Last quarter, Bernie Sanders’ campaign paid $625 to actor and careless man Mark Ruffalo. We wanted to know... why?

Contrary to popular belief, journalists take couture very seriously. In journalism school,* young journalistos and journalistas are educated on appropriate fashion choices—garments they can move and be comfortable in, in case they have to run from a cop, attend a lengthy court hearing, or sit and blog for nine hours.**

It's not entirely clear how Mark Ruffalo's amazing anecdote about accidentally smoking pot on stage slipped through the Internet's cracks the first time around, but, luckily, it's being given a second chance to make your day so much better.

Every day, girl. Love in the afternoon every day. Well, five days a week at least. Also today: Dr. Drew continues to be employed, the always welcome Angela Bassett lands a role, and Jim Belushi is doing just fine.

As the Winslet-Mendes marriage fell apart, Kate "freaked out" over her Mendes-directed sex scenes with Leonardo. Snooki on sobering up in jail: "It happens to the best of us." Tuesday gossip is a matter of opinion.

A mystery hunk is gay. And he's going to announce it to the world on 90210. Also today: David O. Russell storms off another set, Sela Ward is given a gun and a badge, and Dustin Hoffman's new TV career.

That's a lot of money! Anguilla must be so embarrassed. Also today: Meryl Streep as the Iron Lady, two vampiresses team up to kill people, Judd Apatow heads to the Playhouse, and Scream finds another victim.

Give Joe Biden a high five. The Vice President of the United States turns 67 today. (Let's all hope he gets through the day without any more accidents.) The oldest member of Congress, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, turns 92 today. Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton is 61. Mike D of the Beastie Boys turns 44. Joel McHale of The Soup and Community is turning 38. Pat Kiernan of NY1 is turning 41. Actress Sean Young is 50. Bo Derek turns 53. Author Don DeLillo is turning 73. TV anchor Judy Woodruff turns 63. Avant-garde performer Meredith Monk is 67. Tween star Cody Linley turns 20. Former Eagles member Joe Walsh is turning 62. And Mark Gastineau, the retired football star and father of Brittny, is 53. Below: A few folks celebrating birthdays this weekend, including Scarlett Johansson and Tina Brown.

"Basically he wasn't under the influence," the Coroner's Office told reporters today after releasing the Scott Ruffalo toxicology report findings . Still, "faint traces" of cocaine, alcohol and morphine were detected.

Today brought news in two murder cases: the death of Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and nephew, and the mysterious shooting of Mark Ruffalo's brother, Scott.

Los Angeles detectives have officially determined that the death of actor Mark Ruffalo's brother Scott was indeed a homicide. They initially arrested a suspect earlier this month, a friend of Ruffalo's named Shaha Adham, but she was later released. Then she popped up on TMZ and reiterated her innocence. She claims (or claimed at one time) that Ruffalo shot himself while playing a game of Russian roulette. In the back of the head. [People]

More developments in the strange death of actor Mark Ruffalo's brother Scott. Supposedly police aren't buying the whole "Russian Roulette" story given to them by the "Saudi princess," Shaha Mishaal Adham. Can't trust foreigners!

The director of the long-delayed Adrien Brody/Mark Ruffalo caper flick The Brothers Bloom confirmed today that his film was pushed back once again — this time to May — for better "counter-programming" chances. Really?

Neurotic funnyman Ben Stiller is replacing rumpled sadsack Mark Ruffalo in Squid and the Whale auteur Noah Baumbach's next feature, Greenberg. Maybe because of the tragic and, um, nutty death of Ruffalo's brother this week.

From Us Weekly, this bit: "Mark Ruffalo dropped out of the dramatic feature film, Greenburg, and will be replaced by Ben Stiller. It is unclear why Ruffalo — whose brother, Scott Ruffalo, passed away late Monday from a self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head — backed out of the project." MAYBE THAT'S WHY, Us Weekly. [Us]

Shaha Mishaal Adham, the "Saudi princess" who had turned herself in in connection with the shooting of Mark Ruffalo's little brother Scott Ruffalo—who died yesterday—was released last night.

♦ It's not just creditors going after Donald Trump these days: An employee of Trump's golf course in LA says in a lawsuit that the club prohibited her from taking lunch and bathroom breaks. She's only asking for $15,000, though, so obviously she didn't learn much during her stint working for the real estate mogul. [TMZ]
♦ A lawyer for Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos says there's "not a shred of truth" to the rumors the couple is splitting up. [OK!]
♦ Britney Spears' birthday party didn't exactly go as planned. None of her close friends showed up and onlookers say she spent the whole time looking "vacant" and "empty." [R&M, P6]
♦ NBC is furious that news of David Gregory's Meet the Press promotion leaked earlier this week. The likely culprit? NBC political director Chuck Todd. [P6]

Tina Brown's party earlier this week to celebrate the launch of her new site, The Daily Beast, could have just as easily served as an early birthday bash: The famed editor turns 55 today. Indie film powerhouse Christine Vachon is turning 46. Bjork is 43. Goldie Hawn is 63. Publicist Mara Buxbaum is 41. Retired football player Michael Strahan is celebrating his 37th. Actress Cherry Jones is 52. Real estate developer Daniel Brodsky is 44. Norman Siegel, civil rights lawyer and perennial candidate for public office, is 65. Congresswoman Yvette Clark is 44. Nicollette Sheridan is 45. And actress Marlo Thomas is 71. Weekend birthdays after the jump.

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: 10/20, lunchtime — Spotted Mark Ruffalo with a blonde woman and cute little girl (his daughter?) hanging out by the Loteria! Mexican food place at Farmer's Market. They went to the rad sticker store, where he helped the kid decide between Dora the Explorer and Wall-E stickers. It would have been too obvious to walk in behind them (the store's pretty tiny), so I don't know what they ended up picking — sorry. He's scruffy, with surpisingly gray hair, and smaller than expected (natch). An awesome lunchtime sighting. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

You really can't make this stuff up: If it's not the developmentally disabled failing to grasp the point of Tropic Thunder's "full-retard" satire, then it's the blind protesting a movie they can't even see. Or so says the president of the National Federation of the Blind, who sat in on a recent screening of the Julianne Moore/Mark Ruffalo film Blindness with a few sighted allies, only to emerge outraged over the depiction of townspeople reduced to madness and violence when struck by a blindness epidemic. Based on Nobel laureate Jose Saramago's novel, the film actually reflects the author's metaphor of sudden, corrupted social order; little did Saramago know he was actually composing the Simple Jack of modern literary allegories. We mean it! Take back his Nobel Prize! And boycott Blindness, while you're at it; that's the least you could do for a guy with grievances (after the jump) like NFB boss Marc Maurer's: