Following Star's tabloid scoop on the breakup of Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, the more respectable press sprung into action, discovering the split happened weeks ago. People is off to Alaska to learn more.

In this week's Star: hilarious and slightly depressing "gossip" from Levi Johnston's bitchy, MySpace-y sister Mercede! Do you care about the petty dramas of unwed teen parents in far-off Alaska?

• Ad pages for monthly magazines in March dropped by 26 percent. [Crains]
• Sirius XM has reached a deal with Liberty Media to avoid bankruptcy. [NYT]
• What Bristol Palin had to say in her interview with Greta Van Susteren. [ABC]
• Not surprisingly, local news stations covered A-Rod's press conference today in lieu of President Obama's signing of the stimulus bill. [THR]
• A look at Politico and "the brave new world of post-print journalism." [TNR]
• Barbara Walters at a breakfast this morning with 60 Minutes's Steve Kroft and Ken Auletta: "I think the only programs that will still be there as they are now in 10 years are the morning shows." How convenient. [Portfolio]
• Thanks to the popularity of Slumdog Millionaire, ABC is thinking about reviving Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? during primetime. [NYT]

Sarah Palin has famously opposed sex-ed programs other than "abstinence education." Funny, then, that daughter Bristol was on Fox News tonight saying abstinence is "not realistic at all."

Sarah Palin says she hates bloggers. Then why does she keep giving us so much good material? In an interview released today she reveals the origins of Bristol's name. Hint: It involves a motel.

Please let this be true. According to a barely literate MySpace message, Sarah Palin is snubbing the family of Levi Johnston, the jock who knocked up Bristol, because they're "white trash." (Not that we'd disagree.)

American queen Sarah Palin spent her New Year's Eve in the traditional Wasilla way: placing angry phone calls to media outlets insisting her teen (mom) daughter and her man aren't high school dropouts.

• People won the bidding war for photos of Bristol Palin's baby, Tripp, and could be paying as much as $300,000 as part of the deal. [MSNBC]
• Mia Farrow's adopted daughter Lark died on Christmas Day. [NYDN]
• Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer spent Christmas on separate coasts, which obviously means their relationship is on the rocks. [Daily Mail]
• According to the always-reliable National Enquirer, Regis Philbin is refusing to help out his son Daniel financially, even though he's a double amputee and ekes out a living selling crafts. [NE]
• Disgraced billionaire Henry Samueli is dumping his jet to raise cash. [P6]
• The economic meltdown doesn't seem to be affecting the champagne-swilling partygoers on St. Barts this season, you'll be relieved to hear. [P6]

His conception has was almost immediately a national controversy. His grandmother is an accused drug dealer. It's unclear whether daddy was even around for his birth. But Bristol Palin's baby nevertheless seems chill.

Amid 2008's many sex scandals, it was a miracle there was any time left to monitor an epochal presidential election. There were many genuine, dirty affairs — and some duds inevitably got overhyped.

Good news: the mother of Sarah Palin's daughter's boyfriend was not arrested for meth. No, Sherry Johnston was arrested for oxycontin. What wonderful communities our small towns are.

The mom of Levi Johnston—first daughter candidate Bristol Palin's uncomfortable jock boyfriend—has been arrested on drug charges. Law and order Republicans now support Obama! Because this sounds vaguely like a meth lab:

• Is Jennifer Lopez getting ready to say goodbye to Marc Anthony? She neglected to wear her wedding ring to a premiere last week, which obviously means her marriage is now "at a breaking point." [Us, The Sun]
• Jeremy Piven is heading home. Just two months after arriving on Broadway (and after showing up late to performances and skipping matinees), he says he now plans to return to LA because he's suffering from some sort of "mysterious mercury ailment." [NYP]
• Good news for anyone going to the inauguration: Alec Baldwin says he plans to stay home and watch it on TV. [MSNBC]

Oh, hey, what do you know: Sarah Palin has suddenly been cleared of the two biggest blots on her record, and just in time for the election! What amazing timing. First, the Alaska Personnel Board and its independent counsel decided the Republican vice-presidential nominee didn't abuse her power as Alaska governor to have her former brother-in-law fired as state public safety commissioner. Also, Palin released her medical history just as she promised the entire country she would on television, to disprove all those crazy theories about how Trig Palin isn't really her baby. Have you spotted the terrible distortion in all this yet, traumatized 2008 campaign veteran?

Teen pregnancy just isn't the Oscar-nominated, tabloid-cover romp Hollywood makes it out to be, according to a new report released today in Chicago. Amid the gloomy data noting 400,000 such births per year (at a public cost of $7.6 billion), experts cited increasing cultural influence among girls who look to Jamie-Lynn Spears, Bristol Palin and even Juno as models of upstanding teenage motherhood. Alas, as you probably could have guessed, the experts at a subsequent panel discussion begged to differ:

♦ Is Lauren Bush supporting Barack Obama? Maybe. The niece of the president praised the Democratic nominee in a recent interview and she decided against using her family name for her new clothing line, Lauren Pierce, taking her grandmother's maiden name instead. [P6]
♦ Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson are either engaged or splitting up, depending on what you read. [Daily Mail, MSN]
♦ Marc Jacobs is supposedly jealous that his ex, Jason Preston, is dating someone else, even though he has a new boyfriend of his own, too. [P6]
♦ He can't afford a plane, but Diddy did get to upgrade to a new Rolls-Royce last week. [P6]
♦ In a new memoir, Maureen McCormick (Marcia Brady from The Brady Bunch) says she used to trade sex for coke. [NYDN]

No one knows if Jamie Lynn Spears is really pregnant. But former tabloid queen Bonnie Fuller has a rather fanciful theory for why Spears got knocked up (if, that is, she's pregnant in the first place): "Like everyone else in the country, she's a victim of Palin Fever. But in this case, it's Bristol Palin mania. My guess is that Jamie Lynn didn't like it one bit that there was a new pregnant 17 year-old in town and upstaging her all over the news." [HuffPo]

♦ Rachael Ray's reps are denying reports that Ray has throat cancer, although they do admit she's having surgery for a cyst on her vocal cord in December. [People]
♦ It was a busy weekend for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. With hoards of paparazzi in tow, the couple made an appearance at the premiere of Changeling, where Angelina showed off her newest tattoos (the coordinates of the places where each of her kids was born) and told reporters that she and Brad are planning to have even more kids. [NYDN, OK!, previously]
♦ Howard Stern and Beth Ostrosky tied the knot on Friday night at Le Cirque with Billy Joel performing in front of guests like Denise Rich, Joan Rivers, Barbara Walters, and Donald Trump. [NYP, Us]
♦ A fire at Geraldo Rivera's home on Friday didn't singe his mustache, but it did damage the two 1954 Jaguars in his garage. [P6]

We were so wrapped up in all that Letterman/McCain business, we almost forgot about this nice little surprise from last night’s Conan. Fresh off his best actor Emmy win for 30 Rock, Alec Baldwin stopped by the Late Night set unannounced for a brief round of “In The Year 2000.” It seems like Alec’s been rocking those Buddy Holly glasses even more these days, which is always fun. Plus, he actually gets off a couple of decent jokes. Check in after the jump to hear his zinger about li’l Bristol Palin (with a bonus Kirstie Alley-is-fat chestnut by Conan thrown in for good measure). [Late Night With Conan O'Brien]

The Lynne Spears Redemption Tour continues, with the mother of Britney and Jamie Lynn sitting down with Newsweek to discuss her new book, Through the Storm (also known as The Lynne Spears Guide to Fucking Up Your Children). Talk turned to vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whose daughter Bristol supposedly received a gift from fellow teen mother Jamie Lynn. Now, though, it seems like Lynne is having second thoughts about that show of solidarity — in fact, she wants to know why Sarah Palin is attracting so much more support than she is: