for helping me." [RadarOnline]
• Why aren't people donating to Prince Harry's African charity? Donations have dropped a whopping 84%. [Telegraph]
• Jennifer Garner will star in Butter, a flick that's a political satire set in the small-town world of competitive butter-sculpting. Yeah. Butter. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Ru-roh: Pamela Anderson's boyfriend was in a kite-surfing accident in Hawaii. Luckily, he escaped serious injury and didn't need C.J. to run into the water with a red floaty thing. [Daily Express]
• Kylie Minogue took her new man to meet her parents and they found him to be "charming and witty." Good sign. [Daily Express]
• Buddhist and friend of the Dalai Lama Richard Gere attended a "Mind and Life" conference in Dharamsala, India on Monday. [Hindustan Times]
• Dennis Rodman was thrown out of a West Hollywood hotel after "slapping and groping" female guests. He needs to learn how to ask nicely when he wants to borrow a dress. [TMZ]
• The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation received a gift from the estate of the late Luther Vandross; the amount of the gift was not disclosed. [UPI]
• Blind item! "Which Grammy-winning rapper can't get enough weed? She orders from a NYC delivery service non-stop, then tries to sweet-talk the courier into giving her free bags of ganja." [Gatecrasher]
• "He's certainly not the buffoon he looks like. This is the most amazing thing I found out about him. I was once staying at a hotel, and I was in the room directly under his. He is an amazing fuck — and you can quote me on this. The screams coming from the woman were some of the purest sounds of pleasure I'd ever heard." — Rupert Everett on Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. [Page Six via The Daily Beast]
• "Casey grew up in one of the richest families in New York, and she grew up without any responsibilities or any boundaries. And so, for her, it was very important to do something where there were laws and where your morals counted. I was very much into the idea of doing something I hadn't done before. This is a show about cops. Our show is very grounded in the sense of the crappy things that happen to you are funny. That's how you deal with them and get through life." — Amber Tamblyn, on her character in new show The Unusuals. [USA Today]
• "I don't know Ethan Hawke. Ethan Hawke wanted to do some kind of superficial Rolling Stone article. And he did everything he could to make his story the greatest story ever in Rolling Stone. And it was a fictitious (expletive) lie. O.K? He didn't even call me by my name. ... He called Norah Jones, Ray Charles, everybody else by name. Willie (Nelson), Kris (Kristofferson). Why didn't he call my name? Why didn't he say Toby Keith walked through and said this (expletive)? Right? You know why. You know why. You know as good as anybody why. He didn't want to (expletive) deal with the aftermath." — Toby Keith. [Yahoo News via AP]
• "The pilot script showed up, and I stalked [producer Alan Ball] until he said yes. The morning I showed up for work after going blonde, everyone was very relieved." — Anna Paquin on playing Sookie Stackhouse in True Blood. [Vanity Fair]
• "We were on the set, and the two firefighters that work here, I overheard them talking about, 'Yeah, you know, if I'd known I could measure from the pubic bone… And they were talking about a cock-measuring contest.' And I go, 'That's going in the show.'" — Denis Leary on Rescue Me. [The Daily Beast]
• "I'm crying for two and a half hours straight. And then you leave the stage door and people are like, 'Can we take your picture?' And I'm thinking, 'I've never looked worse.' I need a lot of eye cream." — Lauren Ambrose, on her role in the play Exit The King. [WWD]
• "Combs have been on the scene ever since humans had hair on his head. which is quite sometime? The date perhaps goes beyond the time of the old stone age. Man being man and not a lion would
  not be content to let his mane run wild and free. So he had to find some ways to tame it. First on the list of combing operations must have been the use of fingers. So in a way the fingers are the first combs of history. Today, combs are universal and no corner of the globe is without it." — Your friend Kanye West. [Jossip]

