Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• Are Kate Hudson and Alex Rodriguez engaged? The actress was spotted wearing a big diamond on her ring finger this week, which means "either A-Rod is making it official, or Ms. Hudson made some very careless jewelry choices." [NYDN]
• It's the battle of the Bravo reality TV stars on Twitter: Bethenny Frankel says Rachel Zoe is "self-important." Zoe claims Frankel is "insane" and "desperate for attention." Of course, you may find it hard to take sides here, since both of them seem to be making perfectly valid points about one another. [NYDN, Jezebel]
• Poor Gwyneth Paltrow suffered a little wardrobe malfunction while going through security at the Barcelona airport yesterday. [Sun]More

• 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]More

• Jude Law's rep says that the actor recently found out that he's expecting a fourth child. The mom? She's "an unidentified former lover." Congrats? [EW, People]
• It was less than two weeks ago that Mischa Barton was put under psychiatric care after she going on a drug-fueled bender and suffering a breakdown. Now she's in NYC, putting in long hours playing a character with a drug problem. Maybe this isn't the best idea? [NYDN]

• Poor J. Lo. She threw a big 40th birthday party for herself over the weekend and some guests actually had the nerve to show up late! [NYDN]
• It's been a rough ride for Kate Major, the former Star reporter who said she was Jon Gosselin were in love. On Saturday, Gosselin said he was single; on Sunday, the tabloids suggested Major was a former escort. So now she's supposedly planning to get revenge by writing a tell-all. [People, NYDN, NYDN]
• In other Gosselin news, he was seen buying himself $950 wingtips over the weekend, or "two pairs of shoes for each of his kids." [P6]
• Although they've been dating for months now (and haven't exactly been doing a very good job of keeping their relationship a secret), Kate Hudson and A-Rod went public with their romance on Saturday. [NYDN]More

• The police were called to Mischa Barton's home yesterday and she was escorted out of the house so she could be treated for some sort of "medical issue." Her condition hasn't been disclosed yet, but we're going to go ahead and assume it wasn't a case of seasonal allergies. [Sun]
• Bethenny Frankel may be giving up her spot on the Real Housewives next season so she can star in a Bravo show of her own. Neither Frankel and Bravo were willing to confirm the news, though, so we're going to keep our fingers crossed and hope this is just a crazy rumor that has no basis in reality, okay? [P6]
• Kim Kardashian almost got stranded in Africa when she couldn't locate her passport. The operative word there is "almost": Sadly, boyfriend Reggie Bush found it a few minutes later, so she was able to return to the U.S. [People] More

• It seems Rihanna and Chris Brown have reunited: The two have been holed up at Diddy's Star Island mansion since late last week and are now "focusing on a reconciliation." Not surprisingly, fans have been a little bit dismayed by the news. [NYDN, People, Reuters]
• Why didn't Katie Holmes walk the red carpet at the Oscars? She's on an "intense detox diet" that has left her "lethargic," poor thing. [NYDN]
• Sumner Redstone is reportedly dating a former flight attendant who is six decades his junior. [R&M]More

• Is Madonna's relationship with Jesus Luz purely platonic? The two are "quite close and cuddly, but not exactly romantic," and Jesus was spotted at a Kabbalah service "playing around more with Rocco than paying attention to Madonna," which can't be a good sign. [E!]
• Did marrying Tom Cruise ruin Katie Holmes' chances of ever having a movie career? Is Tom's sister secretly handling his PR even though she pretends to just be his assistant? So many questions! [Fox 411, P6]
• Amy Winehouse's estranged husband Blake Fielder-Civil was released from jail yesterday. [The Sun]
• Martha Stewart's old friend Sam Waksal is now out of a halfway house and "ready to get back to work trying to find a cure for cancer." [NYDN]More

• Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and his new girlfriend, Helen May, first met during an Outward Bound trip to Machu Picchu in 2005, according to May's husband, Kevin Ward. "I'm just sorry my wife didn't find someone more substantial. There's way less there than meets the eye." [P6]
• Etta James says she "didn't really mean" the stuff about Beyonce; she's still "miffed" at Obama for not inviting her to the inauguration. [NYDN]
• Kelly Cutrone inked a deal with Bravo for a new reality show. [P6]
• Russell Simmons is reportedly dating model Julie Henderson. [NYDN]More

