The New York Daily News has trailed the Post's Page Six in the New York gossip wars for a long time. Now the paper is blowing up its gossip columns and starting over. Two major changes went down today. First, husband and wife gossip team Rush & Molloy announced this morning that they'll be moving from a daily column to a Sunday-only schedule, after more than 13 years. Second—and more dramatic—we hear that Jo Piazza, who wrote the paper's Full Disclosure column, has resigned.

Conde Nast boss Si Newhouse will have you know that that rumor going around about him going to Europe to work out the details of replacingVogue editor Anna Wintour with her French counterpart is utter hogwash! "This is the silliest rumor I ever heard," Condé Nast's Si Newhouse told us via flack (first quoted in the Wall Street Journal). "There is no truth to it." Si finally sent in his denial from Europe, where he is, ah, not talking to anybody about any magazine jobs. [Pic: NYO]

Madonna and Alex Rodriguez want us to know they're lovers without having to quite come out and say it. The pop singer famously denied sleeping with A-Rod during the Yankees slugger's messy divorce, in which his wife accused him of infidelity. But a paparazzo somehow got a shot of the couple coming off a private jet in Miami, where Rodriguez was to spend Thanksgiving with his ex-wife and children; Rodriguez allowed himself to be photographed at a Madonna concert there (left picture above); and reporters discovered both celebrities traveled to Mexico City the following weekend. In case we didn't get the message about what's going on between the pair, they let their money do the talking, in the Post:

The ignoble end of Michael Phelps as a national treasure has already been sketched out for us by Page Six. If the gossip sheet's sources are to be believed, the 14-Olympic-gold-medal-having athlete's weakness is gambling, garnished with drinking and womanizing. Combine this with his 10,000-calorie diet, and it's not hard to envision the sad future that awaits should the monumental pressure of being the top Olympian of all time push the young man over the edge: Phelps as a pudgy, wannabe card shark, bitterly ignoring the "didn't you used to be..." questions at low-stakes poker tables in Vegas casinos. The scene last weekend:

The Waverly Inn was crawling with Condé Nast insiders earlier tonight, some of whom had been waiting as long as 20 years for the appetizer: The hot, delicious rumor that Si Newhouse was meeting in Paris with Carine Roitfeld to work out the final details of the French Vogue editor's move to New York, where she is expected to take over flagship Vogue from Anna Wintour immediately after New Year's. It did not go unnoticed when Condé Nast overlord Newhouse departed early for his annual three-week December vacation in Vienna; it turns out he needed time for his meeting with uptight Wintour's chic Parisian counterpart.

Us Weekly ate up Hills "stars" Spencer and Heidi's story that they got married on the spur of the moment while on vacation in Mexico. A photographer just happened to be there to capture their beautiful declarations of love! Heidi just happened to have a white, full-length Balenciaga sundress lying around that doubled perfectly as a wedding gown! But the AP is asking if they're actually now husband and wife or if the whole thing was just another elaborate Speidi photo op.The Us story, the AP notes, "does not address whether they obtained a marriage license or took part in a separate civil ceremony, which is required by Mexican law to make the union binding. A couple can register their marriage up to 10 days after a ceremony, but California does not recognize marriage ceremonies outside the United States." Could it have even happened in under an hour, like Speidi claimed? "Americans who wish to get married in Mexico must first go through a process that takes about five days, according to Mexico's foreign relations department Web site. They must obtain a health certificate, including blood test results from a local doctor; and provide official translations of legal documents, such as birth certificates." In a statement issued via Us (wtf?) the allegedly happy couple came pretty close to acknowledging that they hadn't done any of that, saying "like other elopements that happen outside the country, we'll take care of the legal details when we get home." Their publicist was all know-nothing about it, adding, " "If there was a wedding I wasn't invited ... Sorry!" We're sure the meticulously-documented event had nothing whatsoever to do with the next season of The Hills—even though MTV also just happened to be there, filming their vacation. They'd never exploit such a loving, personal moment.