• Playboy Enterprises has announced that their website is getting a conservative makeover to attract mainstream advertisers. • Broke consumers are eschewing traditional medicine in favor of vitamins in attempts to save a few bucks, the New York Times says. •  Researchers believe that sex could be the cheap new way to cure hay fever. • Aw: 45 people volunteered several nights ago in New Haven, VT, to help carry salamanders, newts, and frogs across the road during their annual migration. These so-called "bucket brigades" are common throughout the Northeast. •  Click here to see wax sculptures of Barack and Michelle Obama. • And if that doesn't creep you out, here is a video of a Japanese robot that has been programmed to mimic baby behaviors. •  A California man stabbed a woman in front of Toys 'R' Us, immediately laid down on the ground, and when confronted, claimed that "God made me do it." •  Indian men living in the U.S. are having a harder time finding brides willing to make the move to America since the economy has tanked. Many Indian women feel that it is safer to stay in India, where layoffs are not as widespread. •  Annoyed by Madonna's adoptions but unsure why? This article by Robin Givhan may help you figure it all out. •  Not everyone loves April Fool's pranks: the Taipei Times has received complains from the Taipei Zoo about their misleading "fake panda" story. •  Now that Obama has lifted the ban on stem cell research, scientists are looking for donations of excess embryos to help them find cures for debilitating conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's. • Newsweek examines the gay love for Grey Gardens, and argues that gay icons may actually be kind of a bad thing. • Walgreens has pulled the "Chia Obama," saying that the presidential house plant is not appropriate for sale. • New data shows that Nebraska is the "happiest" state, financially, with Iowa close behind. •  And now for some truly terrible news: Researchers have identified a certain kind of yeast that can mutate rapidly, rendering anti-fungal medications ineffective. Ugh. •  Atomic games is working on a new video game based on the Iraq war, currently titled "Six Days in Fallujah." •  More than 1 in 10 Britons say they would cheat if they could get away with it, according to a recent survey. •  In India, soaps that focus on women's issues are gaining in popularity, especially those about "girl child issues." • 

• Gisele Bundchen married Tom Brady again, this time in Costa Rica. They first got hitched in the U.S. in February. These days you can't be a celebrity and not have two or three ceremonies. [Breitbart, Mirror]

• Oh! But! There was gunfire at Gisele's wedding: Bodyguards shot at paparazzi. No one was injured, but the back window on an SUV was shattered. Says one snapper: "I could have lost my life for the sale of some pictures that Gisele didn't want published. Are they insane?" [NY Post]
• Madonna reportedly "shrieked in horror" when she found out that a judge was denying her adoption of Mercy. [Pop Dirt]
• Madonna has left Malawi in her private jet and is headed for London. [Star Tribune]
• Madonna is said to be "in pieces." [Daily Mail]
• And now Madonna is back in the UK; Guy Ritchie met her at the airport. They didn't seem to speak to each other but he had a big hug for David. [Daily Mail]
• Rihanna is partying in Barbados — it's her grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. Her father says the singer is "back to herself." [Daily Mail]
• Meanwhile, Chris Brown is due in court today where he will do some "intense" plea dealing. [NY Daily News]
• Over the weekend, news broke that Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson had a huge fight and that Sam changed the locks at her house. Ouch! [TMZ]
• Lindsay was specifically asked not to attend a Charlotte Ronson party but showed up anyway. [Socialite Life]
• Did Lindsay go on a Twitter tirade? This report says she wrote: "Being cheated on does wonders to you. I'm doing this publicly because u&ur friends call People [magazine]. So you win, you broke my heart. Now go away. I loved you." So wait, Sam cheated? Also, not so long ago, you couldn't get LL to admit she was IN a gay relationship; now she announces the details to the whole world??? [This Is London]
• Farrah Fawcett, who has been battling cancer for almost three years, is in a hospital in L.A. [Reuters, RadarOnline]
• Meanwhile, her son, Redmond O'Neal, was busted for drugs yesterday. In the parking lot of a prison. Not a joke. Also, Ryan O'Neal says Farrah just went in for a procedure and "is not at death's door." [NY Post, EW]
• This report says the end is near for Farrah Fawcett. [MSNBC Scoop]
• This paper claims that doctors fear the worst for Farrah. [NY Post]
• Scandalous: Jennifer Aniston was seen smiling and laughing and generally having fun. [Gatecrasher]
• Dear Beyoncé, the bangs and the heels are understandable, but the suspenders? [Daily Mail]
• Paris Hilton says of Doug Reinhardt: "We're best friends. It's not like we just met. We've known each other over the past year. I was in a relationship before and we reconnected. I'm really in love and really happy. He's going to be my husband." Does that sound like a threat? [E!]
