News has leaked out about Obama’s choice for education secretary, and it’s…another basketball player! Arne Duncan, the CEO of Chicago’s public school system, is a 6-foot-5-inch Harvard grad who played professional ball in Australia. Aside from his success on the court, he’s “managed the political hat trick of winning praise from the education reform community, the unions, and is well-liked by parents, too,” The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder writes. Duncan is a fan of merit pay for teachers but has still won praise from the American Federation of Teachers, no small feat, and he’s won the blessing of outgoing Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

The weeks of sly hints and endorsements from Kennedy family members are over. Caroline Kennedy is seeking Hillary Clinton’s vacated Senate seat, The New York Times reports, citing an anonymous source. “The decision came after a series of deeply personal and political conversations,” the paper says, adding that Kennedy has retained a consulting firm headed by Chuck Schumer’s former chief of staff.

In a press conference last week, Barack Obama promised to review and make public any connections his campaign had with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Now, his staff is saying that an internal review shows that his team “was not involved in inappropriate discussions” with Blagojevich. An Obama spokesman also said that Obama’s lawyer has kept federal prosecutor afloat of the review in order to ensure cooperation. There’s no word of Rahm Emanuel’s alleged contact with Blagojevich. The details of the review won’t be available until at least the week of December 22, at the request of the prosecutors.

Anthony Pellicano, convicted earlier this year of running an illegal wiretapping operation for clients that included Hollywood celebrities, has been sentenced to 15 years behind bars. The sentence was 10 years longer than the Probation Department’s recommendation. Prosecutors said Pellicano, 64, “violated fundamental privacy rights of hundreds of people and chipped away at the integrity of public institutions,” and he “continues to show nothing but pride for the criminal enterprise he ran.” Among the Hollywood private eye’s clients were Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson, and Chris Rock.

The carnage continues to spread from the collapse of Bernie Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme. The Wall Street Journal this morning adds new names to the star-studded list of financial and charitable customers who will be affected, including the real estate titan Mort Zuckerman, Steven Spielberg's Wunderkinder Foundation, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, and the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. The process of liquidating the firm’s assets could begin today, and an important question will be whether the firm's trading arm, where Mr. Madoff's two sons worked, was truly separate from the money management side implicated in the criminal scheme. "If it was determined that the firms trading arm is independent, it might represent a valuable asset whose sale could benefit investors." Another variable is the Securities Investor Protection Fund a non-profit that may cover as much as $500,000 of losses per customer, small comfort to the blue chip investors who are exposed for billions of dollars that no longer exist.

Ken Salazar has agreed to become President-elect Obama’s secretary of the interior, sources tell The Denver Post. The Colorado senator seems like a good fit to lead the agency, which “plays a key role in issues important to Western states, such as overseeing oil and gas leases,” The Post reports. Salazar apparently was weighing whether taking the interior post would give him more clout than he would have as a senior swing state senator. Pending the result of a background check, he is expected to be announced in his new role later this week.

Shunted aside as a liability during the presidential campaign, Hollywood heavy hitters will be out in force for Obama’s inaugural events. Big names who have donated $50,000, the maximum allowed, to his Presidential Inaugural Committee include Halle Berry, George Soros, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, and Sharon Stone. Top dollar gives donors premium tickets to the official inaugural ball, inaugural parade, swearing-in, and a bunch more inaugural events.

Bernard Madoff’s alleged crimes have been described as a “Ponzi Scheme,” but Peter J. Henning at DealBook suggests they deserve their own title. Unlike Charles Ponzi, who promised to double investors’ money in 90 days, “Mr. Madoff catered to the very rich, promising not great wealth—they already had that—but the steady returns that would keep their assets safe and secure. … Perhaps the brilliance of Mr. Madoff was that, unlike the huckster who takes money from any investor, he turned away any number of investors and did not hawk his investment vehicle to the general public. Indeed, one needed to be invited to invest, and those who received such golden bids were first told to put in just a small amount to ensure they were comfortable with the process.” Most importantly, Madoff retained the power to kick anyone who questioned his power out of the club.

Madonna, welcome to the material world: The pop star's divorce settlement for her eight-year marriage to director Guy Ritchie has been finalized with Madge paying Guy $75 million. (How many indie films can that buy?) The Kabbalah student’s publicist Liz Rosenberg confirmed the news to CNN. Custody of their three children has yet to be decided.

Hours before the Pakistani government cracked down on Lashkar-e-Taiba and its political wing, Jammat-ud-Dawa, Indian reporter Harinda Baweja entered the groups’ headquarters for a fascinating piece in Tehelka. The complex, near Lahore, features a hospital, schools, a madrasa, a mosque, a swimming pool, a turnip farm, a fish-breeding center, and a guest house. Firing ranges were kept out of view, but a neighbor to the complex told Baweja, “But of course it’s a training ground. You can hear slogans for jihad blaring out of loudspeakers in full volume and you can also sometimes hear the sound of gunfire.” Across the country, Jamaat-ud-Dawa operates 140 skills and 29 seminaries. “Unlike the Taliban, the Jamaat is modeled after Hamas and is not merely an army with gun-toting members but a complex and intricate organization with a social and political agenda,” Baweja writes. “It has a huge following and reports have often indicated that in its annual congregations, where Hafiz Sayeed gives a call for jihad, as many as 100,000 people are present in the sprawling Muridke compound.”

Tom Cruise has been blazing a trail through the New York media world in support of his new Nazi epic, Valkyrie, which (finally!) opens on Christmas Day. This morning, he sat down and made nice with Matt Lauer, admitting that his last Today interview (when Tom had some harsh words for Lauer about antidepressants) was “arrogant” and “not what I had intended.” Though he dodged the Scientology questions this morning, he opened up about his religion last night at a screening at Manhattan’s 92nd St Y. “I've studied many, many religions and I think the way that I was raised…I was always raised to have an open mind and to be able to think for myself.” A little less arrogant, but still just cryptic enough. Cruise is back.

For years, authorities say Enrique Portocarrero led a double life as shrimp fisherman and submarine designer in the Pacific coast of Colombia, until he was arrested last month. Law enforcement officers have dubbed him "Captain Nemo," after the dark genius of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, claiming the 45-year-old has designed and built as many as 20 fiberglass submarines for drug traffickers to haul cocaine from southern Colombia to Central America and Mexico. In the last two years, the number of "narco-vessels" used by drug traffickers to evade detection has soared; 15 have been seized or destroyed. Portocarrero's boats were outfitted with complex ballast, communications, and power systems.

Might apple pies play a supporting role in a vampire series? After a whirlwind search, the director of the Twilight sequel has been named, and Chris Weitz is the winner. Previously known for his work directing American Pie and other adaptations About a Boy and The Golden Compass, Weitz takes over New Moon from the booted Catherine Hardwicke. Author Stephenie Meyer wrote about the change on her website this weekend: “Torches and pitchforks are not going to be necessary." No word yet if the relatively tame book series will succumb to a sexy makeover.

Another sign of the recession: the Queen of England has been spotted wearing the same outfit twice, AFP reports. Normally, etiquette dictates that she never re-wear old outfits, but she’s been spotted in Slovakia wearing the same pink wool number she donned for Easter Sunday. The Queen has also insisted that lights in Buckingham Palace be turned off when not in use, and that leftover banquet food is re-used. (The article does not say by whom.) According to Nicholas Davies, author of several books on the monarchy, “It is unlikely that this coming season we will see William and Harry going out to nightclubs, getting blind drunk and fooling around with attractive girls.” At this rate, it will be a miracle if the tabloids stay in print.

In his column about Detroit this morning, Bill Kristol predictably grinds his ax against "political and media elites," but he also has a keen critique of the GOP. "The right hasn't really been stirred to enthusiastically promote a deregulatory agenda to help the auto companies," he writes. "What excites it is mobilizing to oppose bailouts for unionized workers." Senate Republicans opposed the auto bailout because of pay scales, Kristol writes, "despite the fact that it's the legacy benefits for retirees, not pay for current workers, that's really hurting Detroit, and despite the additional fact that, in any case, labor amounts to only about 10 percent of the cost of a car." The result was the failure of an auto bailout that would have forced concessions from all sides.

Oscar season is here, but New Yorker film critic David Denby isn't pulling his punches. Writing on the new film Revolutionary Road, an adaptation of a Richard Yates novel, Denby says, "It is honorably and brutally unnerving. Yet it may suffer, as only an awards-season movie can, from the illusion that pain and art are the same thing." The movie nails the look and feel of the 1950s and has strong performances from Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. But “there’s a sourness, a relentlessness about the movie which borders on misanthropy." By the end, director Sam Mendes has even damaged Yates’ novel: "By schematizing the book's relationships and by cutting away Yates's extraordinary precision, psychological nuance, and eloquent sorrows, Mendes has, I think, unwittingly revealed something unconvincing about the material."

The rest of the country typically bemoans New York's ability to love itself, but in light of the city's recent struggles, the Big Apple could use a boost to its self esteem. This week, New York Magazine publishes its annual "Reasons to Love New York" list. Among the entries: "Obama is one of us, despite all that business about Chicago"; "Eli is now the Manning"; "Because you can catch a world class-fish in the shadow of skyscrapers"; and because sentences like this, from Joseph O'Neill, are written about the city: "Sometimes to walk in shaded parts of Manhattan is to be inserted into a Magritte: the street is night while the sky is day." We are humbled and honored that the mag included The Daily Beast and its proprietor.

The Guggenheim Bilbao, architect Frank Gehry's masteriece of twisted titanium, has been dulled by allegations of financial mismanagement, The Guardian reports. Among its woes: The museum's former financial director is on trial for embezzling 500,000 euros over the last decade; a misjudged currency deal lost the institution another seven million euros; and there have accusations that the museum paid too much for pieces in its current collection, such as a Jeff Koons’ puppy sculpture. The museum’s director, Juan Ignacio Vidarte, said the sudden coverage of the museum's troubles was part of a ploy by opposition parties before upcoming elections to make the Basque government look bad. The opposition is looking for an excuse to take greater control of the museum, he said, which is the only museum in Basque country that does not run on public funds.

The only thing worse than watching a stand up comedian bomb, apparently, is teaching a would-be bomber to be a comic. The Times of London reports on Al Queda prisoners in Britain--including Zia Ul Haq, who was convicted in a dirty bomb plot--who were getting stand up comedy lessons. Jack Straw, the Justice Minister, called the course "totally unacceptable... Prisons should be a place of punishment and reform." The course has run for decades, but the fact that it is being taught to convicts connected to terrorist plots has made it a political lighting rod. The comedy school has support from high profile British comedians like Felix Dexter, from the TV show Absolutely Fabulous. "The governor warned me that there were murderers and people with disturbed personalities in the audience," said Dexter of his October performance at Whitemoor Prison in Cambridgeshire. "That sounded like a typical Saturday night crowd." The story points out that similar courses are run in prisons across the nation.

The bankruptcy of KB toys last week marks the end of a tenacious business that adapted to the changing landscape of American commerce over the course of 86 years. Begun by the Kaufman Brothers as a candy store, the company changed course during the sugar shortages of World War II, eventually transitioning entirely into a toy store for the burgeoning youth of the Baby Boomers. Other retail chains jumped on the bandwagon, "[b]ut KB stayed in business by focusing its expansion on another wholly American trend: the shopping mall." Missteps: refusing to carry toy guns and most importantly, walking away from video games. "As a discount wholesaler, KB stocks neither the hot, new toys nor the action-packed video games that kids want." In the end, KB was a model for how a business can evolve with times, or be left behind.

The New York Post's description of a "blind rage" may be overstating things just a bit, but New York Gov. David Paterson was none too pleased with his impersonation this weekend on Saturday Night Live. The skit featured Fred Armisen playing Paterson, who is blind, as directionless and holding signs upside down. "I can take a joke," Paterson insisted to reporters, but then complained that the spoof was a "third-grade depiction of people and the way they look" and it might give the impression that "disability goes hand-in-hand with an inability to run a government or business." The New York Times reports that Paterson’s new plan to trim the state’s deficit includes taxes on furs, boats, and soft drinks.

Maybe Barack Obama is beefing up so that, should talks without preconditions deteriorate, he can go mano-a-mano with Hugo Chavez. Politico reports that the president-elect has been spotted so frequently at the gym at Regents Park residential towers, which are near the University of Chicago, that college students hardly flinch anymore when they see him. The complex's security chief is tight-lipped about Obama's routine: "I can't tell you." But Jonathan Martin spotted "a collection of in-demand new workout machines, including elliptical machines, stair-climbers, and a row of stationary bikes with a view out onto Lakeshore Drive and Lake Michigan." Among the residents of Regents Park is Obama aide Michael Signator, which may explain why Obama chose the building for his workouts.

“Salar is the new Fallujah,” a Taliban commander tells a reporter from The Guardian who visited the Afghan city, which is 50 miles south of Kabul. "The Americans and Afghan army control the highway, and five meters on each side. The rest is our territory.” Over three years, the commander’s ranks have grown from 6 to 500 soldiers. The Taliban is focusing on “controlling the countryside, establishing an alternative administration and squeezing the cities by eroding the government control.” According to The Guardian, “Many say the civilian apparatus of the Taliban-run districts operates a more effective justice system than the government's, which is corrupt and inefficient.”

Rod Blagojevich is a persona non grata just about everywhere these days (federal penitentiary notwithstanding), but New York Gov. David Paterson might want to take a page from his Illinois colleague’s book. “What if Gov. Paterson,” Hendrik Hertzberg asks in this week’s New Yorker, “prompted by the squalor of his Illinois colleague’s maneuverings, were to put aside mundane calculations and take full advantage of his theoretically unfettered freedom of choice?” So far, the list of candidates “is as strikingly unimaginative as if the choice were being made in the usual way—i.e., by the people, as mediated through and manipulated by party primaries, fundraising prowess, non-stop polling, ethnic entitlement, and regional balancing.” Hertzberg has a list of suggestions, including Lou Reed, Paul Krugman, and Joe Torre (“No one who ever spent the equivalent of two Senate terms in a complex, ceaselessly scrutinized job in New York has ever done it better than Joe Torre did as manager of the Yankees”). “All fantasy, of course,” Hertzberg writes. “But not so fantastical as Rod Blagojevich’s notion that a seat in the United States Senate was his for the selling.”

Amid the Tribune Companyy’s bankruptcy and the struggles of newspapers in general, James Surowiecki points out an important irony: “The peculiar fact about the current crisis is that even as big papers have become less profitable they’ve arguably become more popular. The blogosphere, much of which piggybacks on traditional journalism’s content, has magnified the reach of newspapers, and although papers now face far more scrutiny, this is a kind of backhanded compliment to their continued relevance. … The real problem for newspapers, in other words, isn’t the Internet; it’s us. We want access to everything, we want it now, and we want it for free. That’s a consumer’s dream, but eventually it’s going to collide with reality: if newspapers’ profits vanish, so will their product.”

Amidst all the Broadway closings, those looking to catch a musical this winter will have at least one new option: Shrek the Musical. Ben Brantley at The New York Times has a surprising review: "Shrek, for the record, is not bad." Unlike Disney's Tarzan and Little Mermaid musicals, "Shrek has the virtues of a comprehensible plot and identifiable characters." That doesn't exactly make it great. Among the play's several problems, Brantley notes the awkwardness of "having to dress up to resemble fantasy illustrations, a process that, to put it kindly, tends to cramp expressive acting." Brian d'Aracy James, who plays Shrek, is "so encumbered with padding and prosthetics that your instinct is to rush the stage and tap his head to see if he's really in there." In order to play the story's diminutive villain, Christopher Sieber must walk around on his knees. "What with a whole phalanx of bedtime-story archetypes … the show starts to feel like a Christmas panto, one of those silly seasonal shows beloved in Britain and bearable because, like Santa Claus, they come around only once a year."

Google's policy is to avoid being evil, but the company is not above asking for a little preferential treatment. According to The Wall Street Journal, Google, traditionally one of the strongest voices for equal access to the net, is looking to pay for a "fast track" that will carry its content at higher speeds than other Internet sites." "If we did this, Washington would be on fire," said one executive from a cable company in talks with Google about establishing an express lane for the company's content. Google is not alone. As the cost of network traffic grows, especially with the explosion of online video, phone and cable companies are arguing that content providers should share in the cost, perhaps by paying for privileged treatment. The issue will test the resolve of President-elect Obama, who said in a speech last year at Google headquarters: "The Internet is perhaps the most open network in history, and we have to keep it that way. I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality."