• Donny Deutsch has been caught fooling around with a married woman. Or at least that's what hedge fund manager Andrew Sandler claims, who hired a private detective to follow his wife Lisa around and eventually scored pics of the two of them making out. [P6]
• Jennifer Aniston appears naked on the cover of the new GQ, and in the accompanying article she says her relationship with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is like an "insane Bermuda Triangle." Meanwhile, Brad admits to the new Rolling Stone that he fell in love with Angie while he was still married to Jen. [NYP, Daily Mail]
• Rachel Zoe's rep says the only reason she's been looking so thin lately is because she "just got over the stomach flu." Right. [OK!]More

♦ Mary-Kate Olsen was "acting very oddly" during her stay in Miami for Art Basel. After getting into a fight with Kirsten Dunst at a party at the Delano on Wednesday night, MK—who "looked like she had not brushed her hair in a week"—spent the weekend drinking, chain-smoking, and hanging out with boyfriend Nate Lowman, which means she's probably not pregnant. [P6, P6]
♦ Lindsay Lohan went to a party for Milk without Samantha Ronson last week, where she was spotted nuzzling with Sean Penn. [Fox 411]
♦ Amy Winehouse's husband Blake Fielder-Civil is reportedly threatening to write a tell-all book about Winehouse unless she gives him $1.7 million in the divorce settlement. [NYP]
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♦ 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]More

♦ Hockey star/former Vogue intern Sean Avery was suspended from the NHL indefinitely yesterday following "inappropriate public comments" about ex-girlfriend Elisha Cuthbert. "It's become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds," he said referring to Cuthbert's relationship with fellow hockey player Dion Phaneuf. [NYP]
♦ Britney Spears celebrated her birthday and album release yesterday by lip-synching her way through a performance on GMA and then heading off to Tenjune, where she partied with the likes of Heidi Klum and Lance Bass. The comeback may be short-lived: She's still abusing prescription drugs and is "plagued by insomnia and shaking fits," at least according to the Star.  [The Sun, ThisIsLondon, Star]
♦ Blake Fielder-Civil, Amy Winehouse's estranged husband, just got out of prison. But now it looks like a return trip is in store. [Mirror, Daily Mail]More

♦  Is Naomi Campbell planning a secret wedding with her Russian boyfriend Vladimir Doronin later this month? Her reps say no, although the new emerald and diamond ring she sported in Miami this past weekend seems to suggest otherwise. [Mirror, NYDN, DS]
♦  Alex Rodriguez had a busy Thanksgiving. He spent half of Thursday with his ex-wife and kids and the other half with Madonna before jetting off to Mexico City with Madge. [NYDN, NYP]
♦  Amy Winehouse's estranged husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, says he was responsible for turning his wife into a junkie, and that he has to "let her go to save her life." [NYDN, People]
♦  Giants star Plaxico Burress, who shot himself in the leg while partying at Latin Quarter on Friday night, turned himself in this morning. [NYP, Newsday] More

♦  Amy Winehouse's loving, supporting marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil appears to be over. Now free from police custody, Blake appears to have taken up with a German model named Sophie Schandorff, which means Amy will have to find someone else to fulfill her sex fanatasiesd described as "too gross" to "mention in a newspaper." [P6, NOTW]
♦  Chef Gordon Ramsay has been carrying on an affair with "Britain's most famous mistress" for the past seven years. Allegedly. [NYP]
♦  Michael Jackson and the sheik who sued him last week for $7 million have a reached a settlement.  [NYDN]
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♦  Now that she doesn't have Guy Ritchie to boss around, Madonna is finding more time to control everyone else: She's supposedly been "begging" Gwyneth Paltrow to leave her London home so they can spend more time together in New York. She's also busy orchestrating a reunion between Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears: All three will be performing together at Madge's concert in LA tonight. [The Sun, E!]
♦  Padma Lakshmi is apparently on a "man-search" for a filthy rich boyfriend now that her flings with Ted Forstmann and Russell Simmons are over. [P6]
♦  Now that the election is over, Tina Fey says she will be officially retiring her Sarah Palin impression. [Extra]More