Meg Ryan hailing a cab on Houston Street ... Joan Rivers leaving lunch at Michael's with her new boyfriend, Perfect 10 magazine founder Norm Zada ... Whitney Port walking in the West Village ... Agyness Deyn leaving Souen on Sixth Avenue after having lunch with friends ... Taylor Momsen waving to fans on the set of Gossip Girl in Brooklyn ... Courtney Love walking in SoHo ... Sophia Bush and boyfriend Austin Nichols at LaGuardia ... Elle Macpherson leaning on a police car on the set of The Beautiful Life ... Hugh Grant leaving a photo shoot ... Diane Kruger getting out of a limo in Midtown, and later arriving at MTV in Times Square ... Tyra Banks talking on her phone during a break from taping her show in Union Square ... and Mischa Barton taking her dog for a walk .

Demi and Rumer enjoy some male stripper action, Jessica Simpson angles for an American Idol gig, the fate of Michael Jackson's corpse remains a creepy mystery, Lady Gaga abuses men, Britney sports a new bikini, and Hugh Grant contemplates retirement.

• George Michael is back in the news and, as usual, it has nothing to do with his music. The singer was arrested on Friday for driving drunk when he crashed his car into a truck. Michael, however, is insisting he was sober at the time. So maybe he's just a bad driver? [NYDN, E!]
• Is Joe Simpson trying to push the producers of American Idol to hire Jessica Simpson to replace Paula Abdul? That's the rumor. [P6]
• Amy Winehouse's soon-to-be ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil says the singer has been "begging him to get back together." Uh oh. [DM]
• Beyoncé has been brushing up on her dance skills by "secretly" enrolling in ballet lessons at the Alvin Ailey School of Dance. [NYDN]

Alessandra Ambrosio leaving Bar Pitti with daughter Anja Louise ... Penn Badgley talking on his cell phone in the Village ... Jessica Biel dropping off a package at a FedEx ... Beyonce leaving JFK ... Whitney Port eating lunch in the West Village ... Kathy Griffin leaving her hotel in Midtown ... Ashley Olsen walking downtown ... Heather Locklear arriving at JFK with boyfriend Jack Wagner ... Robert Pattinson getting in a taxi ... Kate Hudson leaving her West Village home with son Ryder ... Rihanna going to a Black Eyed Peas concert at The Griffin ... Alec Baldwin drinking coffee with a friend in Bridgehampton ... Sarah Jessica Parker eating breakfast at Morandi ... John Stamos wandering around ... Hugh Grant leaving a downtown restaurant with a "mystery woman" ... Jeff Goldblum and Rachel McAdams hanging out on the set of Morning Glory ... Gerard Butler walking around ... Nick Jonas arriving at LaGuardia ... and Jessica Simpson going to dinner at La Esquina.

• Is Madonna leaning on her friends to hire boy-toy Jesus Luz so he can remain in the country legally? It's possible! [P6]
• Tyra Banks is expected to take the stand this week at the trial of the man accused of stalking her and threatening her staff. [NYDN, NYP]
• Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are sending their attorneys after the couple's former bodyguard to ensure he doesn't write a tell-all about life in the Brangelina home. [NYDN]
• Salma Hayek and Francois-Henri Pinault had a second wedding in Venice this weekend; guests on hand for the occasion included Anna Wintour, Ed Norton, Stella McCartney, Bono, Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Lucy Liu, Penelope Cruz, and Javier Bardem. [NYDN, People]
• Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt tied the knot this weekend, too, although the event featured fewer A-listers and many more MTV cameras. [People]

• Madonna's most recent effort to change hearts and minds in Malawi: She pleaded her case in a letter to the country's Nation newspaper, writing that she wants to provide Mercy "with a home, a loving family environment and the best education and health care possible." [Us, NYP]
• Madonna may want to take a cue from Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt: The couple had their adoption request turned down by Bhutan recently, but they're now moving on to the Philippines, according to Britain's Daily Mail. [NYDN]
• Kipton Cronkite's life appears to be headed downhill: The art world scenester has lost his job and apartment, and he's living rent-free with a rich teenager on the Lower East Side. [P6]
• Ruth Madoff will have to find a new stylist: She's been banned from the Pierre Michel Salon "out of respect for the salon's other customers." [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan's mental condition isn't improving: Friends now say she "barely sleeps" anymore, and she "can't even sit down for a minute without pacing around the room." [People]

[Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker filming their new movie in New York; image via Splash]

Spring is so romantic: Hugh Grant is making out with random pairs of women again, Rihanna is being wooed by Fez from That '70s Show and Britney Spears rekindled an old affair with Twinkies.

• Things aren't looking up for Damon Dash. He's lost a fortune recently and is buried under a mountain of debt. Now it looks like he's losing his wife, too: Rachel Roy just slapped the hip hop mogul with divorce papers. [NYDN]
• David Letterman and his longtime girlfriend Regina Lasko got married last week. [NYP, Us]
• Courtenay Semel, daughter of media mogul Terry Semel and occasional girlfriend of Casey Johnson, has checked into rehab. [P6]
• The real reason behind Jen Aniston and John Mayer's split? Jen was supposedly sick of his "obsession" with Twitter. Naturally. [Sun, Telegraph]

Hugh Grant just wants your extra time and your kiss. Seriously, that's absolutely all he wants. Unlike George Clooney, who wants you to abdicate a political empire.

• Poor Gwynnie will have to brave V-Day alone, since Chris Martin's on tour and she's not sure what continent he's on. [NYDN]
• Chris Brown left Las Vegas yesterday, where he'd been holed up at the Hard Rock. He also updated his Facebook page, changing his status to single and writing, "You'll begin to see her true colors. Believe it!" [NYP, E!]
• Jesus Luz, Madonna's 22-year-old "special friend," is now into Kabbalah. [P6]
• Joaquin Phoenix is still running around town acting crazy; it's still unclear if he's drugged out of his mind or if it's just a big hoax. [NYDN]

• Tom Cruise tried to impress a group of reporters at a press event in Brazil by speaking Spanish instead of Portuguese. Nice one, Tom. [P6]
• Etta James is no fan of Beyonce. She told a crowd in Seattle that she "can't stand" the singer, and that she "had no business" singing "At Last" at Obama's inauguration two weeks ago. Oh, and she's "gonna get her ass whupped," if she keeps singing Etta's songs, too. [NYDN, OK!]
• Paris Hilton wants to date a "big-money man" in LA, but she isn't having much success finding one who's willing to be seen with her in public. [P6]

· Hugh Grant has abandoned Lost For Words, a comedy about a British actor who falls in love with his Chinese-speaking director, played by Ziyi Zhang. A spokesman blames creative differences—shorthand for, "Look, the script stank, OK? Imagine Music & Lyrics, but you can't understand what the fuck Drew Barrymore is saying. I mean, more so than usual." [Variety] · Cartoon Network is developing NASTYbook—a children's book series of twisted tales like the one about the "Internet-trolling witch"—into a CGI film, repackaged as Dr. Laura: The Movie. Eep! [THR] After the jump: Advantage, SAG!· SAG is playing "hot potato" with the strike issue: They've asked for a federal mediator, putting off a strike-approval vote and essentially placing the ball back into the producers' court. Variety's apostrophes, meanwhile, are in Day 18 of their little-known Firefox-only labor stoppage, crippling the world's leading trade paper until editor Peter Bart agrees to to their demands for better working conditions in his rough drafts. [Variety, THR] · A.C.O.D. (Adult Children of Divorce), a divorce comedy feature from two Daily Show writers, is being developed by Miramax. [THR] · A long Jets-Raiders game gave CBS the win last night, edging out ABC's Desperate-led lineup. [Variety]

Mario Batali turns 48 today. Congrats, big fella! Other folks who will be blowing out candles today: Actress Michelle Williams is 28. Adam Sandler is turning 42. Hugh Grant is 48. Dreamy big band singer Michael Buble is 33. Tom Wopat, the Dukes of Hazzard dude who later turned to Broadway, is 57. And model (and Rod Stewart ex) Rachel Hunter is 39.

• It's not that Kevin Spacey wanted to pull down his friend's boxer shorts so much as that Croatian nightclub tradition basically required him to do so. [LA Rag Mag]

• Alec Baldwin lashes out at the family court system in his book, not his ex-wife Kim Basinger. He takes care of her at live party appearances: "My ex-wife reaches an almost sexual level of satisfaction when she's in a room full of high-priced lawyers." [Showbiz Spy]

Other the standard rom-com plot problems with Notting Hill, like two strangers falling in love, the biggest hole in this movie is Hugh Grant's job as the owner of a travel book store. I suppose it's endearing, but really it just makes no sense. His inventory would need to be restocked constantly. And who would even frequent this shop? In travel books, you want information, not obscurity. And the best can be just as easily acquired at any independently owned shop as from Hugh Grant's character's specialty store. Yes, I realize this movie came out in 1999. I'm just saying.

The bad news for Eliot Spitzer is that he's been linked to a prostitution ring. But the good news is that it's a high-class prostitution ring. He's not the first public person to get caught having inappropriate sex, and he won't be the last. Spitzer's reputation as the moral Governor may be over — and our idealization of Spitzer ended before this scandal — but that doesn't mean his career is. In the case of sex scandal, there are three models Spitzer can follow.

Hugh Grant bought an Andy Warhol painting of Liz Taylor in 2001 for $3.6 million, which sold at Christie's auction yesterday for $21 million—less than the $25 million it was valued at, but still a tidy profit of over $17 million. Those sums were dwarfed, however, by Lot 66401: Suri's First Poop, which took in a staggering $147 million from a private collector in Southeast Asia. [timesonline]

One's already been arrested, one's still an international fugitive of justice. Both stand accused of crimes of passion, but one's weapon of choice was a container of baked beans, the other's his famously supple lips. One's an incurable nervous stutterer, the other's silky smooth.