• There's a sneak peak of season five of The Hills up, and apparently the big question is whether Heidi and Lauren will reconcile. But the even bigger question is: Does anyone still care? [E!]
• Speaking of The Hills, Lauren Conrad's new guy, Kyle Howard, wants to marry her, so he took her mom and dad out for lunch — and picked up the tab. [Star]
• Ryan Gosling has a band, and the band has a video, and it's here. [Pop Sugar]
• Oh, Christ: After enduring all kinds of shit for those bikini pictures, now this headline from the Daily Fail: "Has Jennifer Love Hewitt Lost Too Much Weight?" [Daily Mail]
• Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher are shooting a flick called Five Killers and it appears that they kiss. [Socialite Life]
• "How Poor Suri Cruise Has Become A Style Victim At Just Three Years Of Age." [Daily Mail]
• Behold: Victoria Beckham in enormous shoulder pads. [Daily Mail]
• Gossip Girl's Blake Lively and Penn Badgley have left the country to vacation in Thailand and you have not. [Just Jared]
• It's not that Serena Williams can't find a pair of bikini bottoms that fit, it's that her derriere is awesome and will not be held down! [Daily Mail]
• Anna Kournikova took part in a triathlon in Miami on Sunday. [Daily Mail]
• Ooh, Seal will sing the National Anthem at the Red Sox/Tampa Bay Rays game today! [The Star]
• You may find this hard to believe, but Gary Coleman regrets doing a movie titled Midgets vs. Mascots. He has a YouTube rant explaining his mortgage made him do it. [Page Six]
• Possible new couple: 50 Cent and Ciara. [Page Six]
• Bai Ling wants you to know that Bai Ling never had sex with Mickey Rourke. [Page Six]
• A square-faced Jack Black slays demons with his guitar in a new video game called Brutal Legend. Check out his heart-shaped soul patch! [Wired]
• Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green are not only back on, but looking for a "love nest" in Santa Monica. Megan wants ocean views because "she loves the beach and spotting dolphins." [Star Magazine]
• The series finale of ER did okay, ratings-wise, but not as well as Cheers or Friends. [AdAge]
• Miley Cyrus' wardrobe in the Hannah Montana movie is "clean cut, wholesome and decidedly demure." Are times changing?!?! [LA Times]
• Between Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift and Julianne Hough, women ruled at the Academy of Country Music Awards. Do you have to be blonde and toothy, or is it just a coincidence? [Yahoo News ia AP]
• Christina Ricci will star in a "porn-tinged comedy" co-written by Adam Sandler. She'll play "an innocent girlfriend." [Hollywood Reporter]
• Jennifer Hudson's fans worry about her and can't stop talking about how they hope she doesn't cry while she is singing. [Washington Post]
• Jennifer Hudson says, "I'm fine, I'm happy." [USA Today]
• By now you must have heard: Demi Moore saved a suicidal woman's life via Twitter? [The Star]
• Brandon Michael Vayda, who plays Mike on 90210, pulled some guy out of a taxi and "beat the living crap out of him" outside of a nightclub. [TMZ]
• Alex DeSilva, a choreographer from So You Think You Can Dance, was arrested Saturday and charged with four counts of sexual assault. All of his victims were his students at the time. [E!]
• Fox's Roger Friedman wrote about the leaked flick Wolverine (which the FBI is investigating) in his column, saying, "It took really less than seconds to start playing it all right onto my computer." Now he's been fired. Whoops! [NY Times]
• Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr sang together for the first time in years at a benefit to introduce children to transcendental meditation. And yes, David Lynch runs the foundation in question. [Breitbart]
• Jeff Beck, Metallica, Run-DMC, Bobby Womack and Little Anthony and the Imperials were inducted into the hall of fame over the weekend. [NY Times]
• Fast & Furious sped away with a $72.5 million box office, which is huge. Huge. [Breitbart]
• Thousands lined the streets of London and Essex at the funeral of Jade Goody, which this paper calls "Princess Diana-style." [Daily Mail]'
• Jade Goody's family says they don't want her grave to be a shrine, "trampled by strangers." [The Sun]
• Blind item! "Which C-list Hollywood stud was so drunk and desperate that he showed up at the home of an L.A. gossip reporter and demanded a booty call? Guess what, folks? She accepted!" [Gatecrasher]
• "There's a time for celebration and I partake, sure. But you know, it's important not to let that become too big of a distraction. The more you have access to, the harder it is to remain focused. You know what, I do not want to fall victim to that, it's too easy and too often done. It's out of style anyway, I think too many people have done it before me, I'm not going to. It's uncool, yeah. I think the rebellious thing to do would to actually be successful." — Zac Efron on drinking and the Hollywood party scene. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• "I'm excited to not have everything scheduled in advance. I can just call up a friend and grab lunch. I can wear white when I want to — I could never do that on camera. I can go backless!" — Lauren Conrad, on her plans for her life after The Hills. [LA Times]
• "It's kind of like a self-aware observational comedy of the simplest thing in the world, which isn't so simple." — Bob Saget on his new show, Surviving Suburbia. [NY Daily News]
• "People will always say that I'm over-exposed and that's what I want, all this attention. That's not it. What I love is the art of it all." — Miley Cyrus. [NY Daily News]
• "Somebody said to me 'Well, you know what? You just got such a big mouth and you just know how to talk to people. Did you ever think about runnin' for president?' I said 'I think we've had enough boobs in the White House.'" — Dolly Parton. [CBS News]
• "Some of my best compliments are on a $15 Ross dress. Ross gets you a weird look, but I've rocked two or three good pieces from there over the years." — Rosario Dawson. [New York Mag]
• "Well, I certainly got hit on a lot. And a lotta men thought I was as silly as I looked, I guess. You know, I look like a woman but I think like a man. And in this world of business, that has helped me a lot. Because by the time they think that I don't know what's goin' on, I then got the money, and gone." — Dolly Parton. [CBS News]

• Madonna is making moves in Malawi: This picture at the link shows 4-year-old Mercy, the girl she's trying to adopt, holding hands with possible new sister Lourdes. [Daily Mail]

• Oprah faces yet another scandal involving her Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa; seven students allegedly engaged in "inappropriate behaviors." [Socialite Life]
• This report says that even though girls at Oprah's school were expelled, this is not a sex scandal. [MSNBC]
• Lisa Ling's sister Laura and another journalist being detained in North Korea are headed for a trial on the basis of "already confirmed suspicions," which doesn't sound good. [People]
• Bridget Moynahan is furious with Gisele Bundchen for telling Vanity Fair she loved Tom Brady's son like he was her own. Someone close to Bridget says: "If Gisele loved Bridget's child like he was '100 percent her own,' then she would not talk about him in the press. Discretion and respect are not either of Gisele or Tom's virtues, as was evidenced even when the child was still unborn and they publicly flaunted their relationship without any discretion whatsoever." [Page Six]
• Kate Moss is supposedly in New York to open the new TopShop here and OMGCLOTHESOMG. [Daily Mail]
• Shocker: Britney's Candie's ads have been Photoshopped! Won't someone think of the children? [Daily Mail]
• Josh Holly, the dude who hacked into Miley Cyrus' email and had his apartment raided by the FBI back in October is still being investigated. Special Agent Scott Augenbaum says: "We're still working on it. He hasn't been arrested." Guess what Holly has been doing in the meantime? Hacking celeb MySpace accounts and spamming their "friends." [E!]
• Speaking of Miley, she looks ever so uncomfortable on the May cover of Glamour. [Just Jared]
• Stephen Colbert is warning NASA to name a new wing of the international space station after him or he will "seize power as space's evil tyrant overlord." [CNN]
• Holy crap yay! Taye Diggs and Idina Menzel are expecting their first baby! [Socialite Life]
• Singer Natalie Cole is in desperate need of a kidney; she went on Larry King last night to talk about it and dozens of emails came in, with offers from people saying they would get tested to see whether their kidney could be donated. Sometimes TV redeems itself. [CNN]
• In this photograph, Robert Pattinson looks like a folkie singer with long hair and a guitar. Scarier than a vampire? [E!]
• Kelly Rowland has left Columbia Records, the label she's been with since her Destiny's Child days. Good luck out there! [E!]
• American Idol's emo musical theater rocker, Adam Lambert, has a fan in Neil Patrick Harris: The How I Met Your Mother Star was in the audience last night and says, "No male in this competition has sung so well. He really hit those notes." [E!]
• A TV station in Panama City, FL decided that Osbournes: Reloaded was "not keeping with community standards" and declined to air the show after American Idol. [E!]
• A sneak peek at the new Sherlock Holmes flick: "Leave it to Robert Downey Jr. to turn Sherlock Holmes into a wisecracking action hero who ends up handcuffed naked to a bed." [Yahoo News via AP]
• Rachel McAdams says filming the Sherlock Holmes movie was "cold and dirty." "The 1800s were kind of dirty, I realized. I didn't think about that before." [Mirror]
• Gavin Rossdale and Gwen Stefani will never collaborate musically: "We come from such band mentalities that it's something we've really done well to avoid," Gavin says. [Mirror]
• Dreamworks animated flicks like Kung Fu Panda and Monsters Vs. Aliens will be shown on FX, thanks to a deal between the channel and the distributor. [USA Today]
• Star Jones says her mind and body are not in sync: I'm still 300 lbs. in my head some days," she told Oprah. [People]
• Wanda Sykes and the Fox network are finalizing a deal for a Saturday late-night show. Bring it! [Yahoo News via Reuters]
• Some Slumdog Millionaire DVDs were released without the "making of" feature and "deleted scenes," which were advertised on the box. Buyers are bitching to Amazon about it; Amazon is blaming Fox. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Pedro, a film about the HIV positive Real World castmember Pedro Zamora, premieres tonight on MTV and LOGO. [LA Times]
• The Seattle home where Jimi Hendrix grew up has been destroyed; preservation efforts failed. [Mirror]
• Liam Neeson has completed Chloe, the film he was working on when his wife Natasha Richardson died. [CBS News]
• R.I.P Andy Hallet, who played the demon Lorne on Angel. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Blind item: "Which Academy Award winner, who constantly denies his philandering ways, was outed after sleeping with a publicist who blabbed to everyone?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I'm going to get smashed after doing this." — Ed Westwick, at the Dressed To Kilt show, before which he apparently stripped down to his underwear in a corner to change into his kilt. [Gatecrasher]
• "I break down a couple of times a week, at least. It gets overwhelming. Sometimes I think that I can't take this anymore. I just want to live a normal life. Olivia [Palermo] kind of mothers me and looks at me as a pet project…I'm not some country bumpkin. I'm from Los Angeles." — Whitney Port on The City. [Page Six]
• "If women look like her, that would be the perfect world. She doesn't need to change anything. Who likes stick skinny girls? Where's the flavor? Whoever likes those stick skinny girls never had sex before in their life." — Dancing With The Stars' "star" Gilles Marini, on people talking about Cheryl Burke's weight gain. [E!]
• "I want my dogs to be in my wedding, I am so serious." — Jennifer Hudson. [Mirror]
• "Girls are scary. Large groups of girls scare the (crap) out of me." — Kristen Stewart. [USA Today]
• I haven't read the books, but I saw the movie… I thought the movie was really bad." — Whitney Port, on Twilight. [Perez]

• And then there were seven?!?! Angelina Jolie reportedly told one of the Slumdog kids that she is planning to adopt an Indian orphan. The papers will surely turn this into a race with Madonna. [Telegraph]

• So you know how Lindsay Lohan has a $115,000 Maserati but no job? Turns out a "porn king" loaned her the car, no strings attached. Uh-huh. Right. [TMZ]
• This UK paper is calling Madonna a "manipulator" who will "stop at nothing" to adopt a second child. They're saying she dressed conservatively for her court appointment, when she actually is way more wild, divorced and a Kabbalah enthusiast. Apparently Malawaians "take their Christianity seriously." Well, she did date Jesus! [Daily Mail]
• Hmm. Madonna wore a $2800 Chanel tracksuit while in Malawi. [Telegraph]
• The mark on Katie Holmes' back is indeed troubling. Scientology? Melanoma? [Perez]
• Countess Luann de Lesseps of Real Housewives has split with Count de Lesseps. He is "with an Ethiopian woman" now. Does this mean Luann is still a countess? Are any of the Housewives actual wives? So many questions. [Page Six]
• Meanwhile, Vicki Gunvalson of the California Real Housewives has been receiving death threats from an obsessed female fan who "takes the show way too seriously." [Yahoo via E!]
• The latest on Britney Spears is that while her dad was away, she hooked up with a backup dancer. His name is Glo, and she bought him some clothes and shoes. But now that her dad is back? "It's basically over," says a source. As you'll recall, the last time Brit picked up a backup dancer she got married and had two kids. [Gatecrasher]
• Halle Berry is "mentally ready" for more kids, FYI. [Mirror]
• "I'm not engaged. If she is engaged we have a problem." — Justin Timberlake on Jessica Biel. [The Star]
• Miley Cyrus says there won't be any more Hannah Montana movies. Also, she says if you're a young kid trying to decide between college or potential stardom: "Be a freak. Go to Hollywood." [Yahoo News via AP]
• The rumors that Rihanna is not cooperating with the D.A.'s office? Untrue. A rep for the D.A. says: "We have been in contact with her attorney, and he has always said she is a cooperating victim." [E!]
• Queen Latifah is being sued by a makeup artist and a fashion stylist, who claim she failed to pay them. At stake? $1 million. [Yahoo News via AP]
• ScarJo and RyRen went on a motorcycle ride. [Socialite Life]
• Drew Barrymore is back with Justin Long — in the movies, at least. He'll play her boyfriend in a romcom called Going The Distance, about what else? A long-distance relationship. [E!]
• Zac Efron dropped out of the Footloose remake, and now Gossip Girl's Chace Crawford is auditioning. Similarly pretty, but charismatic? Uh… [E!]
• Michelle Rodriguez will kick your ass if you try and snap her picture when she is not feeling well and sitting in a wheelchair at the Mexico City airport. [E!]
• Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are still friends, in case you were wondering. [People]
• When Jennifer Lopez arrived at LAX from Japan yesterday, Jenny from the block had 11 bags. [Daily Mail]
• Andie MacDowell, Mike Myers and Ed Westwick (!) took part in a kilt fashion show. Men in skirts! [The Star, Daily Mail]
• André 3000 was busted for going 109 mph in a 65 mph zone. He drives a Porshce? You'd think it would be a model T or something to match his plus-fours. [E!]
• Congrats to Alyson Hannigan, who had a baby girl — on her birthday. [ET]
• If instead of sparkly vampires, you like actual boodsuckers with fangs, take note: True Blood returns June 14. Season 2 photos at the link. [E!]
• Epic! Law & Order: SVU will be shooting at the U.N. [CNN]
• Star Trek hasn't yet hit theaters but they're already talking sequel. And Lost cocreator Damon Lindelof could be on board. [E!]
• The Karate Kid remake will be called Kung Fu Kid, says Jackie Chan. [EW]
• Friends, here is a picture of Sir Paul McCartney with his fly open. [Daily Mail]
• Friday Night Lights: Renewed for two more seasons. [EW]
• Blind item! "Which pretty young songbird is freaking out male paramours with her overly hairy tummy?" [Gatecrasher]
• "It doesn't mean no more musicals forever, but right now I had so much fun doing (new comedy film) 17 Again that I think that's the direction I want to head in." — Zac Efron, on why he pulled out of the Footloose remake. [The Star]
• "Max and I are really good friends. We were just too young. That's all it was. I still love the idea that we did it. I love the idea I can tell my kids one day about it and I know he does too. It just got really crazy. It was something that exploded. And then it ended. And now we're just back to being friends, which is so much better." — Peaches Geldof, 20, who doesn't regret her six-month marriage. [The Sun]
• "After this album and tour I have a brand new business I am setting up, but i can't say what it is yet. I am definitely considering quitting music." — Lily Allen. [This Is London]
• "If you've got a character, particularly on TV, you can watch him doing nothing if you like him. If you haven't got a great character, you could be delivering the greatest lines in the world, but who cares? There are stand-ups that just aren't likable. They can have the best lines in the world, but you go, (yawn) 'Yeah. Brilliant. Don't like you though.' Whereas, someone shambles out and they're a putz and they get their hands dirty and they tell you what a bad day they've had, you want to hug them. They don't say anything funny, they are funny." — Ricky Gervais. [Yahoo via AP]
• "I think they prerecord the backgrounds in the studio and maybe the backgrounds are a little lip-synced. But I think the solos are definitely live. Because these kids aren't dancers and they're trying to do choreography, that's why it happens … if it happens at all." — American Idol judge Randy Jackson, on the lip-sync controversy. [Gatecrasher]
• "Kissing him wasn't bad at all. Justin's a sweetheart, and the whole shoot felt very organic. It all flowed so well." — Ciara, on smooching Timberlake in her new video for "Sex Love Magic." [Gatecrasher]
• "We were going to a Mexican restaurant and he and I were the first ones in. We sat opposite each other. He looked at me. It was a look that wasn't sexual; it was almost evil. It was like rape except it wasn't sexual. I just burst into tears. I never forgave him for it. It was cruel. I think maybe he fell into what he does sometimes with women. He had no right to do that. I was helpless. I got mad at him, and I never talked to him again." — Cloris Leachman on Marlon Brando. [LA Times]

She also claims she educates David about his culture: "He has a big map of Africa in his room with lots of arrows pointing to Malawi." [Reuters]

• A new study shows that children with contact lenses feel better about their looks than kids who wear glasses. • Horrible news: over 100,000 young women were killed in fires in India in a single year. Officials say that many of these deaths were tied to domestic abuse. • Proposition 8 is back in court. The court's decision is due within 90 days, so here's hoping that the 18,000 same-sex couples wed in California are not forced to give up their rights. • Four years after being honorably discharged, Lisa Pagan, mother of two, was recalled for duty. She reported with her children, and is now waiting to hear whether her appeal - on the grounds that she must stay in the country to take care of her kids - will be approved or not. • According to a study from the University of Warwick, modern women are ill-equipped to deal with motherhood because of their newfound geographical mobility. • New strains of drug-resistant gonorrhea have been detected in the US, UK and Australia. • The kidnapping trial of Kumari Fulbright, former beauty queen, has been pushed back until at least August. • Toward the end of the Spanish Civil War, thousands of children were kidnapped and put up for adoption. Years later, Spain is facing pressure to investigate the "lost children of the Franco regime." • The Belfast Rape Crisis Center is facing harsh criticism for its burlesque show fundraiser. Academic Fionola Meredith is among those opposing the show: "Forget post-feminism and irony - Northern Ireland remains an old-fashioned sexist's paradise where women's rights are very far down the political agenda." • More than 15,000 tapes of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Christian talk show, the 'PTL Club', are up for auction. • Excerpts from Josef Fritzl's psychological examination have been released, and the details are terrifying. Fritzl claims that he "actually led a completely normal family life" and that he was a "good provider." • According to UN officials, the women's prison at Badam Bagh, Afghanistan, is probably the best in the country. The "humane" prison allows children to stay with their mothers, and offers classes for the prisoners in English and computer science. • British teachers worry that forward-facing strollers may be to blame for the recent decline in the linguistic abilities of many children. • Artist Christian Faur assembles amazing portraits entirely out of whole crayons. Check them out here. • A new study has found that sexual dysfunction among women may have more to do with the brain than with the body. • The world's first pink dolphin has been discovered living in an inland lake in Louisiana. • The Japanese have invented a new weight loss tool: expensive toe rings. • Women are less likely to go into debt and work harder for financial independence than men, according to a new study. • Mariachi classes are gaining young followers, as second and third generation Latinos reconnect with music of their grandparents. 14-year-old Maureen Sanchez has been taking Mariachi classes since she was five, and has already recorded three CDs and appeared on national radio and television. • A recent survey shows that women are more religious than men. Analysts speculate that this may be caused by - what else? - motherhood. • For the first time, researchers have established a link between estrogen and fat storage, which may explain why women store fat differently than men. • The New York Times has a short, but important, documentary following an 11-year-old girl on her last day of school before the Taliban closes it down. • 

[Image via Florida Times-Union[