The image of a confused President Bush ducking a sailing shoe while Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki reaches out to protect him will likely go down as one of the indelible images of Bush's waning days. So who was the thrower? Muntathar Al Zaidi is a 29-year-old Iraqi reporter for the Cairo-based Baghdadiyah Television. According to friends, Zaidi covered and was "emotionally influenced by" the American bombings of Sadr City in Baghdad earlier this year and was also kidnapped by Shiite gunmen in 2007 and held for three days. "This is a goodbye kiss, you dog," Zaidi shouted as he threw his shoe at Bush. He shouted "killer of Iraqis, killer of children," from the bottom of the secret-service scrum that engulfed him, and then, "my hand, my hand." Zaidi's television network demanded his immediate release.

“With his lanky 6-foot, 2-inch frame, basketball-toned physique, and sophisticated élan, Barack Obama has all the makings of a presidential style icon”—so writes Women’s Wear Daily, which recently commissioned over 50 menswear designers to sketch out their ideal suit for Obama to wear for inauguration events. All styles are represented, from Thom Browne’s slim-fitting black minisuit to a Casablanca-esque white tux submitted by P. Diddy and the Sean John camp. If anything, the fact that so many designers participated and sent in inspired looks shows just how much the fashion world goes nuts for the president-elect—and how much they all want to be the one to dress him up.

Among those most relieved by Rod Blagojevich's indictment may, in fact, be his staff. According to The New York Times, in the run-up to his indictment, Blagojevich routinely showed up late and berated employees. Upon learning that an employee's step-father had suffered a stroke, Blago asked if that man's family would donate to his campaign; he screamed "You're trying to sabotage my career!" at staff members when his daughters took too long to put on their shoes, making him late for a tree-lighting ceremony; and, he was inordinately concerned about his hair, flying into a rage whenever his Paul Mitchell hair brush, which he referred to as "the football," was out of reach. The Times also reports that, in 2004, Blagojevich was certain that he would be chosen as John Kerry's vice presidential nominee, but he was unsure if he wanted the position. Today’s Chicago Sun-Times has a source saying that Blago, who met with his defense attorney yesterday, has decided not to resign.

Andre Agassi was never much for mixed doubles. The tennis star has been thrust into an ugly conflict between his old friend and business partner Perry Rogers and his wife, tennis star Steffi Graf. Rogers is suing Graf for a relatively small amount, $50,000, but the proceedings are throwing the couples finances open to the public. "'It's like a divorce in many ways," said Agassi, who announced in October that he would be ending his businesses partnership with Rogers. "I certainly love my wife more than life itself and will be there for her during this time." Graf became more invovled in Agassi's finances after her own father was sentenced to prison for tax evasion. It quickly became apparent that there was no love lost between Graf and Rogers, and the fact that few details have emerged about the nature of the conflict has only added fuel to the fire. “The nastiest Las Vegas break-up in years has the city buzzing with speculation."

After “Mission Accomplished,” we had hoped that presidential publicity stunts aboard large vehicles would be retired. Apparently, that was wishful thinking. USA Today reports that Barack Obama plans to kick off his inauguration with a train ride from Philadelphia—stopping in Wilmington to pick up Joe Biden—to Baltimore, and then to Washington, D.C. The paper fails to point this out—though Team Obama certainly had this in mind—that Abraham Lincoln famously toured the country by train on the way to his inauguration.

Buoyed by the strength of opening numbers for the Meryl Streep- and Philip Seymour Hoffman-helmed Doubt and Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino, which opened with $284,000 on only six screens, the independent box office enjoyed one of its biggest weekends ever. A combination of Golden Globe nominations and year-end lists released by critics groups also boosted Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, and Frost/Nixon despite showing on a few hundred theaters each. Although The Day the Earth Stood Still topped the box office this weekend, so-called “specialty” titles are expected to draw crowds as they expand in the coming weeks.

Publishing doyenne Judith Regan is (again) none too pleased with professional goader Michael Wolff. Prior to his writing The Man Who Owns the News, a biography of Rupert Murdoch, Wolff asked for comments from Regan. (Regan was fired from Murdoch-owned HarperCollins over the O.J. Simpson memoir If I Did It…) Regan refused, and Wolff’s subsequent portrayal of her included the phrases “a nut," "unemployable anywhere else," and "a reviled figure”—all of which are leading her to talk lawsuit. Their turmoil is long-lived, with Regan telling the Daily News, “Michael Wolff has been obsessed with me and my sex life for close to 30 years. I'm finally going to give him what he wants—he's going to get [bleeped] by Judith Regan." That’s something two writers should recognize: fighting words.