Times editor Bill Keller's hand was suspected in the May departure of Michael Oreskes from the Times-owned International Herald Tribune. "Fiercely ambitious" Oreskes once vied for editorship of the Times itself, the Post's Keith Kelly reported at the time, and may have been made to pay for a "long history of animosity" with Keller. Now another IHT hand, Serge Schemann is being nudged out the door after accusations of disloyalty to Keller, an email tipster claims. His supposed crime: A meeting with former IHT publisher Michael Golden, the rival and cousin to Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, just hours after a "make or break" November IHT meeting in Manhattan, a meeting that presumably involved Sulzberger underling Keller.

Paradigm of truth and accuracy in Britain and abroad, the News of the World, is reporting that Levi Johnston, the intended and future ex-husband of Bristol Palin had been seeing a friend of Palin's, Lanesia Garcia, for three years when Bristol swept in. She's a relationship maverick. Says Lanesia: "I didn't believe it, I never dreamt she was capable of doing that to me. But when I called her she just said, 'I'm so sorry, I couldn't help it. Levi and I are together now and I think he's the man for me.' I put the phone down and have not talked to her since. I was distraught for a year - I missed Bristol desperately but also Sarah, who was like a second mom to me. Neither of them have tried to contact me, though-which says something about how ruthless they can be. The phrase Sarah used comparing herself to a lipstick-wearing pitbull is spot on." [via Perez Hilton]

When he's not threatening our tipsters and offering to shove recording devices up our collective ass, scruffy indie actor Vincent Gallo is threatening a female Blackbook reporter at Fashion Week. The Brown Bunny actor offered to "track [her] down and make [her] wish [she] was never born!" (In fact, we've also heard from other gal reporters who have interviewed Vince that received threats along the same lines.) Maybe Vince loves women so much he hates them. Because he would be rakishly handsome if not for all this anger. Hey Vince! You can track me down and make me wish I was never born—I'm just crazy enough to win. I'm in the office at 210 Elizabeth Street most weekdays (so call first.) Bring it. (And who the fuck is letting him into Fashion Week?) Click for the girl-threatening video![via Blackbook] Click to view

If someone at a film screening taps you a couple times on the shoulder asking you to move over so they can see, what do you do? If you're New York Post film critic Lou Lumenick, you haul off and hit them with your binder—and then realize that you just slugged Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert, according to Rush & Molloy. Ebert can't speak, as he's been dealing with throat and thyroid cancer for years, so that explains the shoulder-tapping. But there's really no good explanation for Lumenick's hitting:

What? We'd expect to find a slew of celebs at at a hip downtown concert for, say, the Citizen's Band or something—but mediocre granola college-rockers Dave Matthews? The Stalker sightings are coming in from last night's show at Madison Square Garden, and it seemed to have attracted the celebrity dregs. Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen were backstage, "dressed like it's January," one tipster said. And aging cougar-fameball Dina Lohan, mom of LiLo? Allegedly drunk:

The twits at Columbia can be so déclassé: as Vesal Yazdi wrote in the university's Spectator (and as noted by Page Six), they surrounded actor James Franco like cats in heat as he was trying to study in a campus cafe (he's going for his master's in writing at NYU.) They were "crowd[ing] around him and star[ing] into his face and the emails on his Mac..."

An expanded version of this story about the Republican running mate's son—with details from the National Enquirer's print edition—is here.

Uh oh, looks like Vincent Gallo was right—about one thing. Yesterday, the indie actor threatened to "shove [New York magazine's tape recorder] up [our] ass"—and we invited him to do so. Now he has, figuratively.The backstory: our downtown scene tipster, Molly Friedman, reported that the scruffy Republican had made comments asserting how "hot" he found Sarah Palin's teenage daughters. Gallo responded with a long screed denouncing Friedman as an "ugly cunt whore," which is wholly inaccurate. He also mentioned that a New York Magazine reporter had recorded the interview, and that he would gladly shove said microphone up our ass. Well, New York played the tape on their website and it looks like Gallo said nothing untoward during the time he was being recorded. But you're still going to hell for calling Hillary Clinton a "pig" during that same recording, Vince! [Intel]

Somewhere out there is a budding female public intellectual destined to marry an embarrassingly oversharey lifestyle magazine editor1 who dribbles out in monthly editor's letters the grotesquely bourgeois details of their life, providing endless gossip fodder to media workers frustrated in their own loveless (if not as literal!) marriages to the consumerism bankrolling their profession. Until then, however, we will have to be satisfied with the likes former Business 2.0 editor Josh Quittner, whose wife shares their home life with the readers of the New York Times—and smartypants Jacob Weisberg. The Slate group editor sleeps on a horsehair mattress covered in "beautiful heavy linen" and sheets from a special shop in London, all of which we know because his wife, Domino editor-in-chief Deborah Needleman, told Fashion Week Daily in excruciating detail (click thumb for a closeup) about the marital bed. By the way, New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell introduced the couple! (Hey Gladwell, anyone ever tell you you were a "connector"?)

