NAMES & FACES

Paris for President?

In a two-minute video posted last night on the comedy site FunnyorDie.com, hotel heiress Paris Hilton announced her candidacy -- thanks to Sen. John McCain's ad comparing Sen. Barack Obama to her and Britney Spears. Though her parents have contributed to McCain's campaign, Hilton is no McCainiac. But she's not for Obama, either.

True to form, she's all about Paris. She wants pop star Rihanna as VP and might paint the White House pink.

"Hey, America, I'm Paris Hilton, and I'm a celebrity, too. Only I'm not from the olden days and I'm not promising change like that other guy. I'm just hot," she says, sitting on a lounge chair and wearing a skimpy one-piece leopard swimsuit. "But then that wrinkly white-haired guy used me in his campaign ad, which I guess means I'm running for president. So thanks for the endorsement, white-haired dude. And I want America to know that, I'm like, totally ready to lead."

She's even got a sober take on energy policy:

"Well, why don't we do a hybrid of both candidates' ideas? We can do limited offshore drilling -- with strict environmental oversight -- while creating tax incentives to get Detroit making hybrid and electric cars. That way, the offshore drilling carries us until the new technologies kick in, which will then create new jobs and energy independence. Energy crisis solved!"

This might just be Paris's best acting role yet.

First Lady Tyra?

The new must-print for fashion and celebrity magazines: anything about the Obamas. (Sen. Barack Obama and wife Michelle have mugged for recent issues of People and Us Weekly and for Essence magazine's September issue.) But Harper's Bazaar took a different tack for its September glossy, casting models as the Obamas in an Oval Office photo shoot, with talk show host and former supermodel Tyra Banks posed as Michelle Obama.

Michelle is "one hot mama," Banks, an Obama supporter, told the mag. "With Barack Obama, his becoming president is them becoming president because Michelle was there from the beginning. Without Michelle, he wouldn't be there." And on her preferred first-lady hairstyle: "My question isn't to flip or not to flip," Banks says. "Mine would be to weave or not to weave."

More Prying Eyes

Following news this spring that several UCLA Medical Center employees had peeked at confidential medical records of famous patients -- among them Britney Spears, Farrah Fawcett and California first lady Maria Shriver-- a report released Monday revealed that 59 additional employees at the hospital had been snooping through patients' records.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the California Department of Public Health report brings the number of workers implicated in the growing scandal to 127, and faults the hospital for not taking steps to maintain patient confidentiality.

The Times reported in March that UCLA had suspended six employees, planned to fire 13 others and disciplined six physicians for looking at the records of Spears, who was hospitalized in the UCLA psychiatric ward in January. And in April, former hospital administrative specialist Lawanda Jackson was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly selling information from Fawcett's records to the media, according to the Times.

Of the 59 employees now linked to the breaches, 24 still worked at the hospital when they were identified. The hospital has proposed firing seven and suspending or otherwise disciplining many others, while three remain under investigation.

End Quote

"I'm going to have three bullheads in there. I originally wanted six, but the guy who has to clean it once a week said that he's not going to get in the tank with six of them, he'll get in with three. Once they get big enough, I'll have to get rid of them. The guy who cleans the tank actually goes and catches the sharks himself, because you know, these sharks you can't just go buy, they're illegal."

-- From an Aug. 4 entry on Wizards superstar Gilbert Arenas 's blog, explaining what's going into the 10,000-gallon shark tank that he knocked out a wall for in his Great Falls basement. Arenas credits "Jaws" with his love of sharks, as well as "when I saw 'Cribs' and Ice T had a shark tank in the back of his place, I was like, 'Oh man! That's what it is!!' "

-- Marissa Newhall, from staff, wire and Web reports