Esquire

Hearst Corp. today acquired Esquire magazine from Phillip Moffitt, its editor-in-chief and president, for an undisclosed price reported to be around $80 million. Esquire Magazine Group Inc., privately held parent of the 53-year-old publication, also said it had sold its New York Woman magazine to American Express Publishing Corp.

A new Stephen King thriller will be published in its entirety in the July issue of Esquire. "The Gingerbread Girl," a 21,000-word novella covering 23 pages, will arrive at newsstands today. "Over the last year, we've been trying to breathe life back into magazine fiction," Esquire Editor in Chief David Granger said Monday in a statement.

The Santa Ana provider of court-reporting services posted a third-quarter net loss of $2.4 million, or 44 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $2.1 million, or 41 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue was down 7% to $35.7 million.

Megan Fox is many things, most obvious among them beautiful. She's a new mother, she doesn't necessarily want to be famous anymore, and she believes in leprechauns . She's also familiar with speaking in tongues. Yes, speaking in tongues , something she's been doing since she was about 8 years old attending a Pentecostal church in Tennessee, she reveals in the February issue of Esquire . "I have seen magical, crazy things happen. I've seen people be healed," says the 26-year-old actress, mom to 3½-month-old Noah.

Since being claimed by co-owner/trainer Paul Jones on March 12, Eminent Esquire has been unbeatable. The Idaho-bred gelding has won three in succession for Jones and Oscar Ramirez since being taken for $3,200 and he'll try to win an allowance race tonight at Los Alamitos. The race, at 350 yards, goes as the eighth on the card and carries a purse of $12,550.

L. Rust Hills, the former longtime fiction editor at Esquire who was known for publishing the work of the best American writers during his 30 years at the magazine, has died. He was 83. Hills, a resident of Key West, Fla., died of cardiac arrest Tuesday after collapsing during a visit to Belfast, Maine, said his wife of 34 years, author Joy Williams.

Not since the '50s with the likes of Norman Mailer, James Jones, William Styron, John Updike and Philip Roth has a generation of first novelists garnered so much attention. Vanity Fair calls them "the young and the wasted." Newsweek refers to them as the "divine decadents." They're a new wave of writers soaring to stardom in the '80s at startlingly young ages with innovative writing styles and hip subject matter.

Esquire Communications Ltd., a Santa Ana court reporting service, said Thursday it has sold its professional staffing businesses to TMP Worldwide Inc. for $11 million. Esquire said in a news release that it turned over to its lenders all the proceeds from the sale of the assets of Esquire-Gregory Staffing Services and certain assets of Esquire Staffing Services.

Andre 3000 is the world's best-dressed man, according to Esquire magazine. "He's a complete individual," Nick Sullivan, Esquire's fashion director, said Tuesday. "But that's really the point." Andre 3000 is the usually-over-the-top-dressed half of hip-hop duo OutKast. Some of the 30-year-old's fashion outings include: a lime green jacket at the 2004 Grammy Awards, candy apple red fur for the VH1 Big in 2003 ceremony and a pink-on-pink ensemble for the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards.