New York: where things happen! And not just sometimes, but every week! In “Here Is New York,” Intern Anastasia tells you about one of those things. Apologies to E.B. White.

This week: The Chinatown Garbage Tour.

She’s a brave, brave girl - and most likely caught an infectious disease.

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Again from Us Weekly’s infamous Denial Reportage department: Winona Ryder not engaged, sez her rep. [Us]

• David Beckham proves that he’s the full package.

• Have you ever noticed how obnoxiously rich people are often miserly and sort-of eccentric? Perhaps this explains why Britney Spears is exceedingly fond of wearing clothes from Target and shoplifting items worth approximately $1.25.

• Mary Louise Parker gets back with her ex! No, not the one who dumped her when she was 8 months preggers. The one who has a goofy stache and played “The Heart Patient Who Finally Died” on Grey’s Anatomy.

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Five years after you stopped caring about the time Winona Ryder got busted shoplifting $550 worth of high-end merchandise from Sax Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, Winona is finally ready to talk about it. Not because she wants/needs the attention (again!) but because she’s really, really sorry.

By which we mean “not sorry at all.”

I didn’t have this tremendous sense of guilt, because I hadn’t hurt anyone. Had I physically harmed someone or caused harm to a human being, I think it would have been an entirely different experience.

I never said a word. I didn’t release a statement. I didn’t do anything. I just waited for it to be over.

The attention was what was embarrassing.

But not “I used to fuck Soul Asylum” embarrassing so much as “The highlight of my career was Reality Bites” embarrassing.

And that, Winona, is the definition of irony.

• In surprising posthumous news…Anna Nicole Smith may or may not have mothered—and, presumably, abandoned—a mysterious Native American lovechild.

• And speaking of death, despite (apparently) false reports claiming that she’d kicked the bucket, it would appear that Winona Ryder will live to shoplift another day.

• A timeline of Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s televised waterworks!. Crazy coincidence: Hasselbeck’s emotionally-powered performances seem to occur approximately once a month…

• Madonna’s former nanny to write a tell-all! But is there really anything about Madge that we don’t already know? (Who cares, you know the gays will read it.)

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• It’s cool if Winona Ryder acts like a lunatic in SoHo Lounge. Just so long as she doesn’t steal anything. [Page Six]

• Yay! Now we can go to Union Pool this weekend and still make it home. Dreams really do come true. [Gothamist]

• What? No trans fats? But how are we going to eat our one calorie Doritos and Trader Joe’s crackers? College students in New York are so doomed. [NY1]

• Where is Chris Hansen when you really need him? Or Kurt Eichenwald, perhaps? [NYDN]

• Some people aren’t as happy as we are about the celebs moving to Park Slope. Though, having a story about Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard stealing your apartment, is pretty bad ass. [NYO]

• Oh, Nicole Richie. When we told you to eat something, we didn’t mean Jason Mewes. [Best Week Ever]

• Not every celebrity gets royal treatment at the Chateau Marmont. Just the ones who get Jessica Simpson in their room. [Page Six]

• Katie Couric totally hearts her new guy. They’ve gone out bunches of times, and she doesn’t even have to pick up the tab. [Lowdown]

• That really weird, gross, disturbing, doesn’t look anything like Britney Spears statue of Britney Spears having a baby. Or something. [Send2Press]

• You know it’s spring when Jon Stewart is on the radio, begging New Yorkers to buy Mets tickets. [Fishbowl]

Maybe Winona Ryder should consider a career in screenwriting. Along with other celebs like Courtney Love and Rosario Dawson, Ryder was in on the whole “JT LeRoy is real” scam. She even twisted this tale of her imaginary discovery and imaginary meeting of the imaginary boy for Vanity Fair in 2003.

“I had two tickets to the opera, and I was, like, ‘I don’t want to go alone,’ ” Ryder said. “And then I saw this kid standing near the doors to the opera house, and he was trying to listen in. He was a total ragamuffin. So I said, ‘Hey, I have this extra ticket. Do you want to go see the opera?’ He was too young to be creepy. He said, ‘Oh, my God! I really wanted to see thihttp://www.jossip.com/mt/mt.cgi?__mode=view&_type=entry&blog_id=3s!’ I think it was ‘La Boheme.’

“And he was crying throughout it. And I started crying for my own reasons, watching this beautiful kid so affected, someone his age grasping it. We went to this diner afterward and talked. I wanted to take care of him, have him move in, but he said he was heading back south. I fell in love with him. And I’ve been in love with him ever since.”

Honestly, we preferred the speech she gave Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites (at the end, when they’re in the bar) but for a VF performance, this even beats Lindsay Lohan’s “I was making myself sick, my life is so stressful,” saga.

STARS BACKED JT BOOK FRAUD [Page Six]