Harvey Fierstein, who plays Edna (while wearing a fat suit) in the about-to-close Broadway production of Hairspray, is also known for holding weekly poker games in the theater's basement. The Observer's Spencer Morgan attended recently. Aside from being attacked by a barrage of friendly "faggoty-ass faggot" remarks, he managed to glean—when his tape recorder and notebook wasn't being forcibly removed—that someone close to the production is summoning backdoor johnnys for his own entertainment...

Have we mentioned that Ivanka Trump is converting to Judaism, presumably so she will be a better marriage match for Jared Kushner, the equally young owner of the New York Observer? We have. Ivanka is only 27, but she recently auctioned off an internship with her for Chabad, the Hasidic organization her boyfriend supports. This donation and the visibility that comes with sounds like a good way to get in with Kushner's family, because we hear that they don't like the idea of Jared marrying outside the tribe. But Ivanka just made another move in the chess game to ingratiate herself with the Kushner family. Oh, UPDATE: apparently nobody wanted to bid on the "internship," and the person who finally did won't be sending the kid to the internship anyway.Park Avenue Peerage reported that she auctioned off for the Habad charity fundraiser "a one-month internship with Ivanka in New York, with the highest bidder choosing between working with her in the acquisitions arm of the Trump Organization or at the Ivanka Trump Collection, her diamond jewelry line." Looks like she has learned a few "how to win friends and influence people" business tricks from Dad! The Kushners have long been good friends with Chabad groups. Jared was the head of the Chabad House at Harvard. And dad Charles got a rabbi from Chabad's Living Legacy organization to write a letter on his behalf when he got into all that prostitute-blackmail trouble. Donating to a Chabad effort, a favored charity of the Kushner family, was the kind of smart move she might want to mention in her upcoming "motivational" book. Update:"I have a friend that went last night and from what I hear no one wanted to buy that internship with her. It eventually sold for $9,000 but the person supposedly felt bad BUT won't be sending their kids to intern with her."

[Update: Below, the bride-to-be tells us how he proposed... aww.] Remember Washingtonienne Jessica Cutler? She was the young oversharing blogger who got fired from Capitol Hill because she blogged up a storm about her after-work sexual exploits—much of it with older, well-known politicos, some of it paid. Sample blog excerpts: "W = a sugar daddy who wants nothing but anal. Keep trying to end it with him, but the money is too good." She got famous on Wonkette and outed. She turned the debacle into a respectable-selling novel, The Washingtonienne, posed for Playboy, went broke, and inked an HBO deal. Then there were a bunch of rumors that she was working as an escort—or at the very least, was buddies with a madam who provided girls to Eliot Spitzer. But love is to make an honest woman out of her—she's engaged now, reports Wonkette via Reliable Source, to a dude named Charles Rubio. He's a lawyer! Let's learn more about him.

Larry Mendte was the first male host of Access Hollywood before becoming a news anchor in Philadelphia, where he worked with Alycia Lane, a fellow anchor who punched an undercover cop and sent bikini photos of herself to the wife of a sports TV personality, all of which somehow made Mendte jealous, causing him to hack into Lane's email and forward the most salacious bits to gossip journalists, which ended up getting her fired, though his activities eventually came out and got him fired, and then got him sued by her as well as charged in a criminal case. Got that? Well now Mendte has been sentenced: He got six months of house arrest and three years of probation. At his sentencing he apologized, and said this:

Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that Liz Smith lit after Madonna's ex so brutally in the Post today; she seems to just love Madonna. The singer's ex-husband Guy Ritchie, not so much: Smith writes that all three times the director worked with Madonna, Madonna played some kind of abused character, and so everyone should wonder if this "reflect[ed] home life — a meek and conciliatory Madonna." After implying Ritchie is a wife beater, Smith moved on to painting him as a gold digger; though the Times of London said Ritchie's divorce settlement would include "not a penny" of Madonna's fortune, Smith said he got much more:

Births, Deaths, and Marriages is a column about what's happening to persons of interest in Gawker society. Send us your tips about breakups, hookups, knock-ups, and everything else that completes the circle of media-life. Today: one oddly-named celeb infant, one knockup, one breakup, and rabid right-wingers in luv:

Ivanka Trump and real-estate golden boy and New York Observer owner Jared Kushner have been dating for over a year, and seem to be heading towards marriage—especially when you consider Ivanka's highly-publicized conversion to Judaism. But they keep denying that they're getting engaged, and we've heard a possible reason why: their families can't stand each other.We hear that Trump isn't happy about Jared's dad's time as a jailed felon over real-estate dealings gone bad, and the Kushners aren't happy about Ivanka's shiksa status, despite her ingratiating attempt to convert—maybe because the effort means she's serious about marrying him for real. It's so romantic—like the Montagues and the Capulets! They'll probably want to be together even more now.

Barristers in England are calling Guy Ritchie's freshly-minted breakup settlement with superstar wife Madonna a "model divorce." But cynics could just as easily call it a model victory for aggressive flackery: It was Madonna, according to some gossipy press reports, who initiated and most viciously perpetuated the post-split war of words with her husband; witness her public declaration her husband was "emotionally retarded." If Madonna's objective was to bully Ritchie into a fast divorce — and thus into relinquishing any claim on the singer's $450 million fortune, ten times his hoard — it worked. Ritchie is said accepting not a penny of Madonna's cash, telling the Mirror, "Thank God" it's all over. Madonna promptly got her drink on, said Page Six:

After two years as a reporter at the Portland Oregonian, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger III will return to New York to work at his family's Times, Portland alternative paper Williamette Week is reporting. Sulzberger wouldn't comment for the paper, but his return to New York appears at first glance unrelated to staff cuts at the Oregonian. So what's the 28-year-old son of Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. (pictured) up to? In all likelihood, trying to help to stabilize not only a faltering newspaper company but a ruptured family.

Despite her repeated public pronouncements of devotion, it will come as no huge shock to anyone anywhere that Paris Hilton just broke up with her boyfriend of nine months, musician Benji Madden. Even if you weren't up to speed on the latest developments — she was spotted with her Greek, shipping-heir ex and rumored desperately flirty with British princes — you have to figure, well, it's Paris Hilton, whose thirst for attention requires not only the intimate affection of various men but also constant press coverage of how those affections fluctuate. But her breakup is worth noting because the mainstream media seems to buying into her psychodrama like never before!

It was odd, wasn't it, that Britain's Guardian, of all publications, was first to report Hillary Clinton planned to become Barack Obama'sSecretary of State? The paper's DC bureau chief, according to today's Observer, "said... his source said he could use the information as long as he didn’t source it." One tipster of ours, apparently speaking speculatively, is certain the source has to be Sidney Blumenthal, who was a senior unpaid campaign advisor to Clinton during her campaign, was an aide in Bill Clinton's White House and — key detail — has a column at the Guardian, presumably handled by the DC bureau, since that's where he lives.

Hey, Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto hangs out in porn stores, just like us! A tattletale used our tipline (646-214-8138! We're waiting for your call!) to tell us Michael Musto was in a "sex-video booth cruising area" in an Eighth Avenue porn emporium. But! "He did seem to have a pad and pen out." Ain't no shame in that game.(Update: he's "working on a story," the Village Voice vaguely responds! Click for the audio.

Before Devil Wears Prada was filmed, before Project Runway made its reality television debut, before fashion grew beyond even the prominent role she had envisioned for it, Anna Wintour was compared in the Times to George W. Bush. It was one of Maureen Dowd's absurdly tortured analogies, but one of the rare ones that today sounds less ridiculous: If Page Six's source is to be believed, the Vogue editor is, like Bush, about to step away from the monster she's created, leaving to a more glamorous successor the job of revival. There is plenty to be done:

Oh my God, shut up, Tim Robbins! There are few people more insufferable than rich, self-righteous Hollywood liberals. Remember how he thought his name was taken off the voting rolls on November 4 and threw a fit that drew the cops—when the real problem, explained the New York Times very patiently, was that he had showed up to the wrong voting place? He's still traumatized (the rest of us have moved on with our lives), and has written an "open letter" on Huffington Post—the LiveJournal for celebrities—to the Board of Elections:Robbins' letter, in part: