• Avril Lavigne proves she can skank it up for the cover of Maxim just as well as anyone in the cool clique of B-list celebrities.

• Christina Aguilera got a c-section because she wanted to keep her vag tight. Those weren't her words, but what she does say amounts to that.

• Tina Fey is hosting the first post-strike Saturday Night Live.

• Nicole Richie and Joel Madden hold onto to their outsider status by getting their coffee some place other than Starbucks.

• "Jamie Lynn Spears Is A Giant Whore" and other things her unborn child probably doesn't want to know.

• Ironic imprisonment of former Prison Break star is less amusing for Lane Garrison than it is for us.

The Chelsea gays are boring Mike Bloomberg, and the Williamsburg gays aren’t his style either. In fact, he’s tired of all gay New Yorkers. He wants gay tourists, and the city has embarked on an advertising campaign to lure them in.

NYC & Company, the city’s tourism agency, took out a three-page spread in the December/January issue of Out, placed spots on Logo and has launched a $30 million, 19-country initiative to attract international gays to New York.

Well the return of Broadway probably won’t hurt the mayor’s initiative.

For a magazine that just moved from Boston to Washington, New York seems like an odd location for The Atlantic’s 150th Anniversary party. But as Andrew Sullivan says, “You can’t have a party unless it’s in New York.”

Fair enough. But that doesn’t explain The Atlantic’s venue choice: a theater in the village. With a full audience, the party was one-part open bar, one-part performance piece. While we drank, we couldn’t help but feel bad for The Atlantic fans in the crowd who had to watch a New York magazine photographer take pictures of Jared Kushner. The New Yorker festival seemed modest by comparison.

CONTINUED »

Mayor Bloomberg has been pulled into the federal gender discrimination suit at Bloomberg LP now that the three female plaintiffs are claiming that "Bloomberg and other top managers at the company created a culture hostile to pregnant women and new mothers."

The new 66-page complaint — which seeks nearly $482 million in cumulative compensatory and punitive damages — offers more specifics than the EEOC suit, and targets the mayor and the top lieutenants who took over for him when he left to go to City Hall for creating an environment conducive to discrimination.

"Upon information and belief, Michael Bloomberg is responsible for the creation of the systemic, top-down culture of discrimination which exists within Bloomberg," the complaint says.

Sounds like this could significantly hurt Bloomberg's chances at a successful presidential bid if only he would acknowledge that he's actually running! Then again, it's pretty much what tends to happen after everyone finds out that you once turned to a pregnant employee and (jokingly!) tell her to "Kill it."

In news that's sure to disappoint his Obama-supporting daughter, Caroline Giuliani, the former NYC mayor has officially predicted that Hillary will win the Democratic nomination.

Giuliani told the Daily Telegraph, a London newspaper, on Tuesday that he thinks Clinton will win the nomination and choose Obama as her running-mate because he “has had such a good showing and it’s going to be very hard for her to deny him a place on the ticket.”

And, according to Giuliani, there's only one G.O.P. candidate who can beat Hill in the general election. Yep, that would be cousin-marrier/shameless self-promoter Rudy Giuliani. Which makes more sense after you remember that McCain's recently fired all of his top advisers, Romney's playing for the other team and the infinitely more popular Mayor Bloomberg is (unofficially) running on the Independent ticket.

• Lindsay Lohan hires a private detective to dig up dirt on her ex-boyfriend Calum Best. Because when you're Lindsay Lohan, finding out that your boyfriend cheated on you with two coke-addled prostitutes and photographed the entire thing apparently isn't enough.

• Tired of all the negative publicity, Usher finally gets around to marrying that fiancee he's been sleeping with on the side.

• Mena Suvari pulls a Britney, sans fried chicken.

• The price of Ted Koppel's superfluous starter home? $2.3 million. The image of a banana-hammock clad Ted Koppel swimming laps in his indoor pool? Priceless.

• Mayor Bloomberg reports for jury duty, tells bailiff at county clerk's office "You ask me about that sexual harassment suit and I'll have your boss' boss' boss fired."

• "Which network news executive had to confess to cheating on his partner after he caught hepatitis?" asks Gatecrasher, who adds, "he had to tell the 50 party guests whose food he prepared by hand the day before he was diagnosed."

• Should he ever decide to (officially) run for president, Mayor Bloomberg might find himself haunted by all those women he greeted by saying, "Hey, nice ass."

• Check it out! Another luxury hotel for Lindsay Lohan to destroy.

• First we can't say the N word and now a symbolic ban on bitch and hoe? Next thing you know, they'll be telling us we can't talk refer to Hillary's knockers as "funbags" anymore.

• Daughter gags and castrates her father. Awww, looks like Daddy's little girl is growing up right before his (blindfolded) eyes.

• Times Square bids a tearful farewell to "Beauty and the Beast." Deeply moved New Yorkers say, "Yeah, that sucks. So how soon can we get the prostitutes and sex shops back?"

• Do you like grits? [Ed: Why??] If so, you're out of luck. The only diner in New York that actually sells them has always suspiciously "just ran out."

• New York City Hall installs world’s largest plasma screen. You know, in case Bloomberg wasn't already distracted enough by that presidential campaign that's "not" happening.

• There's something rather exhilarating about that first early-morning grope on the subway, isn't there?

• What better place to put a command post than on a ship with thousands of tourists and a McDonalds?

• It's just like the fall of the Berlin Wall! Except horribly inconvenient and slightly less liberating.

• Pretentious Williamsburg artists now throwing dinner parties for their laptops. They're BYOE (as in Bring Your Own Ethernet cable, obvs.)

• Mayor Bloomberg continues to deny that he's campaigning, despite the fact that there's no other plausible explanation for his continued presence in those annoying Midwestern states.

• A disgruntled cabbie equates the city-mandated GPS tracking systems to "an ankle bracelet they put on criminals." Or on fiery redheads with early-onset liver failure.

• We have no problem with Disney renting out NYC subway trains to stave off another fare hike. Unless that means our morning commute will be infiltrated by repeated renditions of the song "It's A Small World After All."

• Turns out Governor Eliot Spitzer just loves full-scale state mandated investigations. Except when they're targeting his own administration.

For those of you lucky suburbanites who weren't in New York yesterday, things sure started to get a little crazy around 5:57pm!

See, a steam-pipe 24 inches in diameter burst just outside of Grand Central, causing a boom, a weird, loud rumbling sound, and millions of pounds of pressurized steam, debris (and possibly asbestos!) to fling out of the ground, yielding awkward—yet completely mesmerizing—local news footage ("It's, like, a—a giant crater!" reported ABC's baffled on-air newsperson).

And that was just the beginning.

CONTINUED »

• A-Rod sends for MRI following hamstring injury. When reached for comment, Rodiriguez's wife said, "Huh, that's funny, I thought I kicked him in the balls."

• Meanwhile, Cynthia Rodiriguez's controversial F-bomb shirt spawns retaliation tank top.

• A violin left behind at a subway station was reunited with its owner after would-be burglars were disappointed to discover it wasn't "something cool, like a guitar."

• Mayor Bloomberg has no feelings whatsoever about Bush's unexpected decision to commute Scotoer Libby's prison sentence.

• Second Avenue Deli to be replaced by a Chase Manhattan, angering loyalists who are "skeptical" about the quality of bank's pastrami on rye.

Jon Friedman wants to do a favor for the men and women outside New York who are covering the presidential campaign: school 'em on Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Jon's old boss. So what, pray tell, is this game-changing advice offered in "Bloomberg 101"?

CONTINUED »

• Newsweek reveals the real reason behind Bloomberg's crusade against fast food, and its not his irrational fear of the Hamburglar.

• We take it this Staten Island resident wasn't using Potassium Nitrate to make his pretty July 4th fireworks.

• Apparently, that Japanese guy's lock jaw won't stop him from sucking down Nathan's hot dogs!

• After nearly half a century, the National Park Service cheats on the Circle Line with some whore from California.

• Lastly, check out this gift-wrapped CBS headline: "Only In New York City: Pizzeria Offers Lap Dances." It's almost as though they knew we were short of material!

• Prince to follow your mother's lead, start giving it away for free.

• "Wendi Deng, the young Chinese wife of Rupert Murdoch, appears to have finally been elevated to an official post within News Corp." Huzzah!

• Former makeup artist claims hosts of Cold Pizza tried to engage her in a game of "Hide the Sausage."

• If Mayor Bloomberg runs for president, he'll singlehandedly drive up the cost of TV ads by approximately one zillion percent.

• Time Inc. fires Chris Poleway, names Vivek Shah as the new prez of its business and financial network. Shah. a 33 year-old wunderkind, had previously served as president of digital publishing, and bears no relation to soap-deprived Radar staffer, Neel Shah.

• Tina Brown gets in trans-Atlantic catfight.

• Sopranos stalkers have been incessantly calling Holsten's ice cream parlor (in Bloomfield, NJ) to reserve the booth where Tony may or may not have gotten shot.

• The health commissioner attribute a recent drop in cigarette sales to those creepy anti-smoking ads featuring Stephen Hawking. However, we're convinced the whole "$8 a pack" thing may have something to do with it.

• A grouchy wet blanket takes a Long Island couple to court over an out of control game of Marco Polo.

• Rudy Giuliani kinda, maybe starting to regret helping Bloomberg get elected mayor.

• Lenox Hill Hospital attempts to upgrade their status from "junk" to "tolerable, but pretty fuckin' crappy."