● After nonstop tabloid coverage, Jon and Kate Plus Eight are back on the air from their self-imposed hiatus. [Us]
● Now that Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil are dunzo, let’s take a look at their recently released private wedding album. [MrPaparazzi]
● Rumors that Vanessa Hudgens has banned BF Zac Efron from seeing Megan Fox are false; Hudgens is just (understandably) terrified that Megan Fox is going to steal her man. [Showbizspy]

Once promising, Ugly Betty these days is anything but. Sometime this past year, the bubbly soap ran out of perk. It stalled on ideas and oddly enough, continued to refuse its anti-heroine the make-over the character probably would've given herself eventually. Y'know, since she works at Mode, a fictional equivalent of Vogue. Yes, we get it, exec producer Silvio Horta. Betty might, like a TLC song, be unpretty. But she has enough inner beauty to light up the darkest alleys of the Bronx. But we also know America Ferrera's beauty is nearly omnipresent, and three years at not-Vogue would've taught her character how to best use a flat-iron. And so now, because the monkeys behind the scenes failed some 100-level classes in plot construction, Betty's being shuttled off to Friday nights this fall, where it will suffer, Vanessa Williams-willing, a quick and painless cancellation. Seven reasons why Ugly Betty will be sputtering towards its end, after the jump.

Sure, you've already seen the interview and photo shoot with Ugly Betty star America Ferrera from BlackBook's August 2008 issue. But for dessert, check out a few extemporaneous shots taken during the session at New York's Socialista. You may experience a little blurring, plus a little too much special-effects smoke. Real Americans won't object, though.

On the subject of art, you’ve heard the skeptic standing in front of, say, an Alexander Liberman “Circle Painting,” ponder, “Well, I know what I like. But is it art?” Or is it just a circle that a Montessori geometry teacher may have rendered in oil on canvas with a protractor for a brush? When is a urinal a urinal, and not a Duchamp “readymade,” and so on?

Take that, fashion beeotches! We knew she had it in her. Those "Ugly Betty braces" and Coke-bottle glasses couldn’t obscure the glamour gal smoldering just below the surface. An icon of empowerment, on the show and off, America Ferrera is fully owning her golden moment. Be sure to check out our behind-the-scenes gallery from America's photo shoot.

It’s a gorgeous Sunday in downtown Manhattan, and Ugly Betty star America Ferrera, wearing Converse sneakers, jeans, a T-shirt and a blue sweater, blends into the crowd as she strolls up the Bowery on the Lower East Side. Just outside the Patricia Field boutique, a former restaurant supply store converted into a temple of candy-colored fashion raunch, Ferrera stops dead in her tracks as the flame-haired proprietor who styled the "Ugly Betty" pilot and created costumes for "Sex and the City," the series and the movie, strides toward the curvaceous young actress. Styled, meet unstyled. Stylist, meet star. Emmy winners, talk amongst yourselves. Ferrera lets out a yelp of recognition: “Is that you? Pat!”

As promised: Ugly Betty's America Ferrera gets glammed up for the August 2008 issue of BlackBook, on newsstands July 22. See the full interview and photos with America here!

July 4th wasn’t enough -- we just had to celebrate America one more time. Last night, Ugly Betty's America Ferrera was everywhere, as large placards featuring our August 2008 cover girl overlooked party-mongers at former Bungalow 8 doorman Armin Amiri’s West Village tropical hotzone Socialista. See our gallery of the full scenario. The affair was less a New York evening and more a Havana night (dirty dancing included), with surrounding island plants oxygenating the heated (and hot) crowd. But to Socialista’s credit, the spinning fans up top did wonders keeping body heat at bay. Our travel guides were being doled out like cigars in Cuba. The drink of choice was margaritas, the aptly named Juan Coronado was the man with the music, and we have no one but Partida tequila to blame for some people taking Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” a tad too seriously.

Our cover girl for the August issue of BlackBook is America Ferrera, and she's anything but ugly. The issue goes on sale July 22, and stay tuned here for more online exclusives.