Matt Drudge

Hackers on Wednesday vandalized the Web sites for the Nasdaq Stock Market and the American Stock Exchange, but there was no evidence they manipulated data. A group calling itself "United Loan Gunmen" infiltrated the computer running the sites just after midnight. The hackers left a message--the high-tech equivalent of graffiti--and also claimed to have briefly created an e-mail account on Nasdaq's computer, suggesting a broader breach in security.

Presidential advisor Sidney Blumenthal filed a $30-million defamation suit against America Online and cyber gossip columnist Matt Drudge, who alleged the Clinton aide had abused his wife. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleged that Drudge knew the claim was false or made no attempt to check its accuracy when he said in an Aug. 10 Drudge Report that Blumenthal "has a spousal abuse past that has been effectively covered up."

The Scene: The incandescent peak of what an Oscar party should be--Graydon Carter's Vanity Fair shindig at Mortons. It was packed, it took forever to get in, and it was worth the wait.

Senate candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton Sunday angrily denied having uttered an anti-Jewish slur 26 years ago, calling the allegation "politics of the worst kind." Clinton, who is running for the Senate representing New York against Republican Rep. Rick Lazio, was reported in a new book to have blamed Bill Clinton's 1974 congressional race loss on his campaign manager Paul Fray, supposedly calling him a "Jew bastard."

A New York judge Thursday ordered liberal talk-radio network Air America Radio back on in Chicago, but Los Angeles listeners to the 2-week-old service have an indefinite wait before it returns to the airwaves here. MultiCultural Radio Broadcasting Inc., which leases airtime to Air America on station WNTD-AM (950) in Chicago and KBLA-AM (1580) in Los Angeles, pulled the talk lineup featuring comedians Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo, rapper Chuck D and others off the air Wednesday.

Heather Ramsey, commercial artist and armchair occultist, was paging through a book of vintage games and puzzles when a picture of a child's toy changed her future. What she saw was a "guessing box," a turn-of-the-century gizmo that purports to tell the future. The premise is simple: Ask the box a question, then tilt it as a tiny silver ball rolls across the surface, coming to rest at the answer.

"We report, you decide." That's the slogan of Fox News. It's baloney, of course. Fox is probably the most biased of all mainstream news outlets. But Fox has been successful -- at least in part, I'm convinced -- because more and more people want biased news, no matter how much they protest to the contrary. Actually, let me rephrase that slightly.

Millions of "dittoheads" around the country will be in withdrawal this week, with their drug of choice -- conservative talk show king Rush Limbaugh -- gone from the airwaves for a 30-day stint in drug rehab. Limbaugh's announcement that he is seeking treatment for an addiction to pain medication followed claims by a former housekeeper that she spent years supplying him with black-market prescription narcotics. Lots of narcotics -- more than 30,000 hydrocodone, Lorcet and OxyContin tablets.

Newsweek's top editors, after a day of frenetic meetings, sought Wednesday to explain why they failed to publish the story that stunned the nation, an exclusive piece about allegations that President Clinton encouraged a 24-year-old former White House intern to lie about whether they had an affair.