Caster Semenya, the South African 800-meter runner who got hell for looking “manish,” will get to keep her gold medal. If you remember back to August, her gender came under extreme scrutiny after she won the World Championship race and she was forced to submit to gender testing—and the leaked results alleged that she is intersexed, possessing both male and female anatomy. Which sparked a media maelstrom, letting fly accusations of racism, bigotry, and fairness. But in a decision that does little to answer the questions or quell the ongoing debate, the International Association of Athletics Federation declared today that Semenya’s win stands. Meanwhile, they’re suspending South Africa’s Olympic Board for not disclosing their knowledge of her gender identity, and keeping Semenya’s test results under wraps. I really wish the whole issue had stayed that way—I mean, even athletes who’ve voluntarily changed sexes are allowed to compete. Semenya was born with that body and triumphed in last summer’s race, and she is now suffering for it. Which just doesn’t sit well with me. [AP, Vancouver Sun]

• University of New Mexico soccer player Elizabeth Lambert has broken her silence about her overly aggressive form of soccer against Brigham Young University in the Mountain West Conference. “I still deeply regret it and will always regret it and will carry it through the rest of my life not to retaliate,” she said. [NY Daily News]—Yeah, well, if she were so sorry she wouldn’t have done it in the first place. This reminds me of when Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield’s ear.
• The Shanghai Barbie store has six floors of fun to keep an adult Barbie lover busy for 12 hours. [CNNGo]—I can’t get to Shanghai, but I will be hitting up F.A.O. Schwartz’s Barbie store in NYC soon.
• Lily Allen managed to stop herself from falling flat on her face while performing in 5-inch platforms at the Apollo in Manchester last night. [The Daily Mail]—Girl, we’ve all been there. I’m glad to hear you recovered, though.

Last weekend, the once-anonymous writer behind the Secret Diary Of A Call Girl books revealed her real identity. Now everyone in the world knows 34-year-old neurotoxicologist Dr. Brooke Magnanti penned the insanely popular blog, Diary Of A London Call Girl, under the nom de plume “Belle du Jour.” (Which, of course, turned into a Showtime TV show starring Billie Piper.) As is to be expected, newspapers tracked down Magnanti’s dad, Paul, and he professed shock at the news that his daughter slept with people for cash while earning her Ph.D.

But then Brooke Magnanti’s dad dropped a somewhat awkward bomb in the middle of this call girl tale: He and his daughter have been estranged for years because she was upset that he’d slept with over 150 prostitutes, some of whom were drug addicted.

Another day, another beauty pageant sex scandal. And no, this post amazingly has nothing to do with Carrie Prejean, who evidently has eight sex tapes, or Kari Ann Peniche, of Eric Dane/Rebecca Gayheart fame. (Is it just a coincidence that they have the same name spelled differently?) This time around it’s Anya Ayoung-Chee, Miss Trinidad/Tobago 2008, who’s been caught on camera in four separate clips. Two of the vids show her getting down and dirty with her boyfriend, Wyatt Gallery. A third and fourth clip show her in a threesome with an unidentified woman. At first, people thought the third was Hiroko Mima, Miss Japan 2008, but Gallery spoke up to say that wasn’t her. The video was shot back in 2007—a big year for beauty queen sex tapes, evidently—and supposedly was swiped from Gallery’s computer when he brought it in to be repaired. “I feel horrible and embarrassed for Anya, her family and myself,” he’s said. When will the tiara set learn not to record their hanky-panky? [NY Daily News]

When Muammar Gaddafi went to speak at the U.N. General Assembly in September, he drew controversy—he was protested, shut out of local housing, and his nearly two-hour speech was disparaged in the news. But the Libyan leader may have found a new way to speak his message to the people.

While attending a U.N. global food summit in Rome, Gaddafi reportedly brought some 200 women to a local villa, where he lectured them for two hours about his country and women’s roles in the Islamic faith.

As he approaches his 16th minute of fame, Levi “The Impregnator” Johnston is getting more and more erratic. Sure, he has had some successes lately. His Playgirl shoot went well and apparently involved a sexy hockey stick in a tribute to hockey moms. Yes, he was just honored with a Fleshbot Award for best mainstream-to-porn crossover. But he’s already planning to star in a movie, which hasn’t been optioned yet, based on a memoir he hasn’t written yet, for which he doesn’t have a publisher. And his super bootleg manager/bodyguard Tank Jones isn’t doing him any favors, besides hooking him up with his brother who trained Johnston for his epic photo shoot. An item in Page Six today revealed that, after the Fleshbot Awards, Jones asked nightclub M2 to pay Levi $3,000 for a visit, and they politely declined. Jones then offered up the boy wonder for $1,800. The club guffawed and said they would give him “a table with a round of soft drinks.” [NY DailyNews, NY Post]

Oh, Carrie Prejean. Last night, she appeared on “Larry King Live” to talk about her book. After a warm-up question about whom she considers to be a hero (Sarah Palin, who is “doing great things”), things went way downhill. Larry King brought up the fact that Prejean settled with the Miss California USA organization, which she had been suing for religious discrimination, and asked her why she’d decided not to continue with the suit. Carrie refused to answer, saying that she couldn’t discuss the mediation. Now, don’t get me wrong: Larry King is far from my favorite interviewer, and I do sometimes think he bullies his guests. But this was a perfectly reasonable question—asking for her personal feelings about the case, not any legal details. But she kept refusing to answer, telling him he was “being inappropriate.” Uh, honey? You revealed this week that you made a sex tape. I actually think he took it easy on you by not bringing that up. But Carrie was pissed. When the first caller asked her about gay marriage, she took off her microphone and proceeded to sit there smirking in protest. What do you think—was she in the right or out of line? [Dlisted]

Remember Lisa Nowak, the astronaut turned would-be kidnapper? She stole a car to race to Florida, wearing a diaper so she wouldn’t have to stop since she was in such a hurry to put on a wig and mace her romantic rival, Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman. Well, Lisa just went to court. She originally faced felony charges, like attempted kidnapping, which could have gotten her life in prison, but the charges were reduced to misdemeanor battery and burglary of an automobile. And a judge also took it easy on her, only sentencing Lisa to a year of probation and requiring her to send an apology letter to Colleen, promising to stay far, far away. Colleen is now married to the man Lisa attacked her over, and since the happy couple lost their jobs in the fallout from the incident, they moved to Alaska to freelance. All’s well that ends well? [Newser]

Who among us hasn’t had some explaining to do after sending a sexy email to the wrong person? Most of the time your unlucky recipient laughs it off and everything’s cool. But that’s not what happened to John, Lisa and everyone at Cornell University who now (accidentally!) knows about their affair.

John is a married tech guy at Cornell. Lisa is his married mistress at the Cornell Business School. And at 2 p.m. on Friday afternoon, when John accidentally included another email address on a reply back to Lisa, everyone at Cornell received a sexy, sexy email exchange that the pair had been writing back-and-forth since 8:30 a.m. By 3 o’clock, the whole dirty email exchange was posted online and now the whole world knows what kind of panties Lisa wore on Friday ... and much more. I wish I could feel bad for these people, but haven’t they ever heard of iChat?

After the jump, the dirtiest, most cringe-worthy bits from John and Lisa’s email blunder:

Remember last week when we shared a deep thought from Levi Johnston‘s Twitter page, and Wednesday night when William Shatner did a dramatic reading of Levi’s tweets? Well, those words were not actually written by our favorite Alaskan hunk. That’s right, Levi has a Twitter imposter, just like Tina Fey and “Hour of Power” televangelist Robert H. Schuller. Levi’s lawyer is on the case—he’s demanding that Twitter take the page down and that Conan O’Brien, who introduced that William Shatner segment with the sentence “All real ... we did not make these up,” retract the segment. Sorry, I understand if you need a good cry now. [Huffington Post]

We have this really annoying habit as humans of thinking we’re invincible or that the one tragic thing that could happen in a situation won’t happen to us. Nowhere else is this more evident than with the drunk driver. Rarely does the driver set out to kill—he/she only wants to ride the high as they get from point A to B—but we know all too well that driving under the influence can kill.

And drunk drivers have been killing children recently in New York City. This month alone, three children have died as a result of riding in a vehicle driven by a woman allegedly under the influence.

Last week, the Huffington Post made our blood boil when they reported on a horrifying trend—that insurance companies are denying benefits for women who’ve been raped, and even dropping their coverage altogether. How can they get away with such a thing? Because, when a woman is raped and it’s unknown whether the assailant used a condom, doctors typically prescribe a month’s worth of an anti-HIV medication (which, uh, I didn’t even know existed) as a precaution. It’s extremely rare that a woman actually contracts HIV this way, but insurance companies view this as a morbid done deal. Susan Pisano, a spokeswoman for the health insurance industry’s largest trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, explains, “If you put down on a form that you are or were taking anti-HIV drugs at any time, [insurance companies] are going to understand that you are or were in treatment for HIV, period. That could be a factor in determining whether you get coverage.”

Last week, we told you the saga of ESPN baseball analyst and “Sunday Night Baseball” commentator Steve Phillips, who had a three-night stand with a production assistant and then ditched her, sending her into a tailspin of crazy, leaving notes for Phillips’ wife on his doorstep and befriending his teenage son via Facebook. Oh, but the plot thickens. Late last week, the NY Daily News discovered that Brooke Hundley, the girl in question, had actually filed a restraining order against Phillips, saying in the paperwork that that she was in “an immediate and present physical danger” and that Phillips said he “could easily get me fired” and would “ruin more than my reputation.” Yesterday, ESPN officially fired Phillips. They released a statement saying, “His ability to be an effective representative for ESPN has been significantly and irreparably damaged, and it became evident it was time to part ways.”

Some mean girls never grow up—they just get jobs in PR. Meet Ali Wise, age 32, a former party planner for Dolce & Gabbana who went bats**t with jealousy when her ex-boyfriend starting dating new women. She is facing charges from four women whose phones and voicemail she hacked into using a computer service called SpoofCard, all because they were dating her exes, Josh Deutsch, CEO of Downtown Records, and hotelier Jason Pomeranc. A friend of Wise told the NY Daily News she has used SpoofCard “forever to find out about her exes’ new girls. She hacks in to voicemails, MySpace and Facebook accounts, emails ... you name it.” Charges against this blonde bully include eavesdropping, computer trespassing, aggravated harassment and stalking. Ack! You sure don’t see this side of PR girls on The City ....

Oh, man. The drama of Steve Philips is kind of like David Letterman on crack, plus a stalker. Phillips, an ESPN baseball analyst and former general manager of the Mets, is a married man and father of four. Still, he schtupped a 22-year-old production assistant named Brooke Hundley at least three times over the summer. He apparently felt “meh” about her, but Hundley was under the impression they were meant to be together. And so she went CUH-RAZY with jealousy trying to expose the affair to Phillips’ wife.

How, how, have Jon and Kate Gosselin managed to milk a disintegrating marriage into months worth of drama that just won’t leave us alone? The latest in the debacle: TLC is suing Jon, saying that he’s used his concerns over his kidlets to wiggle out of his contract with the network. Their version of the story goes like this: They tried to contact Jon to let him know their intentions to change the show from “Jon and Kate Plus 8” to simply “Kate Plus 8,” but were unable to reach him before making the public announcement. The day the news broke, the production company received a call from Jon’s lawyer, giving them an hour to release him from his contractual agreement. When they refused, he went public saying that he thought filming the show through the divorce was detrimental to his kids’ health and filed paperwork barring filming from continuing. Basically, he gave them the ultimate middle finger.

Perhaps North Dakota woman Nicole Altendorf was trying to supplement the sex education unit at the local elementary school when she broadcast a porno out the window of her home for all the kiddies to see. As you can imagine, parents, teachers and authorities were less than orgasmic about Nicole’s feature presentation. When the police arrived at her sex den this past Friday, 37-year-old Nicole allegedly bit, spit and kicked an officer in his junk to avoid arrest. Nice judgment, Nicole! But wait! As surprising as it may be, there was also drug paraphernalia found at her house. She may be looking at felony charges of assault, contact by bodily fluids, preventing arrest, and misdemeanor charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and disorderly conduct. But I think the real tragedy here is that she won’t be to be invited to speak at Career Day this year. Now the kids will miss learning about a day in the life of a drug-addicted sex addict—a profession in high demand. [AOL]

This story makes me want to stand up and scream. And then sit down and scream a bit more. A justice of the peace in Louisiana named Keith Bardwell refused to issue a marriage license to Beth Humphrey, 30, and Terence McKay, 32, because they’re an interracial couple. Instead, he referred them to another justice of the peace, saying that, in his experience, interracial relationships don’t last. “I’m not a racist,” he told the local newspaper, explaining his actions. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.” Um, maybe we should sit him down for a chat with Barack Obama? Luckily, lots of people are raising a stink about this and asking that Bardwell resign from his post. Ugh. And this is, supposedly, our post-racial world? [CNN]

Really, people? Or maybe I should say really, People? Kidnapped for 18 years, Jaycee Lee Dugard and her two children finally escaped their lives as prisoners of Phillip Garrido this August, much to the joy of the Dugard family. But not two months have passed before Jaycee is on the cover of People magazine.

Anna Nicole Smith was a lot of things, but she wasn’t, as far as the FBI is concerned, a murderer. It was recently divulged that, beginning in 2000, the FBI started investigating Smith after they kept hearing word that she was trying to off her dead husband’s son, E. Pierce Marshall. The two were in a drawn-out legal battle over the dead dude’s estate, which was worth about $550 million in 1992. Smith’s hubby was 89 when they got married and she was 26. He died about a year after the wedding. Sketchy, yes, but in the end, the FBI decided there was “insufficient evidence” against Anna. But they did find out a few head-scratching things ...