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's roundup: Fabian Basabe, Jezebel's Tracie "Slut Machine" Egan, and Michelle Williams:

Greg Lindsay comes across as an uptight guy. But that doesn't stop him from appearing on television again and again. Indeed, he's the poster boy for go-getters who try on every form of media until they find one that fits best. The former WWD gossip columnist and author of a book about sleeping in airports landed a "memorable" appearance on Martha Stewart's TV show earlier this year. And last night, he was a contestant on Jeopardy! The secret to his publicity, he advised a youngster long ago, is to remember "it's all about the brand called you." And how! Click to watch the clip of Lindsay's, um, uphill battle. And we'll let former Deadspinner Will Leitch finish the story of watching the show with Greg himself:

The low-ceiling'd, tiny coke den that is the Beatrice Inn doesn't look like much. But it's become Manhattan's celeb hangout du jour, obsessively covered by blogs like this, and fetishized most recently in Fashion Week Daily's detailed map placing the regular characters of the downtown hovel. About-town writer George Gurley—the cuddliest of the nightlife denizens—compiled a "Who's Who" of the "Bea," as it's called by regs. Nothing short of hilarious, he has the juice on everyone: Mary-Kate, Josh Hartnett, Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson, and Kirsten Dunst, who perhaps explained the Bea's celeb draw better than anyone: "[She] once told a regular, 'Don't judge me, guys, don't judge me! I like to have fun too!" Click for full list and map.

Vincent Gallo is known for his colorful insults. When critic Roger Ebert panned the freaky indie actor's film The Brown Bunny, Gallo called him a "fat pig with the physique of a slave trader" and wished cancer on him (success!) Last Friday, our correspondent, downtown scenester and ex-Defamer Molly Friedman, reported Gallo's comments about Sarah Palin's teenage daughters: "[Gallo] said, 'Look, have you seen that Palin family? She is so hot. And her daughters are so hot.' I said, 'Which one, the pregnant one [Bristol, 17] or the younger one [Willow, 14]?' He said, 'Both of them. They're the hottest family I've ever seen.' I said, 'So are you a pedophile? And he said, "I've been called worse things.'" If you feel you've been wrongly designated a pedophile, an extraordinary outburst in the comments section in which you call a pretty girl an "ugly cunt whore" probably isn't the best way to respond.A delightful excerpt:

Wait, is it really the New York Times that assigned at least four reporters to essentially investigate those conspiracy theories about how Sarah Palin didn't really give birth to her son Trig? Because while internet rumors are never mentioned in the Times's lengthy Palin baby story this morning, it's hard to imagine any other reason the newspaper went to such great lengths to write about Palin's fifth and most recent child, despite a lack of cooperation from the Republican vice presidential candidate. The Times has not always been so eager to delve into the private lives of politicians, as John Edwards well knows! The bottom-line on Palin, for those who study intricate flow charts about why she took such a lengthy trip home when childbirth seemed imminent, or wonder why there are precious few photos of her pregnant:

Britney Spears' mom has a tell-all book coming out which is sure to become a Lifetime Network original movie. In it, Lynn Spears accuses the singer's former "manager"—control freak and all around vile-sounding human—Sam Lutfi of grinding up pills and secretly dosing Britney to keep her docile while he insidiously took over her life. He also allegedly threatened that the troubled pop star would be heading to the morgue if he was ever out of the picture: "If you try to get rid of me, she'll be dead and I'll piss on her grave," Lynn says Lutfi told her just days before Britney's forced stay at a psychiatric facility.

Awesome dude Matthew MacConaughey is a man of simple pleasures. He likes to smoke a little something, enjoy a frosty beverage, play some bongos, and ride some tasty waves. So why are his Malibu neighbors getting all, like, uptight and totally hassling bro in the press? His surf buddy fans already did them all the favor of clearing the beach of pesky paparazzi by handing the shutterbugs some righteous beatdowns. Well, it seems the no-fun-loving neighbors are worried about the children. Won't someone please, please think of the children?

Indie actor and proud Republican Vincent Gallo failed to shock and awe with his in-real-life blowjob scene with Chloe Sevigny in The Brown Bunny. But the scruffy about-town Gallo should be more discreet about what he says to people about how "hot" the Palin family daughters are. Our correspondent Molly Friedman ran into him at the Andres Serrano after-party last night:Via Molly:

Time Out New York president Alison Tocci just sent out a memo to the magazine's staff addressing the "anonymous, typo-riddled post on Gossip, I mean, Gawker.com, which alludes to our imminent demise." She confirms TONY's money troubles, which were the subject of our rumormonger post yesterday, but says that the magazine's trusty investors are ponying up cash to ensure that everyone is paid! Within three months. The full zing-y memo:

MSNBC's Rachel "Maddow tried to replace all the staffers who work on the 9 p.m. time slot, which she takes over on Monday, but management refused... 'She is Olbermann's protégé and is behaving like he does.'" [Post]

At what point does empathy for elfin British pop singer Lily Allen begin to dry up? So far this year she's had a miscarriage, broke up with her lover and lost a contract to Agent Provocateur. Last night she got drunk at the GQ Men Of The Year awards, drunkenly told off her co-host Elton John, got in a big fight with her future sister in law and infuriated police by revealing details of a secret kidnapping. Fun to watch (click the video icon to do so), but telling Elton John "fuck off... I'm 40 years younger than you and have my whole life ahead of me: probably does not enhance Allen's chances of retaining her BBC Three show, which she still has not yet lost. Unfortunately, if Allen is on the typical cycle of starlet drunkenness, she has further to fall before the rehab and bounceback. [Daily Mail, Dan News]